Sundance-Winner 'Against The Tide' & Sarvnik Kaur's Six Years Of Longing

At first, Sarvnik Kaur’s Against The Tide might seem like just another documentary trying to profile the Kolis – Mumbai’s fishing community. However, nothing sells it like a ‘Bombay film’ more than the nifty Bollywood tribute in its premise – about two friends, belonging to different classes, clashing because of their differing world views. It’s a trope Hindi cinema would use often during the ‘90s – where someone from a basti (often played by Nana Patekar) would find themselves coming to blows with their refined, upper-class friend (think Atul Agnihotri?) because of some ‘development project’ that threatens the erasure of the slum. If one is familiar with the trope, there’s a chance they might enjoy Kaur’s film all the more – given how it circles around the erasure of a community in the name of blind development. But even without that context, Against The Tide is a riveting, visually evocative documentary that buries itself deep into the world of its protagonists, giving us a taste of the stakes and the heartbreak it accompanies.

Kaur’s film is the third consecutive Indian documentary to premiere and win an award at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival. Winning a Special Jury prize in Verite filmmaking, Against The Tide is a stunning document of a nation in a flux. Kaur finds two versions of her country in her protagonists. Rakesh, a firm traditionalist arguing incessantly for holding onto one’s roots, while battling for basic survival. He faces stiff competition from the likes of Ganesh, a pragmatist (almost recklessly) chasing the spoils of the first-world. One of the highlights of Against The Tide is how surgical Kaur is while examining the merits and fallacies of both world views, going on to uncover how the game is rigged against both her protagonists. Through them, Kaur’s film becomes an empathetic warning for a planet hurtling towards doom.

While bunking in her hotel room in Salt Lake City (Utah, USA), Kaur seems to have found a rhythm in her answers (evidently because of the interviews she’s doing one after the other). From battling impostor syndrome while ‘helping’ with a cause to finding her film’s climax in a totally unexpected way, Kaur recalls her journey to Firstpost of almost exactly six years, from first picking up the camera in a Koliwada to witnessing the world premiere of Against The Tide.

Edited excerpts:

What got you interested in the Koli community?

It was around 2015 that the coastal road project (in Mumbai) was first proposed, and there was talk of Koli displacement from villages. Around then, I’d been working on a film set in Kashmir – and it had to do with resistance, memories of people, history and repression of the state. I started to equate the Koli displacement with that of Kashmiris. In one place we call it nationalism, in another we call it ‘development’. These [collective causes] somehow never include an individual. For me, I thought the violence of it, the implications of it, were overlapping.

For some background: my grandparents came from Pakistan, and my grandfather passed away in 2015. It was a sad time for us, because he would dream about going back home one day. He would repeatedly have this dream where he’s chasing his mother from room to room, and she’s not stopping. In 1984, the house they had built after being hand-to-mouth for a really long time, was burned down during the anti-Sikh riots. I was one-year-old. There was a history of displacement in my own family, which is why it was a very dear subject for me.

In 2009, right after [my master’s in] Jamia [Millia Islamia University], I shifted to Yari Road in Mumbai – which was right next to a Koli village. Actually the entire place is built on reclaimed land. I was clueless about how to get started, I was trying to figure out what to do. I had this vague idea that this land belongs to the Koli people, but Bombay being a man-made city, how does one make a water-tight case for one’s land and that it belongs to a particular community? I had to start somewhere, so I began with my access to the Marol fish market and a womens’ collective in it. When I first got in touch with them they were trying to set up a resistance against BMC’s move to make a mall on their fish market. This fish market was given to them by a Parsi family 175 years ago. So, the women are Mumbaikars and they know that no BMC will give them the basement for their fish market as they’re promising. And it’s their livelihood. It’s not a large collective, there are about 200 women in this, but they had this idea that they will do a Road Roko. Logistically, it sounded impossible to me, but of course they did it. It wasn’t a success as they expected, but they were directed by cops towards Azad Maidan, to take their protest over there. That’s when I started to think that they needed a hand with this, so I started making some short videos for them. Just to generate a certain amount of civil interest among regular Mumbaikars in their cause. In the beginning, I was naive enough to think that I was helping their cause. It’s only much later that I realised that it was my cause too. I was living in a place that had been created after clearing out mangroves.

