Hello! I am Gleb Kuznetsov, I am 26 years old, today I want to talk about one of my days spent in the Indian city of Mumbai, which is however known throughout the world under its former name Bombay, thanks to the wonderful book “Shantaram”. We visited the very Bombay slums where Shantaram takes place and around. Just this evening I arrived by train from the mountain resort of Pune, famous for the Osho Ashram, and did not have time to comprehend this phenomenon - Bombay. Therefore, the first look out the window upon waking up, and a shiver runs down your spine. Having seen this, a person cannot remain indifferent, and a photographer cannot sit idly by. It’s half past six, it’s quickly getting light, but I do the prescribed exercise, take a photo for memory and run into the city. 
People sleep everywhere, they sleep in families, side by side, in deep sleep, women, children, old people. It is obvious that they are not tramps or beggars, since there are bags with spare clothes and some belongings nearby. I understand that I am walking among those whom I read about in children’s books about India, among the untouchables, engaged in the dirtiest and lowest paid work and who have never had housing. I take hundreds of photographs, but photographing people sleeping on the streets of Bombay is like photographing clerks running through the streets of New York - there are countless of them. 
The night is very warm and people don’t even need blankets, and cardboard is enough for bedding. But I notice that among the homeless men sleep alone, usually near the doors of the shops. Later, my guesses would be confirmed - these were their employees or even owners who chose to spend the night at their workplace on the way home to the suburbs. But the room is stuffy - and the street is like a shared bedroom. 
By half past six the city wakes up. Servants and taxi drivers appear on the streets, and those sleeping on the sidewalks begin their morning toilet. I see that they are not tramps at all in our understanding, and after half an hour I would not distinguish them from most Indians. People from the sidewalks comb their hair and wash themselves and brush their teeth, drawing water from special barrels, and cook breakfast here over the fires. 
All of them have developed unquestioning obedience - they allow themselves to be photographed in this unsightly form, and do not interfere with the filming of sleeping members of their families. They just smile timidly and often thank you for the shot, but don’t even ask to see it. 
Meanwhile, the morning is in full swing, but I went too far towards the “Central Railway Terminal”, running from one group of sleeping people to another, like Mashenka ran from mushroom to mushroom until she ended up in a den. Thus, the idea of having breakfast at the table with a fork in hand fails, since there is not a single safe establishment in this area. But there is an opportunity to try street cuisine. Unlike most taverns for locals, street food in India is both tasty and safe (at least I, having traveled this country from Trivandrum in the south to Varanasi in the north and tried all the local pies and gingerbreads, have never had any problems). Well, a few potato pies in puff pastry with red pepper and a glass of sweet milk tea for $2, and I'm ready to hit the road. Oh, I completely forgot to tell you that any minute now a night bus from Goa is due to arrive in the Borivali area and on it are my friends - the Chistozvonov couple. Sasha and Ira were spending their vacation on the beach and, for the sake of the thrill, decided to sacrifice two nights on the bus, but wander with me through the Bombay slums. This is our mission for today, and to facilitate it, I agreed in the evening with the taxi driver Fazil on a tour of the slums and brothels and communities of transvestite hijdras. 
I get to Borivali by local train faster than expected, and while my friends are still approaching the city, I go into the entrance of a concrete high-rise building near the station that I like. The wealthy middle class lives in such houses in Bombay, and, as far as I could see, all the suburbs are built up with them, while the city center is occupied by slums and a patch of the World Trade Center with the local Latin Quarter. 
The entrance to the entrance is blocked by a crazy man, Faisal. He forbids taking photographs of himself because he is afraid of death from the camera. But Faisal is not a coward - he protects his home from evil. He has an amulet on his bare chest, and the ghost will not be able to pass by him. I still made my way in and, not wanting to frighten or offend the crazy person, I focused on photographs of the situation in the entrance. 
But here comes San Sanych! And without delay I plunge him and Ira into the world of real Bombay! 
Guide Fazil meets us in Borivali. However, he is afraid of getting on the front pages of world publications as a person involved in exposing the Bombay “dark kingdom”, so he avoids a group photo. We manage to persuade him to capture it on film much later, when all the tests are already behind us. In the meantime, he takes us to the slum area in his forty-year-old Fiat, which is parked on the sidewalk in the photo below. 
The city center, called the "World shopping center", is actually not separated from the slums by anything. There is neither a stone wall nor a wall of machine gunners - these two are completely different worlds exist side by side and, unlike major cities Latin America, do not show hostility in any way. 
Bombay slums are closed areas surrounded by wide streets. Inside there is an unimaginable tangle of narrow alleys. Basically, slums are divided into Hindu and Muslim, and also into slums where there are houses, albeit made of sheet iron, and those with only plastic sheds. Fazil is a Muslim and a member of the middle class, so he takes us to those slums that are close to his spirit. We don’t mind at all, since the Muslim slums where the Bombay middle class lives are, as they say, classics of the genre. 
