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How tsunami rehabilitation robbed the Nicobarese of their sense of home

Chowra is an 8 sq.km. dot on the Andaman sea, part of the Nicobar archipelago.
And on it live 1,350 people, the Nicobarese islanders of Chowra.
They grow food in shared gardens, catch fish, rear pigs, dogs and chickens.
Idyllic as it sounds, these islanders have struggled — primarily to make a living and find freshwater.
But today they grapple with another challenge: their sense of home is under threat.
Chowra is a coralline sea-mount, on which a thin layer of clayey soil nurtures food gardens, plantations and grasslands.
The Nicobarese used the grass to build their exquisitely thatched homes nyi hupul or ‘beehive stilted houses’ as the British colonials called them.