Riding the plank for a catch

For a place that is named Explosives Jetty, this little stretch at the Naval Dockyard at Chembur looks rather benign, almost idyllic, writes Mini Pant Zachariah.

For a place that is named Explosives Jetty, this little stretch at the Naval Dockyard at Chembur looks rather benign, almost idyllic. It’s an area populated largely by the fisherfolk — the men pushing their heavy boats through the waist-deep sludge left behind by the receding tide, their womenfolk carrying the day’s catch on their heads.

HT Image

When the water is high, fishermen can come right up to the shore to unload the day’s catch — shrimps, prawns, crabs and fish like surmai, rawas and ghod. But when the tide recedes, pushing the boats, trawlers and steamers 200 metres away from the shore, you see fishermen transferring their fresh catch from the boats onto narrow wooden planks six-foot long and a foot wide.

Deftly balancing their right knee and left hand on the plank, they slide up to the boat on the soft slush, unload the catch — sometimes up to a hundred kilograms — and slide back across the slush to the shore.

The body is kept parallel to the board, the right hand offsetting the weight of the left knee, while the left hand and right leg push the semi-solid surface back, thrusting the plank forward. The going is tricky — one small mistake can wipe out a day’s earnings. To avoid fatigue, the fishermen alternate hands and knees in a skillful manoeuvre.

Even children learn the skill early. When the first monsoon showers hit Mumbai’s shores, these children converge here to surf on the slurry in celebration. But as they turn away from their parents’ profession, the skill is slowly dying out.

Darshan Koli, 27, a fisherman’s son and engineering student admits he cannot do it. “I come to watch the 35-odd boys from our community do it every monsoon. A day before Holi, too, fishermen go out to sea on the plank because getting the mud on the body is considered auspicious,” he says.