Here is a picture of some people fishing at the Mappila Bay in Kannur. There were a ton of lone fishermen there, standing precariously on the giant rocks, teeming with red colored crabs.

One of them spoke in Hindi, directing some others on what to do. Maybe he had a small business setup going on over there on the rocky pier, and he was giving instructions to his staff. Maybe the staff had to meet a quota.

All of the men (there were no women there holding a line) were going through the same set of motions. 1) Grab a piece of fish tail/fish head/shrimp from the plastic bag sitting at their feet on the rocks, 2) hook the fishy bait at one end of the blue plastic fishing line, which emerged from a spool which was about 5 inches in diameter 3) hurl the bait end of the line into the bay as far as they can 4) slowly reel the line back in after five minutes – with or without fish 5) repeat steps 3 through 5.

I asked someone how long it generally takes to get a bite. He said with a smile that it depends on how long it takes for the fish to bite. I asked him how long he’d been waiting. He said half hour.

Meanwhile, one of the other guys caught a fish. He was older. He said the name of the fish was “Champeri”. Am I remembering the name wrong and getting it mixed up with the town I passed through on the way to Palakkayam Thattu? I could be. But for now, let’s call it Champeri.

Champeri rested flat at the bottom of a white cloth bag. Champeri looked about a foot long. He said he could sell Champeri for Rs 600 and that it’s fresh catch.

I left being thankful he used a cloth bag, but couldn’t help wonder if the cloth bag was reusable and how long it would take to wash the smell of dead fish off the white cotton threads.