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.
The article has a link to a short film Sagar Putra about Koli’s, the sea and the City.