KARACHI: With a 135-kilometre-long coastline, fishing is big business in this city by the sea. But everyone associated with the business of fishing here doesn’t necessarily have to be on a boat in the middle of the ocean. Some stay on dry land, too.

From morning till evening and as much as his poor sight permits him these days, Mohammad Siddiq, a fisherman once, mends fishing nets in a small shop near the Jamot Jetty in Ibrahim Hyderi. “My eyesight isn’t what it used to be but I can still do this work,” says Siddiq.

“Having once flung these nets on the surface of the shimmering waters for, I know well how often they need repairs,” says the old timer. “The fish bites into the nets, our own knives, too, contribute to the damage,” he adds going about his work as he holds the net close to his face.

Saddam, who works in a garment factory, also runs a side business of buying and selling old nets, ropes, floats, etc. “A new fishing net would cost you around Rs8,000 but I will sell you a second-hand one for less than half of that at Rs3000,” says Saddam. He says he buys old fishing nets from the Karachi fisheries area to have them mended before selling them in his shop.

“Recycling isn’t such a bad idea if you are saving money doing it,” says Young Mohammad Imran, another dealer of similar old material for fishing boats and trawlers. But he also sells new stuff. There are big bundles of rope, old as well as new, lying around. “The nylon twine and silk rope chord is expensive. A new bundle will cost you up to Rs12,000. On the other hand, an old rope can be bought for Rs800.

But then it will also break easily,” he points out.

The shops also have nylon lines and hooks of several sizes. There are also a variety of floats, white and coloured, available. “They are to indicate where we have dropped our net,” says Mohammad Yousuf showing a handmade styrofoam float.

“We are open all year round but our shop does actual business during the fishing season. During the two monsoon months when there is a ban on fishing, we even go into debt,” says Samiullah. “But around this time in October, most of us depending on fishermen and boat owners to run our businesses have paid off our debts.”

A boat must also have an anchor. Mohammad Saleem gets old steel from Shershah to heat and bend into anchors for boats, sold at Rs130 per kilogram. “Steel gathers rust, of course, but I scrape off and clean the rust to have my anchors as good as new again,” he says.

Asked why he is not catching fish instead of selling anchors in a fishing village, Saleem smiles and says: “I’ve been there and done that. I went on many fishing expeditions as a young boy. I saved up money to open this shop, which I have been running for over 29 years now.”

The fishermen’s market also has a boat propellers shop. These are not made of iron or steel though. “They are made of silver because aluminium is lighter than steel,” says Saleem Baloch. “A boat may have one engine or two and each engine needs one propeller,” he says. When asked why he didn’t catch fish instead, he says: “Well, we have plenty of people here to do that. There should be some to eat it, too.”

Published in Dawn, October 2nd, 2016