The life of a fisherman

A day in the life of Vasu Turbhekar, 54, a traditional Koli fisherman in Worli, Mumbai.
I get up at 3am every morning and go out on my fishing boat. I go with my son, Vaibhav, and two workers. We travel 6 kilometres into the Arabian Sea, which takes about one- and a half hours. We put the nets out to sea. Each net is 30 metres long and we have 90 of them, so it amounts to more than 2km.
We stop the boat and wait for one and a half hours to catch the fish. I just sit and wait. I can't sleep once I've started working. It then takes about two hours to haul the nets in.
I've always worked as a fisherman, but I bought my own boat 22 years ago.
Once we've hauled the nets in, we head back to the shore and we arrive at about 10am.
We take the nets off the boat and my wife, Rekha, and my son help me to unravel the nets and shake the fish out of them. This takes a couple of hours.
Some days we don't catch much, perhaps only one bucket, which is about 2.5kg and worth about 200 rupees (Dh11). But the next day we might end up with 15 bucketloads or even more. A trader comes and buys all the catch from us once we arrive on to land.
Then I go home and eat lunch. I eat fish every day, but I only sometimes eat what we catch, because we like to get some variety so we buy from the market.
I'll then take a nap for an hour or two. I get up and then start repairing the nets, which are very delicate and tear very easily. I'll do that for a few hours.
I have dinner and then I go to bed. I like to watch television when I get a chance to relax and love watching Hindi serials and the Discovery Channel.
I go out fishing every day of the year. I only take a day off if I'm ill. It's a hard life, but I love this free life and I'm my own boss.
* Rebecca Bundhun