To be with Binoculars in Honnavar!

My binoculars brought Honnavar closer to me, very close.

Sharavati River and Kandla Forest: While going on the boat, through the binoculars I saw the living world inside the Kandla forest. Birds sitting on the trees, boats moving in the water, and a big steamer coming from far away.

The Magic of the Sea: When I looked from Eco Beach, the best moment of my life was seeing a dolphin jump out of the water in the distance! The fishermen, their nets, the waves of the sea - everything felt like it was right in front of my eyes.

Hills and Hillocks: When I looked through the binoculars from the hilltop of Apsarakonda, the whole of Honnavar looked like a painting. The place where the Sharavati river meets the sea, the green Kandla forest.

The Night Sky: At night, sitting at Tonka Beach, I saw the moon and stars through the binoculars. I could even see the craters on the moon! I had not expected this.

My Favorite: When my friends were playing at our Tonka Beach, I watched them from a distance through the binoculars. They waved at me, and I saw them from here itself - even though we were far, it felt like we were close.

Honnavar cannot be captured on a phone, it has to be experienced through binoculars. All these moments will remain in my memory for a lifetime.

Apeksha R. Tandel 

That's My Coast through Binoculars Honnavar!

 

My home is near the coast of Honnavar. Every morning before the sunrise the coast wakes up. You can hear it - the waves talking, the boats starting, the birds calling. The fishermen don't need an alarm. The sea calls them.

I have a small spot near Kasarkod beach where I sit daily. I take my 10x42 binocular with me. Not to see far but to feel close.

Yesterday I saw an old man teaching his grandson how to throw a net. With my binocular, I could see his hands - wrinkled, strong, full of stories. He threw the net and it opened like a flower on the water.

On the other side at Honnavar Sante (festival), women sell the morning catch. Their voices are louder than the waves. If you look through a binocular from far you can see the silver shine of the fish before you even reach the market.

In the evening, the coast changes color. The Sharavati river becomes orange, the Arabian sea turns gold. Couples walk, kids play in sand, and crabs run to hide.

The coast is not just beach and water. It's people, work, family, and memories.

My great-grandmother lived here all her life. She used to say, "Look at the sea daily, it will teach you patience." Most likely, she would have been very happy if she had a binocular to see the returning boats clearly from her veranda.

That's my coast. Honnavar. Simple, salty, and full of life. It simply doesn't sleep.

Apeksha R. Tandel

Beach life in-between land and courage

For a city person, beach is a photo for Instagram.

For a coastal person, beach is life, food, and God.

This is not just about Honnavar. This is about Karwar, Kumta, Bhatkal, Mangalore, Udupi, Malpe, Goa, Kerala, and every coast where the Arabian Sea touches India.

5 AM - When the Beach Wakes Up Before You

From Kasarkod to Kanyakumari, the story is same.

The first footprint on the sand is not yours. It's a fisherman's. In Honnavar it's a Kharvi. In Malpe it's a Mogaveera. In Kerala it's a Dheevara. Different names, same bare feet.

He has already pulled his boat ashore before your alarm rings. His wife has already taken the fish to the market in a basket on her head. The sea has already given and taken.

You come to beach with slippers and sunglasses. He comes barefoot, because beach is his temple.

What is a Beach Actually?

Beach is not sand and water. Beach is a border. Where land ends and courage begins.

- For a fisherman: Beach is his office, his highway, his parking lot.

- For a child in any coastal village: Beach is a playground no money can build.

- For an old mother waiting at home: Beach is tension. Will her son return?

- For you and me: Beach is where our stress ends. You shout, no one judges. You sit silent, no one disturbs.

Every beach is different but the pain is same

Kasarkod has silence. Malpe has lights. Goa has music. Marina has crowd. Kovalam has tourists.

But every beach is crying for the same reason - PLASTIC.

Karwar fisherman says same as Honnavar fisherman - Bale alli meenigu kinta plastic jasti.

Mangalore fisherman says - Net alli plastic.

Goa fisherman says - Same, plastic is more than fish.

One beach is dirty, whole Arabian Sea becomes dirty because sea has no compound wall. Plastic thrown in Mumbai reaches Honnavar. Plastic thrown in Honnavar reaches Kerala.

The beach is tired all over India

One chocolate wrapper you throw in Bhatkal - it takes 5 years to go and kills a turtle in Kasarkod.

One beer bottle you break in Udupi - a fisherman's son in Kumta bleeds while walking barefoot.

One plastic cover you leave in Goa - a dolphin in Karwar thinks it's jellyfish and dies.

We come to beach to clean our mind, but we leave the beach dirty. From Gujarat to Kerala, same mistake.

