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EveryFish

Fishing harbour, India

Sassoon Dock, Mumbai

Mumbai's oldest wet dock, at Colaba, where the Koli fishers land bombil, pomfret and surmai before dawn.

Sassoon Dock at Colaba was built in 1875 and was the first wet dock in Bombay. Today it is one of the city's largest fish landing centres and markets. Before dawn, trawlers unload into baskets, Koli women carry the catch on their heads to the auction floor, and buyers from restaurants and markets across Mumbai bid for pomfret, seer fish, prawns and Bombay duck.

The Kolis and their fish

The Kolis are the original fishing people of the islands that became Mumbai, and their villages, called koliwadas, still line the city's shore. Bombay duck, bombil, a soft lizardfish of the coast, is eaten fresh and fried, or dried on bamboo racks. Paplet, the silver pomfret, surmai, ghol, a large croaker valued for its swim bladder, and bangda are the other stars. Fish curry, fried fish and sol kadhi are the dishes of the koliwadas.

A dock under strain

Sassoon Dock is crowded and short of space, and the port authority has long planned to modernise it. Catches of pomfret and Bombay duck near Mumbai have fallen, which fishers blame on overfishing, pollution and land reclamation. The coastal road and other projects along the shore have led to protests from Koli groups, who say they cut access to fishing grounds.

Still to be written: Bombay duck, Pampus argenteus, Narrow-barred Spanish mackerel, Blackspotted croaker, Largehead hairtail, Indian mackerel.

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