Koli villages

Mumbai is a fascinating city, it is like hell but probably the hell that made Oscar Wilde prefer it for the company.
It is a city of magic when the fairy chariots come out at night and let you be the king on that Marine Drive stroll, it is city of prayers and chants and sighs and small kids that manage to be witty and make up new jokes to sell you a henna stamp , just there in the middle of daily tragedies we would not even dare to accept in a soap.
Several destinies are made there and several worlds live next to another, the living and the dead , the businessman and the clowns, the priests and the devils. And several people, hindu, bengali, portuguese, english , nobody ever leaves Bombay , you just take a bit more distance at looking.
Mumbai does not show any signs of its past, a past made up of people who all despised but all fought to be there.
Said so, in the guidebooks it is written that if you travel up the northern local train line , after 45 mins drive you can catch a carry and stroll in fishermen villages , very much alike to those first fishermen communities that used to be there when the Portuguese arrived.
This is where I went .

This is the beach where the ferry brings us to the fishermen islands and villages. One can see the golden pagoda, site of a meditation centre well renowned (who would have believed at 50 mins from Mumbai downtown?)

As soon as I landed there , nobody was in sight, but at least the drying fishing nets consoled me and made me hope that it was not another fake authenticity trip sold by one guideboo: some fishermen must have been there

I was being misleaded by the unusual calm, one could even hear the wind, and after some meters the fishermen were there, straigthening out there nets. 

It was just matter of few minutes before reaching the village and more fish.
Eventhough at some point , these islands were inhabitated by koli people, the many "pereira" , "o'souza" family names hinted at portugues coming here and enjoying the secluded island.

On the other side of the island the fisherment boats were resting. It was already too hot.

The streets were really pleasant, I think that the villagers had not seen many tourists (and that day it was only me !) but they did not overwhelm in the usual , and sometimes fun sometimes exhausting, way. They had this kind of attitude like live and let live, i was certainly weird but no reason not to let me enjoy time with them.

 

Many houses had a kind of altar in the hindu style only dedicated to catholicism.
Rather than thinking of the first koli communities, it seemed to be in a lost bit of Goa.

Many ladies were sitting in the shades and separating dry fishes. It seemed to be the typical occupation at this time of the day and in a way the place was quietly busy.

From inside the houses, one could hear the televisions or hifi turned on. Sometimes there were tunes from a bollywood song or sometimes the goan music style (Konkani pop). You could hear the children dance and laugh from inside.
One of the things I love about India is that music is always there and it is there to be sung and to be danced through , as important as food or water (maybe that's too much)

On the other side of the village the open bay and the ocean. And of course at least one stall for snacks !!
Eventhough there were just some guys playing cricket .

These are children from the huts , there is a bidonville even in these places. The social ladders never fail in India

And just before boarding the train , one look at downtown from the village.. So close in the end