Dreamgirl Hema Malini dominates the Instagram feed of fashion lensman Shashank Lawate. He follows female and male models on shoot destinations as varied as Burj Khalifa and Sydney Opera. But, as he pursues, what he terms "livelihood travel", one remote island— over 70 km from Mumbai, half-an-hour from Virar railway station—has unwittingly been stamped in his consciousness.

A chance visit to a friend's farm in Virar during the lockdown introduced Lawate, 47, to the infrastructural impasse in Arnala. As he took the ferry to the island from one side of Arnala beach, he realised the daily inconvenience faced by a cross-section, which has to literally wade through sea water because of the lack of a passenger terminal. As he made friends with the Mangela Kolis in the island—their population is 4,503—he gathered stories of risky adventures, freak accidents and the dependence on a lone passenger boat. He decided to draw the attention of the civic administration, particularly the Maharashtra Maritime Board, to the lack of a passenger terminal, a safe and dry waiting area, which could have made life better for an island that is often ravaged by choppy sea waves.