Mumbai—once a cluster of villages connected by the sea—is being reshaped by modern bridges and land reclamation. This development comes at a cost: the erasure of the old world and its indigenous people, the Kolis, who lived in deep harmony with the sea. Their way of life—their fishing traditions and ferry transport linking these villages—is fading into obscurity.
Lost Songs of Sundari follows the Koli myth of a legendary ferryboat, and its ferrywoman- who guided people across creeks, long before these monstrous bridges existed. Through the perspectives of a woman recounting Sundari’s tale, an aging ferry operator who runs the Versova-Madh ferry, and a young child witnessing the changes, the film explores how progress, while practical, has disconnected a community bound by tradition and the sea. Now, Sundari lives on only in songs and stories, her memory overshadowed by urbanization, and soon that fate awaits the Koli community itself.