By Sumer Rao.
A fermented seafood delicacy keeps the Karen people of India connected to their homeland in Myanmar.
Our dungi, a six-meter-long dugout canoe, chugs mechanically along the western coastline of India’s North Andaman island. Saw Atto, a veteran shrimp fisher and the captain for this voyage, turns the wooden tiller and we veer inland toward a large cove fringed with mangroves. “This is Hara Tikri,” he calls from the helm. Green Hill. “There will be bhusi jhinga here.”
He eases the dungi to a halt 20 meters from the low-tide mark and inspects the water’s depth with a halis, an oar, to ensure it’s shallow enough for him to stand. Then he jumps in, net in hand. His fishing gear consists of a fine blue mesh tied to two bamboo rods, which, when crossed, form a triangular opening—the mouth of the net. He splashes around for a bit in the waist-deep water, churning the surface as much as his thin frame allows before turning toward us—his wife, Naw Taka, and myself—grinning. “Do you see them?” he asks. I look closer. Thousands of shrimp, the length of a fingernail, dart around him, moving so quickly that their translucent bodies are a blur to the naked eye.
Acetes shrimp, known locally as bhusi jhinga, aggregate in nearshore waters along India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands from early September to the end of December each year. Atto and Taka are one of over 40 families from the Karen ethnic minority group that spend the four-month period living at temporary camps to harvest shrimp and prepare ngapi, a popular condiment in their native Burmese cuisine.
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