Catch and cook

Rajni Kathin aka Rajni Aaji is a 65-year-old fisherwoman from Mumbai’s Koli community. By day she sells fish with her two daughters. In the evenings, she helps her YouTube, Facebook and Instagram audience learn how to make traditional Koli fish dishes at home. Her recipes have never been written down. They’re a sort of lived heritage passed on from generation to generation, usually between the women.

It all began for Kathin in January 2020, when a pop-up events company asked if her family would be willing to teach paying customers to cook Koli food, in a real Koli kitchen. After a video of that event did well online, Kathin’s 25-year-old grandson Tanay Tapke began helping her make videos of her own. She and her two daughters, Harsha Tapke, 50, and Triveni Koli, 39, do the cooking. “We don’t make any extra efforts for the videos. He shoots while we cook our daily meals,” Harsha says.

In the pandemic, with fish markets closed and the business flatlining, the family started an account on Instagram (@bombaystatefisheries) and a YouTube channel.

“Now, when people come to buy fish from me in the market, I tell them about our channel and ask them to subscribe. So many young people came back to me after watching the videos and asked for the ingredients. I also sell them homemade masalas,” Kathin says.

The videos are in Marathi, with English subtitles. They’re easy to follow. Try the Sukha Vakti Aambat (a sour curry of dried river fish) and the Bharlela Kekda or stuffed crabs. The latter video starts with a live crab crawling around the kitchen. Kathin shows how to catch, clean and cook it. There are interesting traditional recipes for fish-and-vegetable combinations too.

“It’s really important to preserve these recipes as my grandson’s generation and the people younger than him don’t even know the dishes’ names,” Kathin says. “They can make pizza but not bhakri which is the traditional Koli roti. These videos will make them learn.”

Rajni Kathin, 65, says she makes her videos partly because it bothers her that youngsters in her community can make pizza but not bhakris. She can help you learn to make treats like stuffed crab (left).