Hanspuri is a poorly connected village located in Mayabunder tehsil in the northern part of Middle Andaman Island.  It is a small yet beautiful village, inhabited by communities from Jharkhand, who were brought there by the government in the 1960s to provide labour for developmental projects. They are called the ‘Ranchiwallas’ and they speak Sadri, Uraon, Munda and Kharia languages apart from the pidgin Hindi that is spoken throughout the islands.

People here depend on marine resources for their sustenance and livelihood. Men, women and

children go fishing and shellfish collecting using traditional tools and techniques. They consume fish

such as Indian mackerel, giant grouper, catfish, etc., and shellfish such as prawn, lobster, crab,

mussels etc. They use cast nets for fishing, spears for catching lobsters, and long iron rods with

wooden handles for poking crabs inside mud holes. The women and children hand pick the mussels

and clams from the backwaters or the rock using billhooks. People also cultivate paddy, green gram and areca nut.

All kitchens have the traditional earthen stove. The dheki is suspended above the chulha with strips of cane. It is used to keep pieces of meat or fish that will gradually dry from the heat of the stove below. The dheki is also used to keep food out of the reach of rats and pet dogs. The clay pot is used to store drinking water.

Chandralekha C hails from Katchal island, Nicobar district. These pictures are part of a

foodways project supervised by Madhuri Ramesh of the Azim Premji University, Bengaluru.  For further details, see: https://azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/publications/2024/book/from-sea-to-surwa