The contrast in Mumbai’s cityscape and lifestyle is startling. In the suburb of Maha Laxmi, the pileup of concrete structures and the community of dhobis (people who wash clothes as a profession) in small houses and sheds, exemplify the rich and the poor.[break]
At the Chowpatty Beach in Juhu, children beg for food and money while the affluent dine at five-star hotels overlooking the sea.
In Colaba, the heart of South Mumbai and home to The Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotels, and Colaba Causeway, one of the city’s major street markets, the touristic hub slowly transforms into a historic settlement of fishmongers.
The open streets of Colaba, filled with a mix of humid afternoon air and aromas from myriad restaurants, turn and twist into Cuffe Parade. The aromas slowly fade away and a pungent smell of the sea creeps into the nostrils. It is not difficult to guess that Sassoon Docks is right around the corner.
Mumbai’s largest dock, Sassoon Docks, is one of the few docks open to the public, and is one of the largest fish markets in the city today. Built in 1875 by Sir Albert Abdullah David Sassoon, son of a Baghdadi Jewish leader of Bombay, David Sassoon, the dock is home to the fishing community of Mumbai.
As I walked inside Sassoon Docks with my photojournalist friend, the smell was surreal. As we quickened our footsteps, past the main entrance, we found ourselves in the heart of the dock, where the foul odor was intensified by dead fishes and wastes.
At the end of the dock, under a roofed structure, women were engaged in their work. They seldom talked among themselves as they mashed their hands into the heap of baby prawns and fish. Children sitting next to their mothers, joined to help them. A number of men, most of them with lackluster expressions, sat in the middle of groups of working women and children, supervising them.
They had all become desensitized to the smell. To them, it was just a day’s work.
Most of the men, who bring in the catch, seemed busy with their fishing nets on their boats parked in the dock.
Taking careful steps on the slippery grounds, we observed the fishmongers and tried to talk to some of them, but no one seemed interested. After all, they were working. Just as we prepared to take some shots with our cameras, some of the men started walking towards us, and women began to shout, “No, no!”
We learned that photography was prohibited at the dock. “Your cameras will be confiscated,” informed an officer politely.
As we left the roofed structure, we saw men bathing out in the open, people carrying wastes in carts and transporting fish, eels and prawns to the stores in the dock.
After 30 minutes there, we walked out. People at the dock ignored us and didn’t even bother to notice, which is unlikely in a city people swarm tourists. No one ran after us to sell fish. They were just too caught up in their own work.
As we entered the city and reached Colaba, it was the usual hubbub. Visiting Sassoon Docks was an odd experience. Underneath the superficial beauty and hip culture of the city, I experienced something real – not built for tourists or preserved for any commercial interests but a community in its true form; smelly but real.
