“I hadn’t even driven a car when I began with the tractor”

In the coastal village of Singithurai in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi district, fishing and faith wait for none.

To enter the village, one crosses the church painted crisp in white and blue. Praying women with fluttering lips can be seen from outside. To the east of the church is an auction hall in asbestos awning, flanked by trucks from companies that export fish. At 10.30 am, vallams (small fishing boats) touch the shore one after the other.

As and when the catch arrives, auctions begin. Traders with their scales, and fishwives holding whetted machetes, await the sales. In this relay between ocean and land there is an important intermediary—men in tractors waiting to push the vallams back into the sea, and moor them ashore.

Ratish, 22, has been in this trade for eight years, ever since he accompanied his father, Saravanan. Initially, he used to tether vallams to the tractor with rope. While learning on the job, his father’s employer—the fisherman who owned the tractor—encouraged him to try driving it. “I hadn’t even driven a car when I began with the tractor,” says Rathish.

Rathish’s work starts at noon, when the fishermen set out to sea, and lasts until daybreak the following day. He pushes and moors vallams with little break, which earns him around ₹1,000 a day. “It’s backbreaking, so I don’t do it continuously. I take leave on days when the workload is less”, he says.

According to him, the fishermen who invest in tractors hire men on the basis of trust. Plus, there is a financial obligation that keeps men committed to their employers. Ratish says that many drivers take loans—one to two lakhs—from their employers.

Thorny shrubbery along the brim of the shore separates his home—and neighbourhood—from the sea. Though he and his family—and their 12 goats, four dogs, and five cats—-live right next to the sea, they don’t belong to the fishing community. They are Kothanars, traditionally known for masonry, and so Ratish also works as a welder. He enjoys welding more than driving—it allows him to be creative.