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Reflections on My Fieldwork in Kodiakkarai, Tamil Nadu

Arun Kumar. D

As part of the fieldwork segment of the IRMA curriculum, I was allotted the fishing village of Kodiakkarai, located on the eastern coast of Nagapattinam, in Tamil Nadu. I was greatly excited about visiting a fishing village for the first time. All my expectations about what a typical fishing village should be were fulfilled when I arrived in Kodiakkarai, but there were also many things that the place offered that I had never thought would be found in an Indian village.
To start with, the most fascinating part of Kodiakkarai for me was its beach. The beach here was different from all those I had seen in other places. The water was not blue but brown, and the sea was shallow. Nevertheless, it was a treat for my eyes. I spent all my evenings at the beach during my stay in Kodiakkarai.
The next best thing about Kodiakkarai was the food. Since I hail from Tamil Nadu, I simply love the food in that part of the world, and the food in the village was no different. I used to have idlis for breakfast, rice with poriyal, rasam, and thayir for lunch, and mydha paranthas for dinner. This delicious food made my stay in Kodiakkarai a wonderful experience.
The next best thing about Kodiakkarai was the villagers’ great love of conversation. I witnessed many such interactions at the local hotels, where the local people engaged in many long animated exchanges. I have seen such heated discussions in my home town, but in Kodiakkarai listening to such conversations was more enjoyable. People discussed every subject under the sun—cinema, politics, sports—with a kind of passion that was unique to that place alone.
The next best thing in Kodiakkarai is the wildlife sanctuary and the birds’ sanctuary. I knew that Kodiakkarai is a popular tourist spot because of its picturesque beach but it was only when I arrived there that I discovered that the village is also famous for its two sanctuaries. Kodiakkarai is the only village in Tamil Nadu that boasts a beach, a wildlife sanctuary, a birds’ sanctuary, and an MPCA (Medicinal Plants Conservatory Area). All this greatly adds to the attraction of the place, and I was happy to be there.
The next best thing about Kodiakkarai was the warmth, hospitality, and kindness with which the people treated us. They provided us with all the basic amenities and treated us not like guests but like kings.
The next best thing about Kodiakkarai were the young people. Most of them had graduated from high school with Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC). They did everything that one may expect young people to do and also did things that one would never have expected them to do. They played and watched cricket with great passion and discussed the game day in and day out, just as I used to do. This was one of the major reasons why I liked them. They also spent hours talking on their mobile phones, which was another reason why I liked them. I liked them also because they gave more importance to these things than to anything else in their life. And I liked them the most because they accepted me as one of them and never treated me like an alien or outsider.
Kodiakkarai gave me a lot of joy but I have to say that at the same time the place also gave me as much pain. This was something that I had not expected, and I was surprised by the intensity of my feelings. My distress was caused by the rampant and widespread caste differences in the village. Caste is omnipresent in Tamil Nadu, whether it’s a city or a town or a village. Nevertheless, most people live in harmony for most of the time.
Unfortunately, in Kodiakkarai, the people of the backward caste (BC) community did not like the people of the scheduled caste (SC) community, and vice versa. When speaking to the villagers, it soon became evident that the two communities were engaged in an endless blame game. People of the Soliya Vellala community, which constitutes the majority of the BC population, claimed that it was they who had brought the SC people into the village and stated that they had no reason to oppress them. The SC people in turn claimed that the BC people simply did not want them to come up in life and hence they were creating all kinds of constraints for them. Although no actual clashes between the two communities occurred during my stay in Kodiakkarai, I found that the caste feeling was so strong that even children played the blame game. This was something that made me hate the village as much as I loved it. Having said this, I sincerely pray that this caste segregation and enmity will be eradicated in the years to come. I hope this happens sooner rather than later.
The next thing that made me hate this village was the drinking habit of the fishermen. It is true that they work very hard but that cannot be the only reason why they drink. Interestingly, this was the reason the fishermen gave me when I asked them about their drinking habit. Not only do they suffer because of this drinking habit but so do their families, particularly their children. The men spend more than 50 per cent of their daily earnings on drink, leaving their families to face dire poverty. I hope sincerely that the fishermen will give up alcohol. Yes, sooner rather than later.
All the experiences, both good and bad, that I had in Kodiakkarai during the fifty days I spent there taught me something valuable. The first and the most important lesson is to treat one’s fellow human beings with respect and consideration. A person can seldom be happy without anything in life. Each one of us is happy because of something in life, and this holds true even in Kodiakkarai. The Soliya Vellala community, barring a few families, led a happy existence because they had everything in life, including money. On the other hand, the Dalit community, barring a few individuals, led a miserable life as they had nothing in their life other than poverty. A third lesson is the need for eliminating caste from Indian society, particularly in rural areas. It’s time we left behind the shackles of the past and moved rapidly ahead on the road towards development, progress, equality, and justice. We should strive for the development of the individual, followed by the development of the family, and then the development of society at large. I hope this happens sooner rather than later.
Thus, my experiences in Kodiakkarai were a mixture of good and bad things but certainly there were lessons to be learnt and understood from each one of them. In that sense, my village experience was a beautiful one.

Arun Kumar D can bereached at
p28058@irma.ac.in