This Ganesh Chaturthi, the Koli community prayed to go on living. National Award-winning filmmaker, Sarvnik Kaur, 35, watched them through the lens of a camera in her crowdfunded documentary Fish Finger Seductions, which she is shooting. Kolis, the indigenous fishing tribe of Mumbai, are likely to lose their homes and livelihood in the next few years due to the combined effects of environmental degradation and heavy construction including that of India’s largest statue of Shivaji in ecologically sensitive coastal areas. The figures for the number of koliwadas, tucked away alongside Mumbai’s coast and skirting far-flung suburbs, varies between 36 and 45. History has taught us that there may be genocide but you cannot wipe out a community. When it comes to life and death, the worst and the best come out of people because it is a fight for survival. The story of the Kolis encompasses everything I think is wrong with capitalism, patriarchy and nationalism. I started getting interested in how they will fight back. What kind of quest will it be violent or non-violent? Will it be fought on the streets or in the courts? asks Kaur. Her previous film, Soz: A Ballad of Maladies (2016), broke free of Kashmir’s picturesque sceneries and depicted the political resistance led by poetry, music and art. Speaking on the phone from Mumbai, Kaur talks about a coastal road that is coming up from south Mumbai. It will destroy several mangrove stretches. There are many mangrove stretches that are being encroached by builders. Kolis are protectors of mangroves because fish lay eggs in mangroves, she says. Excerpts from an interview: You have been shooting for a year and a half and plan to continue documenting this subject for two-three years more. What have you discovered till now? There are activists at the grassroots levels who are trying to counter the tyranny of modernity and development. The resilience of these grassroots leaders in the face of efforts to wipe them clean is mind-boggling. The women are very different from any community I have ever seen. They occupy their position in public like a boss, they know they are the original inhabitants and don’t get bogged down by anyone. The women in my film are gearing up for the 2019 election. They say, The politicians have been fooling us for so many years, we have no representation in the Lower or Upper Houses, we have no one fighting or writing policies on our behalf.’ This is what I am documenting really. How is a day in a Koli village like? In the monsoon, the ocean is belching out all the plastic that it has taken in. A koliwada (Koli village) looks very colourful because of the plastic bags strewn all around. There is no sewage facility. The rats are huge and children get bitten all the time. The lanes are narrow, and, if somebody gets a heart attack, they will never be able to make it to the hospital. There are 15 liquor shops and no doctor. The penetration of education is also very low. I am talking about a koliwada in Versova, which is one of the richer koliwadas. We had gone to shoot a festival called the Narali Purnima, which essentially means, the ocean has calmed down and you can take your boat back into the water and start fishing. One of the rituals is that you take coconuts and throw it into the ocean when the tide is low because wherever it throws the coconut back, a tree will grow out of it. Coconut trees will hold the soil and keep the ecology clean. Our director of photography, Udit Khurana, needed to go almost into chest-deep water in order to shoot. The clothes he was wearing cannot be worn again. The gunky, tar-like substance stuck to the clothes don’t yield to washing. I need a shower every time I return from there. I can come back and be distant from what bothers me about their ecosystem, but they have no such options. After a searing film on Kashmir, how did you get drawn to the cause of the Koli community? I live next to a koliwada in Versova, and I used to attend a seafood festival that the Kolis organise every year. They bring fresh fish, make fresh food and dance and sing. It is a source of extra income and also a way of interacting with society at large. Mumbai has no time for the tribal Kolis. Their work is to sell fish and that is pretty much the end of it. They have been trying to counter this isolation with such attempts as the seafood festival or coming out on Holi and other holidays and be seen as the natives of this land. What took a Delhi girl to Mumbai? Born and raised in Delhi, I moved to Mumbai soon after graduating from Jamia Millia Islamia and have been living there for eight years. In Jamia, all of us thought that we were going to Mumbai to become the next Anurag Kashyap. In 2007-08, Bollywood had got a new language, which, to us, was very exciting because we never agreed with popular Bollywood. I wanted to make a career out of writing screenplays. But Mumbai turned out to be a lot harder and my destiny had a different plan for me. In Bollywood, you are a cog in a bigger machine and there are lots of people with aspirations exactly like yours. The fight needed something which I just didn’t have in me. At times, when I would go to meet a director about a screenplay, he would say, let’s go to Goa and we’ll have a pleasant time and write a screenplay there.’ I didn’t know if it was I who was not able to negotiate this space or it was the space itself. I still wanted to tell stories and had to find a way to do that. What happened next? I went through a bad patch, so I locked myself up, withdrew from my social life and started to write. I wrote about six to seven stories, trashed them or fleshed them out, turning them into screenplays. I felt that I had lost touch with people, with how they think. I had been so driven by my career, my life’ that I didn’t know how to write for any other character. My friend and Jamia batchmate, Tushar Madhav, had started out on Soz and I said, It looks like a great documentary topic. I would like to join you.’ He was researching at that time. He said, I need help. Come on in.’ I got involved and saw characters taking shape. It was a smooth transition from being a helper on the outside to being a co-director. Tushar is with me, as an editor, on Fish Finger Seductions, as well. Did you anticipate Soz to be widely screened and win a National Award in 2017? If I were an experienced filmmaker, I perhaps, would not have dabbled with Kashmir. Now, when I look back at the film, I have questions about, What does it mean to be telling a story when you don’t stand as equals?’ We felt very conflicted when the National Award came. But, Soz has given me hope for Fish Finger Seductions. At a polarised time, Soz has been screened peacefully. Whatever objection there was in the audience was dealing with logic, debate and explanation. Nobody was trying to intimidate us. Perhaps, intolerance may not be as mainstream as we fear it to be. Why did you choose to crowdfund Fish Finger Seductions? I’m doing campaigns to raise money through the extent of my filming because people need to align themselves with Koli causes. Indigenous rights are about the rights of ecology and nature. Not until the civil society in Mumbai recognises that the Kolis are fighting, not just for their rights but also for the survival of the whole of Mumbai, will the Kolis win.