Fisherwomen from adventurers to entrepreneurs

HYDERABAD: Janat Moosani is among a large number of fisherwomen, who love adventure and travel to different islands off the coast of Karachi twice a month, where they stay for many days to help their men during normal tides.

Fishermen believe that regular tides always bring prosperity for them in terms of fish catch. Elderly fishermen link the tidal phenomenon to the moon, which creates high tides in the seawater twice a month, benefitting fishermen.

The prosperous islands known among the community include Khudi, Khahi, Paityani and Dubbo, where fishermen take their families together for a few days to help in cooking and sorting out catch.

Janat originally belongs to coastal village Rehri Mayan, Bin Qasim Town, Karachi. She said, “We utilise our time purposefully. Besides cooking and helping our men, we also boil shrimps and dry them safely. At the end of the tides we always bring the product back to sell to traders at the village.”

During these kinds of trips, the families, including children stay at the makeshift abodes on the islands for around a week, depending on the condition.

While other families stay there for many months, away from their native villages, despite the fear of rise and fall in the seawater. Some men take their catch to the market through boats, while others stay back with families to take care of them.

Another fisherwoman Hajiani Waryani shares a similar story, saying that their men take fresh and healthy shrimps for the market, while some amount of waste shrimps are handed over to the women, who boil and dry those out for selling.

She said while staying at the islands, they preferred different recipes of seafood (mainly based on fish and prawns), which were easily and available in large quantities.

Hajiani said that traders waited for them at the jetties to buy the preserved prawns from the women. “The preserved prawns are packaged in small plastic bags for display at the shops in local markets,” she told.

Though the women do not charge a lot for their product, on each trip to the jetties, they earn around Rs4,000-Rs5,000 per trip. Vendors sell the packets at Rs400-Rs500/kg at the shops.

Rehri village with more than 35,000 inhabitants was considered a major market of dried prawns, from where the community women and men buy for their own consumption. Some of the customers travel from different areas for buying this delicious food product.

In fact, the lockdown following coronavirus has also impacted these women entrepreneurs, because of ban on fishing boats. However, fishermen families residing at islands have continued fishing on a small scale to sell their catch in coastal villages.

These women have collected stocks of dried shrimps, which they sell to traders to earn a little extra to ease their families’ hardships.

Another old tradition in the community is the running of home-based hotels by elderly women, who sell hot meals with curries and tea to customers, most of whom are associated with the fishing boats or

local trade. Their recipes are traditional, such as dry prawns with vegetables, other local curries, and the most famous prawn biryani.

With the lockdown in place, the elderly women have been following the given standard operating procedures. On a usual day, boat crews and other workers pour into these hotels from 11am-3pm for buying meals or tea.

Many people love to consume dried raw prawns as snacks while sitting together, watching television or chatting with each other at homes and workplaces.

Akhtar Shaikh, a community activist of the area said some traders also travel through fishing boats to collect dried shrimps from islands if they have some demands from clients. Otherwise, they buy the stock at shops to meet the demand of their customers.

These traders stay one or two nights on the islands, and turn back on the same boats loaded with catch. For this, they do not pay any boat fare for both the ways, as mostly these people are close relatives and love to help each other.

Fishing boats leaving for the open waters also use these islands for stopovers at night. They leave their nets overnight and move to the water back early in the morning to pull nets and sort out the fish catch.

With fishing boats come from different directions to these island villages after sunset, they form a hustling bustling boat-village, surrounded by lights and noise, singing and dancing. The ambiance of the island turns festive.

The fishing boats that stay the night on islands also sort out their catch on the island. They keep the high-quality catch for sale, while handing over the low or poor quality to women, who boil and dry the products for domestic consumption and sale. The women follow hygiene protocols for preserving the products.

Haji Samoo, a local trader said some fishermen from coastal villages in Thatta and Sujawal districts also bring dried prawns for sale because Rehri was famous for this business.

Preserving prawns on islands is an inspiring source of income for fisherwomen. For this, they give credit to their mothers and grandmothers, who taught this skill. They were proud of continuing this tradition alive.

They feel empowered; especially since their income helps ease their families’ burdens. Some fisherwomen also operate boats to go to their destinations, but they do not take the boat out to the open seas.