The outer perimeter of the slums is occupied by shops and workshops, in the barracks closest to them there are always warehouses, and further inland there are residential “neighbourhoods”. 
After walking around the outer perimeter, Fazil asks us: “Maybe to the India Gate?” But we stubbornly demand to the very depths, and with fear for my camera and our mental health, he leads us into the slums. 
By the way, the Bombay slums are universally recognized as the safest place in India. They are completely under the control of local communities; no outsider will penetrate here, and if they do, they will not leave if local laws are violated. For tourists, access to the slums is completely free, but... one of the basic rules in the slums: “Do not take photographs!” Muslims are categorically against cameras. However, how would I tell this story? All along the way, you first have to bow to the models, politely ask how they are, and then timidly ask if they can take one picture. Men and children are always happy about this, completely dispelling established ideas. Women, especially old ones, on the contrary, react incontinently: often not understanding that I am only asking permission, they begin to call their husbands - they run out angry and it takes a lot of time to explain. In short, step by step deeper into the slums. 
After the confusion of nooks and crannies along which flow wastewater, rats and children run interspersed, we reach the heart of this part of Bombay - the courtyards. They are relatively clean and spacious and in spirit resemble a kitchen in a communal apartment. Here they wash and dry clothes, play, tinker with motorcycles, in a word, people’s entire lives are focused on these pieces of “land” in the middle of an ocean of nightmare. Here the air is like air! 
Fazil tells us that in Bombay they are outraged by the myth that poor people live in slums. According to the guide, men earn up to $500 a month here, and the housing itself in the slum can cost several tens of thousands of dollars, since it is close to the center and, so to speak, is located in a comfortable and safe area. As for general poverty, its main reason is a large number of children in families and unemployed women. And even if our Fazil doubled the earnings of the Bombay slum people, Sasha, Ira and I simultaneously came to the conclusion that these people were not so much hopelessly poor as they had become irrevocably accustomed to the surrounding nightmare situation and were not able to adequately evaluate it. 
But okay, the photo is a souvenir, and we gradually leave the slums, because after several hours of wandering here, the stench makes your throat feel nauseous and you want only one thing: to take a full lungful of air without fear! 
Here is the main sports arena of the Bombay slums! No comments are needed - we are skipping towards Fazil’s minibus! 
And we ask for fresh air. The slums united us! 
But the beach is also not exactly a beach, but a combination of a fishing dump and massive deposits of Indians. Sasha and Ira desperately ask Fazil to take them at least for half an hour “to a quiet place,” but he just laughs: “Where can I find a free place in Bombay?” 
But we walk through the city center and find it quite civilized and nice: the university and administrative buildings of English construction, wide streets, wonderful old Fiats... 
But after catching our breath, it would be nice to have lunch. We go to a vegetarian restaurant. For four dollars we order a classic dish of rice and vegetables, and we get a palm leaf like this, with a mountain of delicious food. One question: “How is it?” 
Like this! 
I don’t dare show you what we did with this food with our stubby fingers. And there is no time, since Fazil is already driving us to the Congress Hall area - Bombay's red light district. So the first charming lady shyly attracts visitors to her porch. 
Prostitutes in shabby outfits mill about along the street, but at the sight of a camera they scatter to the corners - they are afraid of fame. Fazil says that young ladies come to work from Nepal and Bangladesh, and for half an hour of work they ask for $3. 
But be careful! India is famous for its LGBT community called Hijdras. The danger is not so much in confusing such a representative of the sexual minority with a natural lady, but in not pleasing her! Hijdras are the oldest and most authoritative caste of Indian society. They have the privilege of cursing people, and paying off such a curse will cost a lot! My dear Sasha was seriously afraid of the hijdras and hid in the car, leaving me alone with them, but I, having talked enough, came to an opinion about them as sweet creatures (don’t get me wrong). 
The price for half an hour with a hijdra is the same as with a prostitute, and the money will go into the same pocket. At the back entrances to cheap brothels sit “cats” - local pimps. In addition to their strict protective function, they also supervise children while mothers are busy serving clients. 
Brothels merge with slums, and, in the end, you can never distinguish a respectable Muslim from a Bombay tycoon. 
But is it enough for one day? Unnoticed, 6 o’clock in the evening came, and it was time for Sasha and Ira to go to the bus station and back to a cozy hotel in Goa. They categorically reject all my offers to stay for a day and only ask to accompany them to the bus. We pay Fazil - a six-hour all-inclusive excursion cost us 30 US dollars. But in Bombay there is no need to look for miracles - at the station of the ultra-modern city train we find ourselves in the epicenter of a gypsy camp. Under no circumstances should you give money, because at the sight of banknotes these gypsies go berserk and start tearing you apart (I had this experience in the south of India, in Madurai). 