It’s not like I was aiding them in any way, but if anything they were the ones protecting me by living where they live. Because if not for the Koli villages, builders would occupy every last inch. By then, even the CRZ norms had been ‘relaxed’ from no construction allowed in 100m from a point of high tide, to about 10m. At this rate, this entire city was going to drown. I saw the Koli community as the last bastion of defence for the city, since they’re protecting the mangroves.

Where did you find your two protagonists – Rakesh and Ganesh?

During my time with the women’s collective, I met this lady – Bhanu Vasudev Koli – Rakesh’s mother. I call her ‘Kaki’ now. She invited me home for lunch, and that’s when I met Rakesh for the first time. He took me fishing, and he had this great pride in his community. He had incredible confidence in his ability to catch fish, and feed his family. At that point, since we’re these ‘clever’ people of the city who know everything, I didn’t know what it meant. It took me two years to realise that. There’s an entire value system that has gone into inculcating that pride. There’s a deep-rooted intelligence that his value to this world doesn’t come from just… money.

While I was working with the women’s collective, there was a time when 25 nautical miles from the coast, they were trying to reserve a space for the merchant vessels to come and go. It was called Sagar Mala – a pet project of the BJP – where they would connect all ports for the merchant vessels movement. Kolis are traditionally shallow sea fishermen – think of them as farmers. Like farmers, they have this segregated real estate in the sea, separated by bamboo sticks planted in the sea-bed. It demarcates one person’s fishing area from another. If this Sagar Mala was to happen, it would displace the Kolis completely. It was like a double assault on their livelihood, as well as their land. It was during Sagar Mala that all the Kolis had come together, because it endangered everyone. It was around this time that I first met Ganesh. He was talking using a fresh vocabulary. He wasn’t talking in the language of protest, which to be fair most of us have become rather desensitised towards. Ganesh was talking about plastic pollution, he was talking about the marginalisation of his community based on recent facts. He was like this unofficial leader, when he would talk everyone would become spellbound. I went and spoke to him, because I wanted to understand how to construct my film. We met for coffee, and that was that. About a month later, when I went to meet Rakesh, I found Ganesh sitting and drinking with him. That’s how my film was born. I think it was a form of cosmic intervention, and I was literally led by my nose to my film.

From thereon, I didn’t film with them for the longest time. I would just sit with them and drink whiskey. And I would be privy to their insane discussions, they would argue, they would debate, get up in a huff, fight, swear to never see each other’s faces. And then they would meet again.

There’s such a refined visual approach, I thought (cinematographer) Ashok Meena’s work was outstanding. How did you arrive at the visual language of the film?

Over a lot of five years, a lot of cinematographers have shot the film, but yes Ashok Meena is our primary cinematographer. We were using a Sony A7S III. We were a very small crew, it was mostly me, Moinak (my sound recordist) and Ashok. I was the spot dada on my set, at some level it was impossible for me to see each and every frame being shot. So, Ashok and I would have these insane discussions before leaving for the shoot. One thing that I very clearly made a connection about early on was – whatever happens on the sea, happens in their lives. The crisis in the sea is easy to film, because of the apparent plastic pollution and the jellyfish infestation. I just have to wait for the right season and be patient to witness it and therefore record it. But what happens in the sea, also brings some sort of a familial and financial pressure on the family.

And Ashok is a deeply empathetic guy, I call him ‘Babaji’. There was a lot of faith in one another, while we were shooting. Around the deep-sea portions, Ashok had left to shoot in Ladakh for another friend’s film. Ganesh had given me 20-days notice that the Indian govt was banning the Purse Seine form of fishing, where long nets are suspended in the water and they make a purse kind of thing and pull it out. That form of fishing was going to be banned in 20 days, and Ganesh gave me that much time to figure out how we were going to shoot. I reached out to Ashok – and he put me in touch with his FTII batchmate Vikas Urs – who was based out of Goa. Vikas came on board for the deep sea portions, and the last 30% of the film. I had taken Umeed Mistry – who was our underwater DOP, and at this point, we had no idea how we were going to use the underwater footage in the rest of the film, but I knew I wanted to cover it from all aspects. So, Umeed was our underwater DOP, Vikas was our primary DOP and Omkar Phatak, who was our drone operator and second camera operator.

There’s that moment when Ganesh is going all in for his ‘jackpot’ – it felt like a tense heist sequence. What was that day like?

