Dharavi, a view inside one of the world’s biggest slums
Have you ever imagined being in a place where there are more than half a million people living to a square kilometer area? A million people living in the area of 20 football fields? A place which has 1 toilet seat to 1400 people?
Welcome to Dharavi.
The biggest slum in Mumbai and probably one of the most notorious ones in the world, visiting Dharavi is an experience that leaves with you a feeling of awe at how people can live in such squalid conditions as well as the sense of enterprise and hustle these people have in trying to improve the conditions of their lives. There is a sense of hope and a sense of a better future in the air as you walk down the dingy, garbage strewn alleys, bustling with life.
Dharavi is known for its depiction in countless movies, artworks and literary pieces. It has been depicted in detail in the Oscar winning movie, Slumdog Millionaire. Housing a million people in an area of 400 acres, makes it one of the densest places on earth in terms of human inhabitation.
As soon as you enter into one of the dirty alleys, one cannot help but breath in the strong odour in the air, varying but extremely strong. In fact one cannot escape it wherever you are inside the slum area. There is a constant bustle once you enter with people moving hurriedly past you in the narrow by-lanes, which are strewn with litter and open drains. People carrying material to be processed in the plastic recycling plants, carrying freshly made recycled soap or scrap for the aluminium melting facilities inside one of the small workshops which are set inside seemingly unrecognisable makeshift structures. Apart from these industries, there is a thriving business for popadams (rice floor pancakes), pottery, leather goods, bags and apparel (one of the biggest exporters in the country for foreign apparel brands. It is never printed that it is made in Dharavi :)), bakery products, to name a few. It is incredulous to know that the market for Dharavi goods accounts for a turnover more than $600 million worldwide! A shocking number knowing most of the workers earn only upto 150 Rupees/ day, which is below India’s poverty line. In fact the workers earn so less that they cannot even afford to rent a place even in the most backward part of the slum, often resorting to live and sleep in the workshops itself.
Life is hard for the people in Dharavi, especially for the new migrants who have making it a home and who work in one of these small factories. People work in these makeshift establishments, with patchy roofs and crumbling walls, almost always without any form of protection to their eyes, hands or feet, like the young kid who was transporting liquid aluminium from the foundry into one of the lead moulds which would shape the shiny liquid metal into bars, using nothing more than a ladle, all this while wearing a thin loincloth, rubber flip-flops as and jute gloves. No wonder that these workers suffer from a plentitude of health issues including cancer, vision problems, breathing issues and heavy metal poisoning.
As my guide describes it, ‘In the anticipation of having a brighter future, these men sacrifice their present’. That is the irony in which these people are living.
Nothing is wasted in this place. Every item is either recycled, refurbished to be used back within the slum or resold back into the market. There is a constant sense of enterprise and hustle which is prevalent throughout the area. Unlike other slums where 80% people are jobless and with 20% working, the reverse is true for Dharavi. Almost everyone works here either within the slum or they take up a job in the societies outside of Dharavi.
The whole slum is divided into two broad areas, the commercial are which houses all the small workshops and industries and the residential area which houses each of the inhabitants. Interestingly there feels a strong sense of community wherever you travel inside of Dharavi. Most of the people live with their families in tiny rooms, most of which are less than 100 square feet in area with an average family size of 4–5 people to a household. The rooms have all aspects of running a household, which include amenities to cook, wash clothes and bathing, all packed in this tiny area. Sometime it makes me wonder how do people live in such a place, with so little breathing space. Some of the alleys which take you across these households are a mere two feet in width, which makes walking through the lanes difficult. One can feel the suffocation in living in such cramped places, and it does bring out the best of the claustrophobia inside of you. But for the people of Dharavi, it is a daily affair. They’ve gotten used to it and so have the generations that came after them.
One thing is for sure, I haven’t come across anyone sad or dejected during my walk inside the worlds most famous slum. Women work together to prepare and sell food along with managing their daily chores, just so that they bring in extra money into their families. There is a strong sense in helping each other out and coexistence in this place, which living in a bigger community flat in Mumbai doesn’t even come close in giving. There is a strong sense of welcoming change, a strong sense of purpose :)
People in Dharavi wage a daily battle, be it for water with the 2 hour/day supply limits, strenuous work conditions, constant exposure to disease owing to the lack of basic sanitation and safe disposal of waste, all this struggle would only makes them stronger to take on life’s biggest battles and these people have already been prepared for the worst. We are privileged to have been brought up with a roof on our head, clean water to drink, decent food in our belly and a good education.
Exposure to the struggle of people living in slums (incidentally, more than 50% of Mumbai’s population live in slums!) provides the quintessential lens of introspection for our own day to day struggles and suffering. Through all the dejection that I got to see in this unforgettable place and through the indescribable journey, the improvement that is happening on a daily basis, smiles on the faces of the women and kids, the strong sense of community and helping each other out, the change which is elicited by the industrious people, provides a hope for a better future for the people living in Dharavi.
A future more prosperous than the present.
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