KASIMEDU, India – As a blue wooden boat returns from its first trip to the sea after a six-month break, boat owner V. Balaji looks on with trepidation.

The boat – Sri Jai Ganesh 2 – has been refurbished after it was damaged by the tsunami that struck the Asian coast in December. It docks alongside a dozen or so vessels at the Kasimedu Fishing Harbor in the southern Indian city of Chennai, on a recent morning.

Baskets of fish are unloaded, put onto catamarans and auctioned right on the seashore.

"The catch isn't as good as it used to be," says Balaji, who like many Indians, goes by his given name and initializes his surname. He received nearly $2,500 in government aid to fix his boat. "But it'll get better with more trips."

Six months after a deadly tsunami devastated the livelihoods of thousands of fishermen along the coast, Chennai's fishing villages are starting to see some action. Some of the damaged boats in the city's 44 coastal hamlets have been repaired. Others are getting ready to be pushed out to sea. Also, people employed in fishing-related trades such as ice crushing or tea-vending are slowly setting up shop again.

It's not business as usual. But after months of no work and no income, this is a welcome change.

Many of the fishermen have accepted government or nongovernmental aid, plunked down their own money or borrowed at high interest rates to get back to business.

However, the story of revival and reconstruction isn't uniform across the 10,000 fishing families in and around the city. Many fishermen are still scared to go back to sea. Some who lost their homes to the tsunami are living in temporary tenements far away from the seashore and are unable to ply their trade. Still others are awaiting government aid to get their boats repaired.

"My boat was completely destroyed," says K. Prabakaran, a Chennai fisherman, who owns a mechanized trawler. He estimates that the repair will cost $12, 500.

"The government has promised to pay 40 percent of the repair costs and will help me get loans for the remaining 60 percent," he says. "Once I get the money, it'll take six months to build my boat."

Experts say the crowds that thronged the harbor haven't come back. And businesses lack the critical mass to make their enterprises tick.

M. Arthi recently reopened her shop selling rice and egg pancakes on the seashore. The first two days of business have been slow. While she usually makes about 50 rupees (a little over $1) a day, she has ended up with a loss over two days.

Arthi, 36, is the sole breadwinner in her family. Her home was swept away in the tsunami, and she's living in a rented house near the seashore. She has to support her two daughters, 20 and 17, and a 15-year-old son. Her husband – a fisherman of 10 years – is too frightened to go back to sea.

"A lot of people seem to have left the harbor," she says as a rice pancake sizzles on a griddle." They're just not coming."

Observers in the fishing industry say that it will take at least a year for fishing hamlets to regain a semblance of normalcy. For one thing, the long-term rehabilitation effort doesn't have the same urgency as the short-term relief work.

"When the tsunami first hit, we had to rush," says Balaji Sampath, all-India secretary of the Association for India's Development Inc., an NGO (nongovernmental organization) that has been active in the relief and rehab process. "We had to do things fast without thinking much. Now after this many months, we need a planned and targeted approach."

The state government has put fishermen back on their feet by giving them nets, boats and compensation for the down time they experienced. NGOs have provided money and manpower to revitalize the hamlets. But there's still discontent among the fisher-families.

Some complain they haven't received any aid. Others say that the government is footing only a part of their recovery costs and that they don't have the money to pitch in for the reconstruction. They already have huge loans and don't want to take on more.

In some hamlets, fishermen haven't taken out new boats because they want all fishermen in the hamlet to get a boat. The government's stance is that the fishermen might be asking for more boats than were lost to the tsunami.

However, the fishermen cannot go back to work unless they get the tools of their trade. And for those in fishing-related occupations, there's little to do unless fishing is revived.

In some villages, NGOs are trying to provide training in alternative trades. Laborers in the fishing industry are being taught tailoring, bag making or "vadam" (a rice-based delicacy) making. But no one is sure if these are temporary measures, or if they are here to stay.

"We cannot do one-shot drives," says Mr. Sampath of the Association for India's Development Inc. "NGOs must have a clear plan on how they're going to work with a village over the next three or four years. The fishermen want to get productive. We have to work with them and find out their various needs."

Residents say the living conditions in the area's temporary tenements are intolerable.

There's the stink of corpses that were burned just a few feet from their homes. And there's the absence of toilet facilities. Residents use open land for urinating and defecating. Children live and play in this environment – sometimes just yards away from open drains.

"We're stuck here," said M. Udayan, a laborer who used to work on the seashore. "There's no hope of a livelihood here. At least if we are near the seashore we can do some odd jobs."

Anuradha Raghunathan, a former staff writer for The Dallas Morning News, is a freelance journalist based in Chennai, India.