“Secret Market Walk” by Assavri Kulkarni (completely left) as part of the ARTS Serendipity 2024 festival.
Pimples? There’s a fish. Eye infections? Another fish. Do you need a face package? Try some scales. For any reason and season is a fish.
This is the largest with you from the recent project of fashion photographer Assavri Kulkarniho, recipes of the river. “It is a documentary about fishing communities that live by the river and maintain their livelihood and compile their traditional knowledge,” he says.
It is an interview about the fish with her daughter, who built a bulletin to travel to the documentary. “The knowledge of the whole community will be lost,” he says. The bulletinist belongs to the fishing community and its knowledge was obtained by just watching her family to the fish market and listening. “It wasn’t taught … They just talked about it and we could absorb what we wanted. We absorb a lot as children.” As part of the research, he focuses on documenting seasons as “everything happens according to the season”.
He has been exploring the bulletinist for two years and talking to the older in the community. “Listening to their stories is incredible. They do not know English and have not done, but they have so much knowledge to share. It is as if they have made ph.D on fish. They know the tides and waters that migrate and that are not coming,” he says. For example, some fish are not consumed during the breeding season, allowing them to spread time. During the monsoon, molluscs are not eaten because they can affect the stomach. “Everything is related to the monthly cycles. They watch what the fish eat accordingly.” Therefore, during the full moon they reap the crab because the crabs will be empty (at that time they mix).
Assavri Kulkarni shares insight into the local seasonal production Goa.
Feast for the senses
Kulkařni’s father was an invaluable source in his research and even followed him to the sea. “My father says that there will be no oysters or clams in the next 10 years. Water is changing, the seabed is dying because it is covered with wasting and cannot breathe. We have lost a lot of sea animals,” he says. Climate change and pollution have changed industry.
“Our community worships the sea and veiled, the god of the wind and the sea. Na Nariyal Poornima we offer coconut to the sea before the start of the fishing season. It is our way to give gratitude and ask for a good year and business,” says Kulkarni. During his hourly session at the Arts festival in Serendipity in Goa last December, he shares more such tidbits.
From the workshop “Recipes of the Greek” by Assavri Kulkarni at the Serendpity Arts Festival 2024.
The bulletinist brought a basket with various river fish and each of them speaks in detail. “The more fish standards, the healthier it is for you … Therefore, the rivers are widely consumed here. My grandmother would use XEVTO (striped gray parm) on the eyelids when we had a style, and on pimples and pimples and it worked.
At the end of the meeting, a bulbous feast – mayonnaise Fish (salad is a base in Goan Catholic wedding and is served like a fish), Karela Kismur (a bitter gourd with coconut and chili), pumpkin and dried shrimp Bhaji and fish curry.
The Kulkarni project is even more important at a time when fish are consumed out of season. Varieties such as Chonak (Barramundi) are now bred because of their popularity and catch is usually frozen and not eaten fresh. “This (her art/photograph) is a weapon that I have to show what Goa has and what Goa must keep,” he logs.
The writer is a journalist and freelance editor from Goa.
Published – 1 August 2025 07:15