A Small Request - For ALL Coastal Beaches

Next time you go to ANY beach - whether it's Honnavar Eco Beach or Om Beach or Malpe or Kovalam:

1. Sit for 10 minutes without phone. Just listen to waves. The waves are same everywhere.

2. Take 3 pieces of plastic back that are not yours. If 1000 people do it, beach will be clean in one day.

3. Don't write your name on sand. Sea will erase it anyway. Keep the beach clean - people will remember you.

Last Line:

From Honnavar to whole India - Beach doesn't need us. We need beach.

Beach was here before you were born. It will be here after you are gone.

If we don't protect it today, our children will only see beach in photos.

Nanna Plastic, Nanna Javabdari - My Plastic, My Responsibility.

Apeksha R. Tandel

Fisher - the soul of Honnavar

 

Don't call him poor. He is the richest in courage. The strongest man is fisherman.

At Tonka, Honnavar — while you are warm in your bed at 4 AM, a fisherman is already fighting death.

His boat is old. His net is torn. His life has no guarantee. If the engine fails in the middle of the sea, no one will come. If a big wave comes, no one will hear his scream.

Still, he smiles and says — "Samudra namma devru."

He knows the sea can take everything — his boat, his catch, even his life. Still, he goes every day because his children should not sleep hungry.

City people need AC to work. He works in 42-degree scorching sun. City people need a weekend off. He has not had a holiday in 20 years.

He does not beg from the government. He does not ask for sympathy. He only asks for RESPECT.

When you bargain for 10 rupees less for fish, remember fish cost him his sweat, his blood, and a night without sleep.

A fisherman is not just a fisherman. He is a warrior. He is the protector of our coast. He is the soul of Honnavar.

Apeksha R. Tandel

Who is contributing to make Candolim beach dangerous?

 

People stayed in Goa's coast for several generations. They earned livelihoods from the beach and sea continuosly. They never threatened the beaches untill tourism phase began. It started with chopping down of beaches for five star hotels. After few decades degradation of values spread out. Mass constructions on the beaches to set up hotels lower than hotels took toll of beaches. Concretization of coast intensified. Sand dunes turned page in dustbin of history.

In late 1990s when beach Shacks owners were fighting for the space on the beach to earn their livelihood they got public support. Even I was involved in supporting them in 1995 along with my then colleagues at JGF. We had promoted and facilitated the process of organised Shack owners into All Goa Shack Owners Association.

However we had no foresight that the beach shack owners will turn against the very beach which sustained the coastal people for centuries. We had no idea that one day their action will compete with luxury tourism to destroy Goa's coast. We had no foresight that one day they will dig out the very beach that brought tourists to their shacks. We had no understanding in 1995 that one day these beach shacks would form chain of serial ecological crimes digging the beaches and moving the sand bag by bag thereby intensifying blue crimes on white sand of Goa beaches.

There is no process of self-reflection and introspection amongst shack owners nor there is respect and sensitivity for nature. If there was then they would not create this disgusting state for our beaches. The act of shifting sand on the beaches to erect elevated space to construct beach shack is an arrogant act to Goa's coast. This is visible at several beaches in South as well as North Goa. Benaulim and Candolim are two of the best examples of the work human conduct towards the beaches.

Last year there were complaints against mechanical movement of Sand using excavators. It was stopped. This year in 2026 same damage is inflicted through manual shifting of sand; bag by bag.

Where will this take Goa in terms of its coastal ecological security? Every bag of sand moved away increases vulnerabilities of the coast. 

The crowding of beaches with beach shacks has created increasing difficultly for fishers to continue fishing. There are fish landing and canoe exit issues that has come to the surface as the shack owners object to fishing canoe presence of the beaches. Shack owners or the shack illegal rentees put on beds of the beaches to attract tourists. This creates additional hurdles for fishing on beaches like Harmal in North Goa.

The point here is when will these shack owners take responsibility for the beaches that supports their trade? Or will they continue in their current irresponsible behaviour in shifting sand?

Sebastian Rodrigues 

The Life of a Fisherman: Strength in the Waves

A fisherman's life begins before the sun rises. While the world sleeps, he is already at the shore, checking his nets, his boat, and the direction of the wind.

His life is not just a job, it is a fight with nature every day. The sea gives food, but it also tests his courage. One day the catch is full, the next day the nets come back empty. Yet he never stops going.

He learns everything from experience, not from books. He reads the clouds, the color of the water, the movement of birds. His knowledge is passed from father to son.

The biggest pain in a fisherman's life is uncertainty. No fixed income, no fixed rest. When the sea is rough or the government bans fishing, the whole family struggles 

Yet the biggest strength is unity. When fishermen stand together as a team, like superheroes of the coast, no wave can break them. Their unity protects their rights, their families, and their future.

