Caught Up in Kerala's Net

Last weekend I finally got to Kerala.
On the first plane ride over last September I sat next to a woman who was from the Southwest of India and talked about the beauties of her home. Since I have been here everyone has raved about the beauty of Kerala.

Like much of India, there is a rich legacy from international trading. One such expression are the 'Chinese Fishing Nets' near the Fort in Kochin. The engineering is ostensibly brought from China and they are simply giant seives counterweighted on a tripod.

The area where they are located is a narrow passage between a couple of the islands that make up Cochin. There's a lot of boat traffic and foot traffic and lots of tourist hotels nearby. It doesn't have the feel of a commercial fishing area, despite the large number of fish mongers along the street.

Sure enough, the guys are not catching a lot of fish, though they catch a lot of tourists. They smiled and waved and we picked our way down. They suggested we hang around a few minutes and watch them raise the net. All the while they're chatting and asking where we were from and was it my first trip to Kerala and did I like it and all the rest. They set their lines with practiced and professional skill.

At the right time, of course, they asked if I wanted to help raise the net. I would be the paler guy grabbing the rope. The catch, no surprise, was a little disappointing: one fish in the net, much too small to keep. No mater they had hooked their big fish.
We laughed about the laws of chance and bemoaned the difficulty of caring for our loved ones. I dribbled some gold into their hands. When Sunil later proclaimed about the amount, I pointed out to him that he was now free to return anytime and all of his guests would be well cared for.

There was a cat in the fish market. It made me wonder if he was the luckiest guy in the world, surrounded by such delicacies, or the saddest, having to wait for scraps when surrounded by such wealth.