Faith and knowledge entwine to flow deep within fisher elder S Palayam, who lives in the fishing village of Urur Olcott Kuppam, located in the South Indian city of Chennai.

Palayam Anna, as he is fondly known, has been recording data on wind, weather, Ocean currents and conditions daily, since September 2018, from his home near the mouth of the Adyar river. “Science of the Seas” is a project he has created together with writer/researcher Nityanand Jayaraman, to record, analyse and transmit their learnings. What the data suggests, among other things, is how the seasons and climactic conditions of the sea are changing due to the impact of unregulated human activity.

Seaspeaker celebrates not only Palayam Anna’s knowledge creation but also his prowess as a storyteller. Mingled with a generational understanding of the seas are Palayam Anna’s own experiences of what it means to live as a fisher, which he shares through richly detailed stories.

The film features one such tale from Palayam Anna’s youth, when he sailed the seas to catch Kola fish (flying fish). The narrative is brought to life by Kalaimamani Muthuchandran Rao, a sixth-generation shadow puppeteer from Tamil Nadu, and his team, using puppets specially created for Seaspeaker.

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