On our way from Murari to Fort Cochin, driving along the coastal road, we saw a woman, moving back and forth in what looked like a rope walk - she was twisting some reddish fibres together with her fingers, stooping slightly, bare headed under a burning sun -
Our driver put down his Samsun Galaxy S III - he turned towards me, with the air of one sharing an arcane secret -
It is coir - they make coir here - would you like to see? -
We got out of the Toyota, and entered a small yard, a few yards to the side of the road - a water tanker went past, then a loudspeaker car for the CMP -
There were soft heaps of coconut fibre - open sided shelters housed strange rusty devices - a man wove hairy mats, making use of a wooden hand loom - the work was arduous, testing muscle and sinew -
I watched the woman in the rope walk, spinning the fibres into thread, her hands deft and strong -
I thought of the fashionable dwellings in which I had once seen coir - I'd gossiped idly in those places -
Here, they worked twelve hours a day, making coir, for a pitiable fan of oily rupees -
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