In July 2011, when 23 year-old Shweta Ghosh walked into Koliwada in Trombay to make a documentary, enthusiasm was not the only thing she carried with her — assumptions trotted merrily alongside her camera. Ghosh, a student of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), was out on the field with three other students to film the fishermen’s community in the area and was sure they’d tell her about their distress due to land acquisitions over decades.

Instead, the first issue a community member spoke to her about was how Koli music is turning “dhik-chak-dhik-chak”. They even had a term for it — Koli Techno. “The traditional Koli song where the woman mourned her husband’s absence while he was at sea has now been remixed with a catchy tune, luring him back,” says Ghosh. The current generation has no time to fret over the land acquisitions that happened in the past — the biggest issue for most Kolis is how to convert their home into a “teen manjla ghar”, or have a better life. Ghosh’s film, Fish Tales, explores these unexpected narratives of Kolis and the challenges they face as their traditional customs and occupation (fishing) face threat from the ‘modernity’ of the world outside Koliwada.