Mothers of Vypin Between Sea and Backwater

Life of women in Vypinkara with water rushing into their homes

Sunitha, her husband Ramesh, their three children and their elderly mother, a family of six, live in a makeshift shed. Nearby you can see a concrete house sunken into the ground. The house was the result of decades of hard work of Ramesh and Sunita, a fishing family. Apart from the loan of five lakh rupees taken from the Cooperative Bank, they started moving to their new house in 2015 with high hopes, with the addition of Ramesh’s savings, shrimp killi and employment guarantee work and Sunita’s savings. Just a short year later, in 2021, their home began to sink into the ground as the coastal village of Elangunnapuzha in Ernakulam Vypin began to submerge due to persistent high tides. Fearing for their lives, the family is living in a shed nearby. The situation is currently the same for many families living in different blocks on Waipin Island. It can be said that the life of Vypin people is literally in water even in summer when the entire Kerala is experiencing drought, water shortage and scorching heat. There is no answer to the question of the people of Vypin, ‘How can we sleep, how can we cook food and defecate in these houses that are full of water?’

‘There are only two beds and three chairs inside this shed. If you want to stay on the water, you must be on one of these. My elderly mother, my husband and three children are here. If the husband goes to work during the day, he comes only at night. But we have to stay here day and night. There is nowhere else to go. The three children, me and my mother have to spend the whole day on this bed and chair… In the kitchen we take sandbags and stones and cook food on them. One has to go to distant places to defecate. While the children of all countries are growing up playing through houses, fields, neighboring houses and roads, our children are staying in a bed day and night. They live in the sewage and put up with the stench. This is seriously affecting the health and mental development of our children’, Sunitha explained her and her family’s plight.

Waipin Island between the sea and the backwater

Vypin is a long narrow island lying between the Cochin Bay and the Arabian Sea. The island is 27 km long parallel to the sea and has an average width of only 2 km. It is believed that this land was formed by the fall of sand and silt in the sea during the great flood in Periyar centuries ago. It is an area with many bays connecting the sea and the backwaters. Although Vypin Island has an area of ​​89 sq km, one-third of it is wetlands. The people live only in the remaining fixed area. More than 200,000 people live in the panchayats of Elangunnapuzha, Njarakkal, Nairambalam, Edavanakkad, Kuzhupilli and Pallipuram under Vypin block. This densely populated area is one of the most densely populated islands in Asia.

Sinking shore

For the mainstream society in Kerala, the word flood means a calamity that hit us in 2018 and 2019, but for the people of Vypinkara, flood is a part of their lives forever. Today’s Vipin is flooded even in the hottest summer. In the past, water rose in Vypin only during the Scorpion Veli in the months of November and December. They used to be equipped and prepared to deal with the tide that occurs only once a year. But that is not the case today. By the time the tidal inundation is over, the rainy season begins. With that, sea water from the west and water from lakes and rivers from other parts will come up through the left side. The inhabitants of Vypin spend almost three-quarters of the year in the water.

This is not the case only in Vipin. From the northernmost coastal area of ​​Ernakulam district, from Puthanvelikara to the southernmost Kumbalangi, continuous flooding has become a regular sight in twenty Kayalora coastal panchayats in the blocks of Paravur, Vypin, Edappally, Parakkadav, Alangode and Pallurutti and in a few areas under the Kochi Corporation and Maradu and Paravur municipalities.

Mothers have to suffer

The mothers of Vypin are a direct testimony to how a problem affecting a region as a whole can uniquely affect the lives of women in that region. We can clearly see that when the whole of a family’s affairs are submerged, the distress experienced by the men and women of those families is not the same. Pregnant women are unable to live in that area and stay rented in many other places and return home after giving birth.

Geetha of Elangunnapuzha Chapakkadav ST Colony has two daughters. Husband Anil is a fisherman. If you go to the sea in the morning, you will return home only in the evening… the time you don’t go to the sea will be spent at the intersections or at the harbor. Food is mostly from hotels. Anil often sleeps in a shed built to repair nets on the seashore. It means Anil has ways ahead of him to survive without going to a house submerged in water. But that is not the case with Geeta. Geetha can survive only by going under water. Drinking water should be brought home from a distant public tap in a jug. Cooking food should be done from the height of the wooden planks. Children should be sent to school by swimming in the water. Geetha is passing through each day overcoming indescribable hardships.

‘Our two babies are growing up in mud and water. They are always sick. Can’t sleep due to mosquito nuisance. My toes are cracked and rotten. “We are tired of coming and going to the camp and no one has been able to find a solution for so long,” says Geeta.

Janamma, a native of Kukhupilly, is in the midst of suffering from the diseases of old age. They live with their son’s family. ‘Tolerating all this for so long. I am now 66 years old and I am afraid that I will become a liability to my children who are living with so many difficulties. It would have been enough if he had died,” Janamma said painfully.

Vipins often step out of bed after a nap and into the water. There have been many incidents of elderly people slipping in water and breaking their bones. Some nights when the water comes up suddenly, all the people call the ward member. TV Nisari, member of the ninth ward of Kuzhuppilly panchayat, says that he will be in trouble as he does not know what to answer to them. Ward member Nisari says that women in every house have to feel the severity of all these problems. As women directly do all the things like preparing food, washing clothes, taking care of children, they have to bear all the sufferings together. Many families have started fleeing to other places to escape this situation. But there is no escape for the lowest-income families who have no savings. Some houses are dilapidated and uninhabitable. All the houses that are for sale are lying orphaned without a buyer.

The losses are huge

Almost all the houses in the flood-affected area have cracked walls or some parts have fallen off. Some of the houses are sitting in such a way that the floor is lower than the yard.

Due to the stagnant salt water, all the equipment including fans and iron bars are getting rusted. In many homes, even the fridge sits above the bed. Some people cook from the stones placed in the kitchen. Houses built by people who have worked for the lion’s share of a human life by borrowing all their savings are getting soaked and decaying.

The mothers of Vypin all say that the authorities who give them some rice, lentils and peas when the water rises should at least realize the depth of this misery…

– Article written for ‘Mina Swaminathan Media Fellowship’ presented by MS Swaminathan Research Foundation to study on ‘Gender Issues in Water Scarcity in India’.

This article was first published in Reporter on 21 March, 2024