After graduating in Computer Application last year from Polytechnic College, Kathish had a hard time finding a job in Vembar, a village in Tamil Nadu. He dreams of landing a job in a “big building” in Chennai, which is more than 600 kilometers away.

Up on reaching the shore, he jumps off the boat and ties it to another boat. He wears sweatpants and a blue jersey t-shirt with his name printed at the back.

“Do you play anything?”

“Yes, I was in the Kabaddi team in college. We used to win a lot of competitions.”

He is 20 years old and moves around fast, as do all the men working on his boat. It isn’t his boat per se, but he’s one of the five fishermen making a living off the boat. The sea earns them Rs 40,000 a month, which later gets divided among the five men.

“My father is the skipper of a much bigger boat in Tuticorin. I don’t see him much, just sometimes on Sundays for the morning mass,” he laments. His family lives in the village next to Vembar but he misses not being there with them more often.

On a lucky day, these men catch 500 kilogram worth of fish. The fishing business is a small scale industry. Eventually it’s the bigger companies that buy them off in the market at auctions and make more money.