Before becoming a fisherman Amarshi Solanki worked as a mason earning Rs 60 a day. Life began to change for the family after he became a tandel and earned between Rs 12,000 to Rs 13,000 per month.
He would make three trips every month to the area near the International Maritime Boundary Line, IMBL -- an imaginary line that demarcates the India-Pakistan border in the Arabian Sea and a zone famous for the availability of valuable fish.
"On each such trip he would earn at least Rs 4,000," Dilip recalls from what his mother told him.
Koli -- the sub-caste to which the Solankis belong -- custom forbids Raniben to speak to strangers (the policeman was, of course, an exception) as well as sit on anything above the ground level for about 45 days after her husband's death.
Amarshi Solanki spent over a year in Karachi's Malir Landhi jail after he was arrested by the Pakistan Maritime Agency when his boat sailed into Pakistani waters. After his release in 2003 he gave up the sailor's life and returned to working as a mason for about three years. But the Rs 105 he now earned as a mason was not enough to support his sons's education.
In 2006, he returned to the ocean. This time, he made a little above Rs 14,000 per month.
While Dilip is eager to speak about his father's life as a tandel he is reluctant to discuss Amarshi's time in the Karachi prison. From what his mother told him, he says, his father would send the family a letter once every three months from his prison cell. Dilip was 14 when his father was arrested on the wrong side of the IMBL.
When Amarshi returned from prison he was very thin. "The prison warden would beat up my father and the other Indian fishermen for no reason at all," says Dilip. "He said they would be given a frugal meal of dal and two rotis, often on an irregular basis. Sometimes, they slept on an empty stomach."
Image: Amarshi Solanki's widow Raniben besides her dead husband's photograph.
Also see: The miracle baby born that horrific night
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