Lalitha Kamath and Gopal Dubey | Tata Institute of Social SciencesCover image by Abhishek Anil
Project Note
What does it mean to live in the city and yet live amidst wetness? We explore this question through the experiences of Mumbai's indigenous fishing community, the Kolis, that live amidst the wetness of the Thane Creek, Arabian Sea and Ulhas River and the expanding concrete of Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai.
The film is framed as a juxtaposition, the story of two cities, two Mumbais, that are entangled in a dynamic tension. The first city is a knowledge and experience of Mumbai of the sea, that comes from living according to the rhythm of rising and falling water levels, where temporality in the Koli's fishing practice is deeply connected to temporality in land use. This informs Koli's relations with sea and land that transcends the fixity and claims associated with propertied ownership. The second city is an experience of Mumbai that emerges from the Koli's encounters with the terrestrial, propertied city, one driven by the imperatives of capitalism.
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Today, the city of the sea seems set to be consumed by the city of property: a story told through fisher experiences of infrastructure projects that capture the sea and embodied understandings of toxicity, surveillance and catches of garbage. The fishers' slow estrangement from the sea and their turn toward the land is, however, marked by struggle – revealing that fisher sensibilities are simultaneously wet and dry, but that they seek to reshape this muddiness on their own terms.
But as climate change threatens to unmake our world, reminding us that Mumbai's watery past is not gone but lives on through periodic flooding, we seek to recover the Koli's (forgotten) histories, (tacit) knowledges, (embodied) practices and struggles for justice so that we may understand how to inhabit the city and yet embrace wetness, with all the tension and struggle that this involves. Perhaps this would allow other dwellers of the city to see themselves as offspring of the sea, like the Kolis.
सागर पुत्र: Offspring of the Sea
20 min 26 sec
सागर पुत्र: Offspring of the Sea is based on research by and made in collaboration with Lalitha Kamath & Gopal Dubey from the School of Habitat Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences.
Concept,Field & Archival Research: Lalitha Kamath & Gopal Dubey
Script: Pooja Das Sarkar, Lalitha Kamath & Gopal Dubey
Direction, Edit & Graphics: Pooja Das Sarkar
Cinematography, Sound & Grading: Vimal Mylon
Illustrations & Remembered Boundary Graphic: Nisha Mathrani
Subtitles: Gopal Dubey & Sarang Shidore
Narration: Pooja Das Sarkar
Turbhe Community Archive of Estrangement and Reclaiming
We base our work on the fisher's community archive: a collection in the making, inspired by ongoing processes of estrangement and reclaiming. Seen as a community on the move, fishers have typically played a minor role in official histories that are largely terrestrial. We ask: What does it mean to create an archive that relates to the intimate and global movements mediated by the creek and the sea?
That draws from customary rights and relations with beyond-human entities (land, sea, mangroves, fish) that transcend territory and cross property boundaries? That doesn't rely solely on objects but also on memories, practices and knowledges?
Archive of Estrangement
The archive of estrangement draws from documents of the Turbhe Cooperative Fishing Society revealing the steady shift in the state's position from officially recognizing the community's claims to endangering and devaluing their livelihood and future.
1965 Circular recognizing rights of Kolis
1991 Mumbai map showing fishing reservations in the DP
Letter refusing fishers projects saying no construction allowed due to coastal zone protection
Possession receipt of BEST land
BARC restriction on fishing
Archive of Reclaiming
The archive of reclaiming takes the form of a glossary of terms that evoke community memories, tacit knowledges and embodied practices that have been assembled through a long involvement with the Koli's fluid terrain. Reclaiming here recalls the erased past but in new, hybrid acts of futuring – these oppose state-led reclamations that hinge on polluting and making property of the sea.
Koliwada (कोळीवाडा)
The villages of the indigenous fishing community of Maharashtra, the Kolis, are called Koliwada, which literally means settlement of the Kolis. Kolis’ notion of home or village spans land, mangroves and sea, transcending simple land-sea and workplace-residence boundaries to include their customary fishing commons. These include communally-owned lands within and adjoining their residential settlement (gaothan), and fishing grounds in the sea, that have customarily been used for fishing-related activities (for eg, jetty, fish market, open areas for fish drying and repairing boats, fishing stakes in the sea). Fishing commons are governed by the traditional fisher caste panchayat.
Image: Map of Trombay Koliwada’s remembered boundaries showing the flows and labour involved in fishing practice
Credit: Drawn by Lalitha Kamath and Gopal Dubey based on community memories
Ekvira Aai (एकवीरा आई)
The specific form of shakti sacred to the Kolis is Ekvira. She is the mother goddess who is the ancestral deity (कुलदेवी) of the Koli and Agri community. Her temple is located at Karla Caves near Lonavala in Maharashtra. The legend goes that the cave was built for her by the Pandavas during their exile in the forest. Chaitra Navratri (that generally falls in March-April) is an occasion when thousands of Kolis pay homage to their ancestral deity. Responsible for the welfare of the koliwada, Ekvira’s temple is usually located at the boundary of the residential settlement. Trombay’s elders remember a time when sea water lapped against the temple, but today the sea has receded.
Image: Image of Ekvira Aai from Chandrakant Vaity’s house in Trombay Koliwada
Credit: Vimal Mylon
Naarli Purnima (नारळी पौर्णिमा)
Naarli Purnima is one of the most auspicious days for the Koli community. It's the full moon day of the Hindu month of Shravan which mostly falls in the month of August. This festival is celebrated for marking the beginning of the fishing season after the break taken for the monsoons. A coconut is offered for safety and prosperity while at sea. Fishers refer to the Indic calendar while talking about fishing because it tracks the moon, which is central to guiding artisanal fishing practices.
Image: Full Moon night when coconuts are offered to the sea on the occasion of Narli Purnima
Credit: Vimal Mylon
Hori (होळी)
Hori is a non-mechanised fishing boat made of either wood or fibreglass. It acts as the bridge between land and sea. Other fishing boats are too big to be used in the shallow waters and mud of the intertidal zone, hence the hori is used to access fishing boats anchored in deep water. Horis have remained important to fishing in the Koliwada as the sea has receded and fishers have to wade through the mud to access the sea. Fishers tow the hori behind their fishing boats while departing for a fishing trip.
Image: A hori towed alongside a bigger boat in the creek, Trombay Koliwada
Credit: Lalitha Kamath
Saj (सज)
Saj are Trombay Koliwada’s customary fishing areas in the coastal sea that are demarcated with bamboo stakes, ropes and rocks and handed down from one generation to another. The fisher caste panchayat possesses records of the saj and governs this fishing practice. The Maharashtra government does not recognise the fisher’s rights over their saj today, but upto about 15 yrs ago, Trombay’s fishers say they paid an annual tax to the Customs & Excise Dept for use of their saj. This practice that served as a license to use these hereditary, demarcated spaces in the sea for fishing, has now been discontinued.
Image: Trombay Koliwada’s saj
Credit: Vimal Mylon
Khajindari (खाजिंदारी) fishing
Khajindari fishing is a type of subsistence fishing practiced in the intertidal zone amidst the mud or mangroves using bare hands or very basic fishing gear. Crab and neuti (a type of small fish) are among the fish caught by khajindari fishers. This type of fishing involves the back-breaking labour of bending over marshy lands for several hours a day. Often done by certain families, especially women and young men/boys, khajindari fishing is slowly dying out in Trombay Koliwada.
Image: Khajindari fisher of Trombay Koliwada
Credit: Vimal Mylon
Watch Lalitha Kamath introduce Offspring of the Sea during our second seminar, Sea-ing the City here: