New Year celebrations have started across the world but the Children of Mother Sea in Kerala are missing it as they had missed Christmas six days back. The tsunami of misery, pain and anxiety brought about by Cyclone Ockhi that hit the State’s coast a month ago is sure to take a long time to subside as the wait is continuing in fishing hamlets for those missing at sea.

People in the fishing villages in Thiruvananthapuram said on Saturday that there will be no New Year celebrations. “This is not the time for celebration. We don’t see a bright New Year dawning for us,” said Samuel, a fisherman in Thiruvananthapuram. The Kerala Government has abandoned its plan for official New Year celebrations in the context of Ockhi.

Apart from the trail of death and destruction the cyclone that hit the coast on November 30 has left behind, it has also pushed the fishermen’s families – especially in the hamlets of Thiruvananthapuram, the worst affected by the storm – into starvation due to the

fishermen’s inability to go to work for several reasons and delay in the delivery of official assistance.

Grief is still dense in the families of those fishermen who were brought ashore dead from the cyclone-churned Arabian Sea but more unbearable are the anxiety and uncertainty that many families are going through even after a whole month since the disastrous storm as the authorities have no clear idea about the number of fishermen still missing at sea.

Officially, the death toll in Kerala in Cyclone Ockhi stands at 76 and the number of men who had gone for fishing before it struck and are yet to return is 143. According to the latin Catholic Church, to which majority of Thiruvananthapuram fishermen belong, the number of fishermen who are still to be found is far bigger – around 240.

The 2004 tsunami, which left 171 dead, is considered as the biggest disaster the State has seen. If the worst fears turn out to be real, Cyclone Ockhi will have to be termed as the biggest disaster in Kerala’s history in terms of deaths. “It seems this exactly what is going to happen. I don’t expect many more to come back after all these days,” said a senior latin Catholic priest.

According to sociologists, fishing hamlets like Vizhinjam, Poonthura and Adimalathura are examples of how natural calamities can push human beings into unimaginable despair and anxiety. “I am sure they will get over that but the time till then is crucial. Every affected family needs serious counseling,” says journalist-psychologist BS Panicker.

Fishermen in Poonthura and Vizhinjam say that it will take a long time for life to return to normal. Most of the fishermen who were rescued from the cyclone-hit sea are suffering from some physical problem or the other like partial sight impairment and speech difficulties and many will not be working for a long time due to fractured bones. Several of them need surgery.

For many fishermen like Joseph of Poonthura, the relief they felt when they were rescued from sea has now been replaced by anxiety about future. “Some kind of a mist hangs in front of my eyes. I don’t know how I got this but it happened during my ordeal in the sea during the cyclone. We don’t have any money to seek treatment for this,” Joseph said.

Another source of tension for the families of the fishermen who are yet to be found is over the inordinate delay in the delivery of the assistance announced by the Government due to the technicalities involved in including the missing persons in the list of the dead. The Government had promised to start distributing relief and rehabilitation assistances from Saturday.

Many said the weekly subsistence allowance of Rs 2,000 per family the Government had promised was yet to reach them, making life harder for them.

“We are doing our best to ensure that help reaches in time and without hassles. If there are any problems, there will be rectification measures,” said a top Revenue Department official.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had said that those who had lost boats, nets and other fishing implements in the cyclone would be provided with compensation equal to the cost but problems in assessment of loss is causing problems in distribution.

“The only relief we got was the Rs 10,000 the Government gave us when we were brought back from sea,” said a fisherman.