THE SALT OF THE EARTH

Moves are afoot to convert the brackish Pulicat lake into a freshwater one to supply water to Madras city and authorities seem to have little regard for its consequences on the environment

- RUSTOM VANIA

EVERY DAY at 5 am, Sridevi picks up all the pots in her house in the Mandaveli slums of Madras city (now Chennai) and places them at the end of the street, as she has been doing for the past 12 years. She must ensure that her pots are among the first in the long queue that forms as the morning goes by so that she can avoid the pushing and shoving that occurs when the water tanker arrives to distribute drinking water.

At about the same time, 55 kilometers north of Sridevi’s home at Pulicat town on the edge of India’s second-largest brackish water lagoon, Manoharan sets out on his thoni, a flat-bottomed boat, to catch fish and crabs, a vocation that has sustained generations of fisherfolk like him.