CHENNAI: Ten years ago M Murthi, a fisherman from Kovalam beach, had a distant dream after watching a late night show on ESPN. “I saw a man on a board attacking the waves and I really wanted to try it, but did not know how.” Then he got a lucky break: The Surf Swami made a visit to the beach and actually agreed to lend his board to the “short, cheeky fisher lad” who asked to have a go on it. “It was super,” remembers Murthy fondly. A decade later, Murthi is something of a local legend. On Sunday, he managed to battle in the advanced category and was placed second behind instructor Juan Reboul, from France. His 20-odd pupils, all fisher-boys, cheered him on. They have found a new source of income - surfing instruction.“Initially we had no money to buy boards, so we would carve rough boards from abandoned kattumaram planks,” he says. “And then in 2008 Yotam Agam from Earthsync Records presented a professional board to me.” Then, there was no looking back. An employee at the Banyan’s facility there, Murthi has since practised extensively and by late 2009 began training other curious fisherman from his village. “They pick up really fast and have made me very proud today,” he says as his pupils battled it out at the Ocean and Earth Surfing Championship.Another fisherman-turned instructor is Mukesh (26) who teaches surfing at Mamallapuram. “I have trained about 10 boys from my village and they now help me in running lessons in the area,” he adds.
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