A fisherman may be poor in money, but he is rich in heart, courage, and tradition. His story deserves respect, support, and to be heard.

Apeksha R. Tandel

Fish of the Sea and Salt of the Earth: Struggle of Honnavar dry fishers

At the mouth of the Sharavathi river where the river meets the Arabian Sea at Kasarkod Tonka, lies one of Karnataka's most important traditional fishing commons. The beach here is not just a beach. For generations, it has been a fish drying yard, a market, and a home.

A Women-Centric Livelihood

Tonka is an intergenerational fishing community. While men go to sea, fish drying, trading and selling is almost entirely run by women.

According to studies, there are about 150 active dried fish processors at Kasarkod village, down from about 500 a decade ago, while local estimates put the number of women engaged in traditional dry fish processing at around 2000. They belong to Hindu Kharvi and Gabit communities, and also Christian and Muslim families. 

They dry 11-13 varieties of fish - mainly anchovies, mackerel, sardines, ribbon fish - on the open sunny beach with clean sea air. The method is simple and ancient: gut, wash with water from the jetty, salt, and sun-dry for 2-3 days on coir mats and nets. The product is then sold directly to consumers, to hinterlands traders, and now even to buyers as far as Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh. 

Medha Patkar of NAPM was heard on social media after her maiden some months ago during her visit to Tonka, Kasarkod "Dried fish from Honnavar are sold across Asia. This too is development, while maintaining dignified women-centric livelihoods."

The Commons Under Threat

Since 2016-17, this commons has been under severe threat from the proposed Honnavar Port Private Limited which is Rs 600 crore private port for coal, iron ore and general cargo planned on 44 hectares across five villages - Tonka 1, Tonka 2, Pavinkurva, Mallukurva and Honnavar Rural. 

The fisherfolk say surveyors came one day and "forcibly demolished the area we used to dry fish". A 3-4 km four-lane link road to National Highway 66 is attempted to be built through what was earlier just beach and Olive Ridley turtle nesting ground. 

Local fishers say the road runs through CRZ-III, a no-development zone, and is part of the coastal commons used for drying fish for generations. Heavy trucks carrying coal and ore will pollute the air, making drying impossible. They expressed fear that once the port materialises, the movement of heavy vehicles would pollute the atmosphere and jeopardise their livelihood. 

The impact is already visible: the dried-fish industry that used to operate on the land stopped functioning after the port authorities took over the land.

More Than Fish

For Tonka, this is not just economic. The beach is also a sporadic nesting site for the endangered Olive Ridley Turtle, which locals worship as an incarnation of Lord Vishnu and help conserve with the Forest Department. Scientists describe this coast as highly erosive and ecologically fragile.

Over 23,500 fisher folk in Honnavar, many of them women, and about 6,000 families who rely on fishing face an existential crisis. 

And yet, the resistance continues as fisherwoman Parwati Datta Tandel quips "We are fighting for our rights. We want our land, our business, and our people. We will lead our lives by doing the fish business". 

The dry fishers of Tonka are a reminder that development cannot be measured only in ports and tonnage. It is also measured in the quiet work of women turning fish under the sun, in food that reaches the poorest plates in India, and in a community that asks only to be left to continue its way of life.

Apeksha R. Tandel

Living in trust with Sea

 Photo credits: Raju D. Tandel

For some, the sea is a tourist spot. For some, a beautiful background for a photo.

But for a fisherman, the sea itself is his mother, the sea itself is his God, the sea itself is his life.

3 o'clock in the morning. When the whole village is in deep sleep, the light is on in the fisherman's house. His wife packs a small bundle of rice and a bottle of water. His children, still half-asleep, say "Papa, come back soon." He touches his child's forehead, folds his hands to God, and walks into the darkness towards the sea.

He has no degree in his hands, no crores of property. He has only one thing - a torn net, an old boat, and a chest full of courage.

The sea never gives a promise. Today the net may be full of fish, tomorrow he may return empty-handed. If the waves get strong, the boat may sink. He risks his very life and goes, not just for himself. When we see fish on our lunch plate at noon and push it aside saying "it's not tasty", we forget that for that one plate of fish, a father has mortgaged his life to the sea.

A fisherman is never greedy. All he wants is for his children's stomachs to be full today. Worrying about tomorrow, he fights with today's wave. Even when there is a cyclone warning, he goes back into the sea to repay a loan, to pay his daughter's fees. Because he has no other way.

We sit in an AC room and complain that "fish has become expensive". But we don't see the price of sweat behind that expense, the salt of tears, the anxiety of a wife who stays awake all night.

