Following the lives of Ganesh and Rakesh, two fishermen of the Koli community of Maharashtra, Against the Tide by Sarvnik Kaur is a true portrayal of the coexistence of friendship and hardship. When the scarcity of fish in the sea hinders the two men from making profits alongside other troubles, the question of whether they must stand by their ancestral practices or abandon them arises.
Despite belonging to the same community and being part of the same profession, we see a stark contrast between the quality of life they both live. Ganesh lives in the city and Rakesh in a village. We witness the problems of the poorer sect of Kolis through the sickness of Rakesh’s son — because of which decides to sell his boat for money. Ganesh’s inability to catch any fish in the shallow water and financial problems make him succumb to using LED to catch fish. The latter is a practice which is condoned traditionally and is illegal. At the 10th edition of the Documentary Film Festival, Kaur said, “Ganesh was sitting in a moral dilemma,” and this can be seen throughout the movie in conversations with his wife and friend.
“The shallow water of the sea is infested with plastic,” Ganesh explained to Kaur while filming, which raises questions about a much larger concern — climate change and its consequences. There are multiple instances in the film where we see more plastic waste than fish being caught which makes us think about the everyday effects of climate change and people who are directly impacted by it. When asked why she chose to document the Kolis, Kaur explained how stories of displacement resonate with her. She said, “Without the Kolis, the city (Mumbai) would die.”
Throughout the movie, we observe Ganesh being fearful of what is to happen next and Rakesh embracing what life has to give him. According to Kaur, they “represented polarities,” and made Ganesh and Rakesh the apt subjects for the documentary. She also says that Ganesh and Rakesh’s thought process seems like “a conversation between the heart and the mind” giving her the liberty to film two different narratives rooted in the same problems. The struggles of not the two friends, and their becoming representational of a larger conversation about the Koli community are captured seamlessly by Kaur.
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