Bandra Bazar Fish Market And The Warm Koli Hospitality, a photo by firoze shakir photographerno1 on Flickr.
If you have not visited the Bandra Bazar fish market , you should and as you enter from the side of green masala vegetable seller ask for Manjula Khankian , she is the pleasing face that meets you sitting on a perched platform.. strangely after living in this vicinity for so many years she is the only one I know by name ,, though I buy fish from the other ladies who all know me by my camera , attire and my grand daughters.
Manjula is very close to both my grand daughters having seen them since they were tiny tots..there are there are 3 sections in the fish market including the courtyard space where there are three East Indian koli women and a few Gujrati Kolis from Chimbai .
You get good fish prawns lobsters and reasonably priced but you have to bargain , I have been to almost a lot of fish markets Khar Khar Danda Juhu Versova and Andheri but somehow I found my comfort level while buying fish at Bandra Bazar,, perhaps because they know I bargain a lot , and buy at my price ,,
My family eats surmai rawas gol or pomfret and prawns once I ate crabs but than wife put an injunction that it was taboo Makroo.. so I dont eat it at home ..I do succumb to its taste when I visit my Koli friend Prakash and his son Mithun at Versova fishing village close to the jetty.
I have had a great respect for the Kolis having lived in a Koli village at Danpada Khar Danda during the 93 riots .. they saved our lives we will be for ever grateful to them .. we had fled leaving all our belongings to my mothers house at Colaba which was one of the most peaceful places during the hardhitting bad times while Mr Naik played the fiddle along with Mr Narsimha Rao.. May Their Souls Rest In Piece ,,
