Tours · Varkala, Kerala

A Fishing Village on the Varkala Coast

Painted boats drawn up on the sand, tiled-roof houses and kites wheeling overhead in a fishing settlement on the Varkala coast, and how fishing works on this shore.

On a December evening the beach in this panorama belongs to the fishers. Rows of painted boats, some wooden and some fibreglass, are drawn up on the sand above the tideline. Nets and tarpaulins are spread or bundled beside them, and behind the boats stand small houses with tiled roofs and blue doors among the coconut palms. Overhead, dozens of kites circle. The village is not named here, but the scene is typical of the fishing settlements strung along the coast around Varkala.

Who fishes the Thiruvananthapuram coast?

Varkala is at the northern end of Thiruvananthapuram district, which has more fishing villages than any other part of Kerala. The Marine Fisheries Census of 2010 counted 42 of the state’s 222 marine fishing villages and 51 of its 187 fish landing centres in the district, with 33,340 fisher households, about a quarter of Kerala’s fisher population. Around 98% of Kerala’s fishers are classed as traditional, working from small craft close to the shore.

Fishing is a family economy. Beyond the people who go to sea, more than 50,000 people across Kerala work in fishing-allied jobs, and Thiruvananthapuram district accounts for 58% of those in fish marketing, including many women fish vendors. Small-scale artisanal fishing was widespread on this coast until the late 1980s, before mechanised boats and new methods pushed it aside; Thiruvananthapuram is probably the only part of Kerala where it is still practised. Fishers here still navigate by the sky and the stars and sing as they work.

From log rafts to fibreglass

The traditional craft on this coast is the kattamaram, a raft of logs lashed together. Kerala’s fleet changed fast in the late 20th century. Cotton nets gave way to nylon in the early 1960s, and in the early 1980s outboard motors spread rapidly through the traditional fleet, letting fishers reach deeper water. Between 1991 and 1998 the number of kattamarams in Thiruvananthapuram district fell from 12,638 to 7,112, while motorised craft rose from 1,654 to 2,906. Plywood boats and fibreglass hulls joined the fleet, and fibreglass versions of the old craft are part of it today. Kerala also requires fishing boats to carry approved colour codes.

Kambavala, the net hauled from the beach

The most communal way of fishing here is the shore seine, called kambavala (from kamba, canoe, and vala, net) or karamadi in some parts of Kerala. It works like this:

• the long rectangular net, with floats along the top and sinkers along the bottom, is loaded onto a boat;
• one rope is handed to a team on the beach, and the boat lays the net in a semicircle, usually between half a kilometre and three kilometres out;
• back on shore, the second rope goes to another team, and the two teams of 20 to 40 people each haul the net in by hand;
• the boat crew splash with paddles or coconut leaves to drive fish into the net, and one or two swimmers close its end.

A haul usually takes place in the morning and lasts two to four hours. December to April is the best season, and the catch is mainly sardine, mackerel, anchovy, needlefish, carangids and pomfret. The method uses little fuel, but it needs at least 30 people and earns each of them little, and Kerala’s fisheries statistics counted only about 53 units in 2015. Other boats on this coast use gill nets, hook and line, and long lines, and at the foot of the Varkala cliffs fishers prise mussels off the rocks by hand.

The monsoon ban

Every year Kerala stops trawling for 52 days during the monsoon, normally from midnight on 9 June to midnight on 31 July, to protect fish while they breed. The ban applies to mechanised trawlers. Traditional fishers in small boats may keep working. During the ban the state supplies free rations to trawler workers, and fuel outlets at harbours close.

Kites over the boats

The birds wheeling above the beach in the panorama are kites, drawn by fish scraps. The easiest to recognise is the brahminy kite, Haliastur indus: chestnut-brown with a white head and breast and black wingtips, about 45 to 51 cm long with a wingspan of up to 124 cm. It is mainly a scavenger of dead fish and crabs, and in India it will also take food left as offerings. In Hindu tradition it is regarded as a living form of Garuda, the bird that carries Vishnu.

Visiting a fishing beach

Fishing villages are homes and workplaces. The fishers near Varkala’s cliffs say their catches have fallen, fuel costs have risen and erosion threatens their houses, and some worry that tourism and heritage plans will push them off the shore. Walk around boats and nets rather than over them, keep out of the way of a hauling team, and ask before photographing people or houses.