The boat makers of the coastal blocks in the district here generally wait for a big draw during the marriage season. Reason: They do a brisk business in the season by delivering boats.
During the wedding time, boat is given as a principal dowry by the people in the Bengali- speaking fishermen community in the coastal pockets of Mahakalpada. It has been continuing for the last one decade. Ever since Super Cyclone struck the area, the people suffered greatly in terms of damage or loss of their boats, which they used for ferrying people and fishing. So getting a new boat in dowry is every household’s dream.
“The reason behind demanding boat as a dowry item is that the only source of communicating with the outer world is only by ferrying with a boat as the area is criss-crossed with rivers and rivulets. Another important factor is that the fishermen community of the coastal areas ekes out a living by fishing in the sea and the pivotal requirement for catching fish in the sea or river is with a boat. As a majority of the fishermen had lost their boats in the Super Cyclone in 1999, now, they want to acquire a boat by way of dowry,” justified Tapas Giri, a youth. Earlier, rarely did anyone demand boat as a dowry, but the trend of taking boat as a dowry item started after the 1999 Super Cyclone. In the seaside Mahakalpada and Rajnagar areas, hundreds of boats sunk or got damaged in the gale and hundreds were seized by the forest department while they were catching fish in the restricted zone during the ban period, said Ashok Hota, a fisherman of Kharnashi.
The loan applications of the fishermen to get boats were turned down by banks and co-operative societies in past couple of years. With all doors of help closed, dowry seemed to be the only way out.
The cost of a country boat ranges from Rs 50,000 to Rs 2.50 lakh for which it has been an uphill task on the part of the parents of the brides to give a boat to the bridegroom.
“I have recently sold three acres of agricultural land to procure a boat as the groom’s father demanded a boat as dowry,” said Sapon Mandal of village Kharanashi, who solemnized his daughter’s marriage recently.
According to one Alok Shah, the father of a 30- year-old girl, more than three proposals were terminated for his daughter’s marriage only because he could not agree to give a boat in dowry.
One , Naren Maity, a marriage negotiator informed he has already settled several marriages in the coastal areas of Kendrapada in the ongoing marriage season, but almost all the parents of the girls have promised to give boat as a dowry item to their would- be son-in-law.
As boat has become a special commodity for settling a marriage negotiation in the sea side coastal pockets of Mahakalpada block especially in Batighar gram panchayat, the boat makers as well as timber suppliers are doing a good business. According to boat maker Ashis Mistry, orders are low until marriage seasons. But now the boat making unit is flooded with orders, he said adding he delivered three boats in last month.