PULICAT: Twenty-one-year-old Suresh is perhaps the only fisherman in the 24 villages around the Pulicat lake who knows how to work on a computer. He began offering boat rides five years ago and is now popular for the add-ons he offers to the tourists out in the lake. With over 250 regular customers across the State and from other neighbouring States, Suresh’s brisk business is all of a sudden obstructed with the boat ride ban after the death of 22 tourists in the lake, a week ago.“I have customers coming from as far as Kanyakumari and neighbouring Puducherry, AP, Karnataka and Kerala. I also get customers from Delhi and other places in North India,” he said.But it was not until he started a blog on trips in Pulicat lake that he began to get customers from other countries. And it was none other than one of his regular customers, who had offered to help him in return for the satisfying trip he provided in the lake. The customer from Chennai helped open a blog titled www.pulicattours.blogspot.com two years ago and since then, he had been getting customers from Europe and gulf countries, Suresh claimed.“I offered only boat rides initially, then I began to add more to the package like home-made meals with or without seafood, night stay and camp fire. A gist of the package is mentioned in my blog. My blog aims at providing information about trips in Pulicat,” Suresh said.Suresh has also employed two persons to handle the boat trips in the two boats he owned. But with the ban, he is clueless about his next move. “Whenever I get more customers, I send them to other fishermen who do not have customers and don’t even have a mobile phone or know how to use it. I would earn anywhere between `10,000 and `20,000 a trip during...holidays, spending a day or more with my customers offering more than a satisfying trip. I know no alternative business and other fishermen who depended on me for customers are asking me about my plan and I do not know what I will do,” said Suresh with teary eyes.
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