In the 7 days, we got to fish only twice. Ganesh had no idea when he would be fishing next because the bans were being enforced, and then got lifted. He didn’t know what was going to happen, which is why he had to take another loan and get the LED lights. We did one regular fishing, we did one LED fishing and we didn’t get too many fish – and I had anticipated this, so we were all hands on deck. I had this clarity in my head, I think of myself as a screenplay writer, so I knew how this film was going to progress. I knew the LED fishing was going to progress towards the latter half of the film. What I didn’t know was that we would catch nothing. I was very sure that we would catch something – and that would be the end of my film. There was so much dependence on LED for almost five years of our shoot – that I was sure we would catch. We had been sitting on this ethical conundrum for a very long time, but I thought that LED fishing would be the answer to all of Ganesh’s worries. I was sure. So, for some time, I didn’t know how to finish my film anymore. Of course, it took some sort of distance from the project for me to realise that of course this is the end of your film – you stupid woman! Because there’s no fish to be had. It doesn’t matter if you’re using all the technological intervention, the resources are scarce. So, that’s how it panned out.

Our 11-person crew – we were so sure he would finally find fish, and that would be the end of all his problems. We were all very depressed. It was heartbreaking to film him on that day, he was so angry, he went into the deck and cried. He then came out. He was so frustrated that being around with a camera felt like an intrusion. But it had to be done, otherwise what was the point of it? He was hoping that this film would be a way to work with the policy makers, cos he’s somewhat of an influencer. He was devastated by the fact that he had caught nothing.

Also, talk to me about the day when you got their confrontation. What was that day like?
In the film, that scene comes before he goes for the LED fishing. But we’d actually shot it after he had gone for the LED fishing. He was so heartbroken and disillusioned, and as a result so bitter, because he was at a juncture where he was about to go sell his boat the next day. He was feeling so compromised that day after having taken that plunge and failed that I had to do very little. I just had to film it – we had set the cameras over-the-shoulder, because I wanted that drama to be brought alive. I think that was the easiest scene, he (Ganesh) needed that release.

It looks like an intensely physical film. Was there ever a day when you wanted to shut it all down?

I think once you get on with the program, you know it’s going to be hard so you stop complaining about it, and start doing it. I’m actually glad to have someone like Ashok around – like I said, Babaji. He really loves his job, there’s very little motivation he needs from me. As the leader of the pack, I quickly realised that I had to become the most insignificant thing on set. I couldn’t put my own tiredness over the crew’s. I had to be able to lift the heaviest of weights on set, and my one true job was to keep the process going. Don’t give yourself a deadline, do it slowly and carefully. When you climb a mountain, you don’t stress over deadlines, you take one step at a time.

Were you ever tempted to zoom out from the two protagonists, and turn it into a nature doc?

Not at all. I wanted to work on my craft. I had been working as a scriptwriter when I moved to Mumbai, and at some point I ran out of stories. I started to feel like a pen-for-hire and I felt like I had no story left in me. So, with this film I had to rejuvenate the storyteller inside me. I never thought that I had to make a film on the entire community. And that’s because I started from a very macro-level, and was slowly brought to these characters by the grace of God.

Yours is the third consecutive Indian doc to be playing at Sundance. How does it feel to be a part of what many are calling the golden age of Indian non-fiction?
We’ve been able to learn from each other, I think I stand on their shoulders right now. It’s a reason why I’ve thanked Rintu, Sushmit and Shaunak at the beginning of my film. They showed me the way.

As opposed to some of your peers – I’m hoping we’ll get to see your film in India.
It’s a part of my impact plan to go around Koli villages and show my film. We’ll probably carry a white curtain and some speakers, but we’re planning to do this very soon.

When you’re embedded in a project for so long, is it easy to lose faith? How does one bounce back?

No, actually the project was very life-affirming for me. The project gave me such tunnel vision for the last six years. If you ask me what film has come out in the last six months, I won’t be able to tell you. If you ask me what has been happening in the country, I won’t be able to tell you. For me, Ganesh/Rakesh was all I could think of, through this time. To actually have collaborators from around the world reach out to you with finances, workshops – Ganesh, Rakesh and I have seen each other through lots of highs and lows. In a way, my quest became their quest, became my quest. We were feeding off of each other’s energies. But in the end, it has confirmed to me a very basic truth – that the world presented to us is a big lie. We live such simulated lives so we think we’re in control, but once you get down to the ground level, there is goodness, there is kindness. That some strangers would literally take you into their lives like you were their own.

Tatsam Mukherjee has been working as a film journalist since 2016. He is based out of Delhi NCR.

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