the womans role in the fishing community has always begun postharvest but these women didnt just rewrite the rules of the trade but their own destinies toocooking up a storm the fisherwomen behind dolphinsix years ago the landscape around the poompuhar harbour was arid empty and had no shops the first people to set up shop there were six fisherwomen stella gracy uma silvarani rajkumari geetha and saroja armed with a small loan and big dreams they built a hut out of which they cooked their most seasoned recipes of meen kuzhambu for hundreds of drivers load men and fisherfolk who arrived and left the harbour from different statestoday their little eatery has grown into a restaurant and this area has become a discovery for small businesses there is a petrol bunk a bakery and several shops selling snacks tea and cold beverages to us the area by the harbour seemed the most natural choice to start a food joint says stella there were no shops around not even to get water but hundreds of people were sailing in and out all day sometimes we like to think we brought this place out into the world she laughstoday life for these women mostly dropouts or unschooled except stella whos a graduate of bsc geography looks as revived as the harbour area doesbefore this business they were selling fresh catch their husbands brought home from the sea and on the days they had no luck their families often went hungry with help from the ms swaminathan research foundation they learned how to use a solar drier for the fish but this collection which came with higher production costs didnt earn them a profit among local buyers they then put their generational culinary skills to use and made fresh fish and prawn pickles dolphin the restaurant they run today is a result of these six women finding their mojo in what those experiments sparked during the season theyre able to take home rs 10000 to rs 15000 a monthwe knew we couldnt just rely on what our husbands brought home some of us have young kids going to school from getting the loan for the restaurant to being there at 4am to cook clean serve and wind up and make a profit at the end of every month it has just been us all the way says stella most of us arent educated but as homemakers weve realized we can run a business too we have cheered each other on to keep going this and the constant support of our families has changed the course of our livesa mother with a will of steel raja ramanithere is no adversity or discrimination that raja ramani hasnt seen in 47 years of her life and no dream she has failed to achieve from the time she was a 12yearold girl to now when shes a proud mother of two daughters one a doctor and the other a civil