How many times have the waves of the sea washed away his dreams, how many times have they shattered his boat. Yet the next morning he stands again in front of the sea with folded hands. That is his strength. The stubbornness to get up even after falling, to cast the net again even after losing - that is what makes him a true hero.

A fisherman is not poor. He is rich. He has patience that we don't have, humility to bow before nature, and a big heart that sees hope for tomorrow even in an empty net.

Next time you go to the seashore, don't just look at the waves. Look at that small boat seen far away. The one sitting inside it is not just a fisherman, he is the provider who risks his life to fill our stomachs.

Let us give him respect. Let us value his hard work.

Apeksha R. Tandel

Refusing to live in Black and White

Book: Refusing to live in Black and White

Author:  Shaweta Anand

Introduction

This is not a grief memoir in the usual sense. Published by Penman Books in 2026, this book by Dr. Shaweta Anand - public health researcher, teacher and writer who studied at JNU starts where most stories of loss end.

Shaweta lost her husband during India's second wave of COVID-19 but the book is less about the event of death and more about the life that society starts writing for you after it.

 The Cover

The cover says it all. A winding road through colourful hills, rivers, sunset - with the title Refusing to Live in Black & White in the middle. It's a visual metaphor. Widowhood in India is often still imagined in black and white - in clothes, in behaviour, in future. She refuses that reduction.

Synopsis

The book moves between two timelines without asking one to cancel out the other:

Before: Her marriage, partnership, and everyday life.

After: Raising her son alone, dealing with family, navigating work, friendships, and identity.

There is no dramatic twist. The power is in the small things - how people start talking to you differently, how invitations change, how you are expected to become smaller to make others comfortable.

"I understood with startling clarity how widowhood can reorganise a woman socially, from a central person to a negotiable presence."

Core Themes

a) Grief vs. Social Script: The book says grief is only half the burden. The other half is the set of quiet assumptions about how a widow should look, behave, parent, work, and imagine her future. Nobody says it directly. Almost everybody believes it anyway.

b) Motherhood after Loss: It is also a story of a son growing up and a mother who stayed - how they both build a life neither of them had planned for. It is honest, occasionally funny, often infuriating.

c) Identity: At its heart, as the author writes, this is a book about refusing to be reduced to a single word - widow - when a person is always several things at once.

d) Systemic Collapse and Human Generosity: She writes about COVID second wave - "Both the systemic collapse and the human generosity deserve naming. Both were real."

Writing Style

Shaweta is not a sentimental writer. She writes like a researcher who is also a storyteller. The language is simple, personal, and observational. The foreword rightly says: This book neither romanticises suffering nor reduces a life to theory. It simply lets personal experience and careful observation illuminate each other.

My Verdict

What I loved: It makes you question your own behaviour - how we hand someone else a script they did not ask for. It is not about "getting over" grief, but about choosing what the rest of life can hold when love remains but the person does not.

Who should read it: Not just widows or people who have faced grief. Anyone interested in gender, family, Indian society, motherhood, and what it means to rebuild.

Rating: 4.5/5 - A quiet, brave, necessary book. It doesn't ask for pity. It asks for space to live in full colour.

Apeksha R. Tandel

Fisherman - The Unseen Hero

 

Our lives don't depend on the waves of the sea but his entire life stands on those waves.

While we are sleeping in our warm beds, he is awake at 3 AM in the morning. The whole village is asleep. A father, with his torn net on his shoulder and a lantern in his hand, walks towards the sea. No one is with him, only his shadow and the sound of the sea.

He doesn't know the weather report. He doesn't know the scientific reason for a tsunami. He knows only one thing - if the wind blows to the east, he will get fish, if it blows to the west, his life is in danger.

When he pushes his boat into the sea, his wife stands on the shore and prays to God. That prayer doesn't stop until he returns. Because she knows the sea is both a mother who gives and a demon who takes away.

Do you know what is in the one basket of fish he brings back? One day's meal, his daughter's new uniform, his son's notebook, and the interest on a loan that can never be repaid. He has never eaten the big fish he himself caught. Thinking, "If I sell this, I will get 500 rupees, I can buy books for my daughter," he smiles even on an empty stomach.

We bargain for 50 rupees in the market. We loudly say "too costly." But we never calculate the 12 hours of darkness, hunger, and fear of death behind that one fish.

He doesn't want government promises, he doesn't want big awards. He wants only one thing - his children should live happily on the shore, they should never have to fight with the sea for their whole life like him.

That is why he is still fighting with the waves today. He is a real hero. Not a hero from the movies, but a real hero who fights with the sea every day for our food.

Apeksha R. Tandel