“You should’ve come when we get bombil. It is beautiful, every surface of Mandav is covered with it"

As one walks along the coastline of Versova village in Mumbai, a stretch of bamboo scaffolds rises from the marsh — the Mandavs. These are fish-drying structures built on stilts, sitting on the wet ground, easily noticeable by the sharp, lingering smell of dried fish placed upon them.

At one corner of this long line of Mandavs, Leela Solanki, 46, is finishing her day’s work. She mops the floors, refills the drums, and ties up bundles of dry fish. “You should’ve come when we get bombil,” she says, referring to the Bombay duck. “It is beautiful,  every surface of Mandav is covered with it.” During the monsoon, however, most of the Mandavs lie empty, waiting for the weather to clear.

In Versova village,  fish drying was once practised by the Kolis, but today it is largely sustained by Gujarati migrant families like Leela’s. They rent the mandav grounds from the Kolis for around ₹60,000 per year for a single structure, rebuilding it biannually after the monsoon.

Leela’s family migrated from Jafarabad, Gujarat, to Versova about 85 years ago. “I was born and raised in this village”, speaking in a language that is a mix of Koli and Gujarati. Her family has been in the same business for over three generations. “My grandmother, my mother, and my mother-in-law have all worked every day under the sun”, she says. Today, Leela’s family manages three Mandavs along the coast.

Although a family enterprise, it is mostly the women who oversee the construction and day-to-day operations of the Mandavs. Leela wakes up before dawn, finishes her household chores, and then heads to the local market to get the fresh catch. She spends most of the day drying fish under the harsh sun. Once dried, the fish is packed into large sacks and sent to Marol Bazaar, where it is sold wholesale to dealers across the state.

“The salt-rubbed dhomi ( silver croaker) — that’s our speciality,” she says, covering the shiny fish left to dry overnight. “This fish can only be dried properly in Versova, on a mandav.” Still, it is the dried prawns that give her the best rate. Prices fluctuate with the seasons; they rise in winter and drop with the arrival of the rains. On her best weeks, she gets  ₹ 20,000 to 25,000, while other weeks often bring only marginal profit. 

After years of working here, she has built relationships with many Koli families who now sell her their catch at the best rates, along with the daily wage labourers from Andhra Pradesh who sort and clean the fish for her. “We’ve come to this village to work. We don’t own the land, but my business thrives here more than it ever will in my village,” Leela says. 

Leela’s two sons work in the merchant navy in the deep sea, and she doesn’t want them to continue the family business. “We can work under the harsh sun”, she says, “ but our children shouldn’t.” Leela, like many others of her generation, is firm on not wanting their children to continue this harsh and demanding labour.

When asked when she plans on stopping this business, she smiles and gestures toward her 80-year-old mother working on the adjacent mandav. “My mother is still working, no? I don’t know anything else other than this — the mandav is what I wish to do till I’m alive.”

As the sun dims, Leela’s mother and sister sit in a corner to eat bhel. Leela hops on the next mandav to join them, resting for a moment under the soft, cloudy sky.