Taking the plunge at 49: Meet Uma Mani, India’s Coral Woman and climate champion

Fourteen  years ago, at the age of 45, after her son had enrolled in college, Uma Mani finally found “the guts, the nerve, and the audacity” to take up painting. She had literally brushed aside her interest in art as a child when her grandmother told her it was a waste of colour and paper and it would be better for her to study and later get married to a good man.

And, that’s what Mani did, following her doctor husband to the Maldives where he took up a job. The canvas of colours remained so distant that it existed only in her dreams.

Until she turned 45 … when she rekindled her lost love for art and turned to the sea and coral reefs. The large ocean became her canvas and she found her muse among the coral reefs.

Such is her passion for both art and the oceans that she aroused the curiosity of filmmaker Priya Thuvassery and became the subject of her award-winning documentary, Coral Woman. 

Now Mani is literally the Coral Woman, as embodied in the film, spreading awareness on dying coral reefs and the need for ocean conservation. An artist and a PADI-certified scuba diver, Mani was recently named Earth Champion of the Month by Sony BBC Earth.

Her transition to Coral Woman is a lesson in optimism and is rooted in her never-say-die attitude that led her to take up swimming and scuba-diving in her late 40s. It’s also a journey of grit as she swam through the corals underwater and her daring to go where very few women have gone before.

“When my son began college, I took up painting and showed a few of them to the director of Alliance Francaise in the Maldives (Muriel Schmidt) where I was learning French. Schmidt asked me to paint 30 canvases on a theme and promised to exhibit my work. So, I started painting roses every day. I moved to tulips and gifted it to my friend on her 50th birthday,” Mani tells HerStory.

Until then, the water was far from her mind, though she was surrounded by the ocean. In April 2010, she happened to watch a documentary on coral reefs by Dr Pascale Chabonet, a researcher from France. It was followed by a Q&A session where Mani learned some important lessons on the usefulness of corals and the importance of the oceans.

Soon she ditched the flowers and decided to paint coral reefs instead. Mani exhibited her first set of paintings at the Marine Centre in the Maldives. Not many people turned up, but that did not stop her from continuing to paint though she hardly had any basic training in art. Undeterred, she even enrolled for an art course while on a holiday in Chennai, determined to hone her skills.

Seeing is believing

During one of her exhibitions at the Vivanta Maldives, a stray comment from a visitor changed Mani’s perspective forever.

“An Indian woman asked me casually how I could bring something I had never seen to my art. I was angry with the way she phrased it but realised there was so much truth in it. I had never swum or gone underwater, and whatever I painted of the coral reefs came from pictures and films,” Mani recalls.

She turned to her friend Dr Amaal Ali for advice and where she could learn to dive. Ali introduced her to Shaheena Ali, Maldives’ first woman diver who, in Mani’s words, “was not too impressed by this old woman from India who wanted to dive.” 

The first challenge was learning to swim. In 2014, Mani came to Chennai and joined a 15-day swimming course, determined to cross the first step. Once she was back in the Maldives, her son signed her up for a scuba-diving course as a 25th wedding anniversary gift to his mother.

“On the first day of the dive, I didn’t do well. On the second day, I wanted to quit. My dive master Yamin said quitting was bad and to keep trying, and if I am still not able to, I could quit. I took one month because I wanted to be mentally into it,” she says. 

On her first dive, Mani was overwhelmed by the sights she saw underwater. There were corals and lots of fish, a sea snake, and a baby shark. She translated the magical world of the sea from her subsequent dives onto canvas, and her art now came alive with different views and insights. 

Mani was hooked. But the turning point came at the Maldives Marine Symposium in 2016 where she was exhibiting her paintings. She understood from researchers firsthand the importance of coral reefs, different aspects of ocean research, and the state of dying reefs in different parts of the world. 

On a whim, she decided to shoot underwater with a camera gifted by her son. At best, it was an amateurish effort, and nothing like the documentary she foresaw. 

“I didn’t know any aspect of filmmaking. There was no sound; it was like an old Charlie Chaplin movie,” she says with a laugh.

The making of Coral Woman

Undeterred, Mani tried contacting several documentary filmmakers, but she did not receive any response. She then cold-called the NDTV office where she was given the number of filmmaker Priya Thuvassery. Mani got in touch with her, asking if they could collaborate on a documentary on her painting exhibitions of coral reef gardens. Their conversations continued over the phone and on Skype, and their face-to-face meeting happened much later, in 2017.

“But Priya had other thoughts. She wanted to make a documentary on me. She told me the minute she heard my story; it mattered because most women my age don’t do many things, but when I got the opportunity, I grabbed it,” Mani says.

However, it took some time for Mani to agree—the tussle was between a documentary on coral reef gardens and the Coral Woman. But in the end, Thuvassery won, and they began filming in 2018 in the east coast, in Rameshwaram, Ramanathapuram and Tuticorin.

“Diving in Tuticorin was a revelation in many ways,” points out Mani. “I fell sick in just one day because there was so much sewage being pumped into the ocean.”

After each dive, which was almost every day, Uma would make notes and have a picture in mind along with the colours.

But it was the destruction underwater that both overwhelmed and moved her. 

“There was so much plastic and sewage along with the chemicals, pesticides, fertilisers and everything else used on land. I think if you write a name on a toothbrush and throw it in a bin in a landlocked place, it will end up in the ocean. The coral reefs were so important to life on earth, and they were dying,” Mani elaborates.

Awareness is key

Coral reefs provide a thriving ecosystem for underwater life and protect the coast against powerful waves. They are also a source of income for the tourism and adventure industries worldwide. 

Mani reminds us that the 2004 tsunami did not affect the Maldives as much as it impacted India because the coral reefs acted as a buffer and reduced the water pressure.

The artist who was content with her coral reef gardens was educated and enlightened through the making of Coral Woman. It was also the first time that Mani painted dying corals on canvas. After its release in 2019, she travelled with the team to talk about the film and her experiences. 

Now based in Dindigul, Tamil Nadu, Mani continues to raise awareness, talking to students in schools and colleges, and even corporate organisations, about ocean conservation and the effects of climate change. 

She also believes that the government should not be blamed for all problems.

“As individuals, we are the ones throwing the garbage into the water. When I speak with students, they come up with very intelligent and innovative solutions, and I hope they will contribute towards a better planet,” she says.  

According to her, the onus is on all of us to segregate waste and dispose of it responsibly.

“I have seen the conditions of oceans first-hand, and I can talk endlessly about it. I would urge everyone to go out there and do something about it, in your own way,” she reiterates, as she signs off.