Northern fisher families who received the generous Chinese ‘humanitarian assistance’ of packets of rice recently, are selling them on the pavement as they are not familiar with how to make ‘Chinese sticky rice’.
The Chinese rice variety, which is different when it comes to preparation, style, and taste compared to local Naadu types, gave a hard time to local fisherfolk who tried the same methods of cooking with the Chinese donated rice.
The Chinese rice donation was among the Rs 1.5 billion worth of humanitarian assistance, which includes a prefabricated housing scheme and fishing equipment for fisherfolk in the Northern and Eastern provinces.
The three aid packages, amounting to Rs 500 million each, would be the largest offered by China in the two provinces, where India has also invested heavily in development, livelihood and investment projects.
One local fisherman who sold the donated Chinese rice through an underground agent also expressed concerns with one of the other donated items – prefabricated housing, saying this is not conducive to living in a province that records higher temperatures for most of the months.
He had an interesting suggestion: give the items to politicians and officials.
Since most of the temporary shelters or vaadi houses erected on coastal lines to store fishing equipment caught fire due to unknown reasons, he is of the view that these prefab houses can be used as vaadi houses for better utilisation.