By the way, there are traces of Bollywood influence here. The whole city is plastered with such posters, and any European who wants can act as an extra and will receive 10 dollars for it. But Sasha and Ira don’t want to act as extras, they want to go to a hotel! 
First class on the train is cozy and cool. We have been driving for about 40 minutes, and Sasha and I are cheerfully drinking a bottle of Indian rum, so to speak, for disinfection. 
The usual welcoming crowd at the bus station! 
Wonderful gypsies sit by the bus, but all this, although it looks scary from the outside, does not carry any aggression - so you walk in the middle of such bedlam and, of course, you don’t feel comfortable, but it doesn’t cause much tension either. 
But the sleeping places in Indian buses are still not for Russian people. But okay, I escorted Ira and Sasha back to Bombay the same way. 
It’s sunset on the beach and crowds of Indians eat and drink after work, but they’re afraid to swim because they don’t know how to swim and they believe that an evil miracle Yudo lives in the ocean. I didn’t go swimming, because I didn’t want to return to the hotel naked later. 
Well, the end of this extraordinary day at the computer. Photos must be selected as soon as possible, because new ones will be added tomorrow. While doing this I fall asleep without even noticing it. 
ABOUT slums of India There are a large number of different legends and unverified rumors. The attention of the general public to the Indian slums was attracted by the popular film Slumdog Millionaire, which told the life story of a young man who came from bidonvilles mumbai. The public's interest was immediately picked up by travel agencies, which began offering special excursion tours to Indian slums. What are the real slums of India, who lives in them and how?
General definition of slum and why are residential areas given this status?
The slums have scientific definition: the bidonville category includes a residential area with a high population concentration, the buildings in which are characterized by spontaneity and the lack of infrastructure necessary for living. Most often, marginalized people and representatives of criminal structures live in slums. Slums are a phenomenon characteristic mainly of countries with warm climates, since cold climatic conditions make it impossible for a person to exist in the conditions of a bidonville.
A residential area falls into the category of slum if it does not have the following conditions:
1.
No access to clean drinking water. Moreover, the total amount of water per inhabitant is also taken into account.
2.
Working sewerage. A public toilet for several families is considered a characteristic feature of a bidonville, since, according to UN experts, such a toilet does not sufficiently meet the hygienic standards of human living conditions.
3.
Living rooms do not have sufficient space. No more than 3 people should live in one room.
4.
Living space should not be combined with work space.
5.
Residents of the area must be the owners of their homes.
Most often, slums arise in cities where the standard of living of the majority of the population is below average, and the process of urbanization is proceeding too quickly.
Mumbai slums: features and secrets
Slums of former Bombay They are unique even in their location - after all, they are not located on the outskirts of the city, but are directly adjacent to its central streets. There is no separation between the center and the bidonvilles: no bars, no walls, no other type of fences. The outer perimeter of the slum is wide streets, but inside the bidonville there is a real labyrinth of narrow streets and alleys.
Slums of India have their own gradation along religious lines: they are divided into Muslim and Hindu parts, each of them has its own traditions and customs. In the slums there are houses built from sheets of plywood, iron and other improvised materials, and there are areas where the population of bidonville lives under ordinary fabric canopies.
At the very beginning of the slums there are various workshops and handicraft workshops, a little further there are warehouses, but the residential areas are “hidden” in the very depths of the bidonville. Guides often prohibit tourists from taking photographs, but the population of the slums themselves may willingly pose for the camera, although it is best to ask the residents for permission to take photographs. Conflicts over photo ops typically arise when approaching Muslim women, so travelers should be careful not to be tactlessly intrusive.
Indian slums are unique in that in the residential areas of bidonville there is no dirt, garbage or other signs of unsanitary conditions - all the courtyards are cleanly swept, filled with water from dust and have enough space for the needs of the population. In the courtyards, slum residents usually do laundry, repair vehicles, and children play happily here.
IN slums of mumbai The residents are by no means poor - after all, not everyone can rent an apartment in Bidonville for a year - its cost can be about 10 thousand dollars a year. This price is due to the close location of the slums to the business center of Mumbai. It is difficult for residents to escape from the slum because their families are too large, with many women and children.
Manufacturing in slums
The production of various goods and household items is also located on the territory of Indian slums. Working conditions in such workshops and workshops located right on the streets are extremely harsh. This is especially true for plastic recycling workshops: residents of Canville look for old plastic in landfills, then women and teenagers sort the collected material by color into separate boxes. The sorted plastic is washed and dirt, stickers and other elements unnecessary in the further process are removed. All work takes place right on the streets, in the open air. The plastic is crushed by hand, which is quite hard physical labor, and then sent to be melted in a large vat. An unprepared person will experience significant discomfort from the odors prevailing in this production, not to mention the general harm to health from the fumes.
Even more brutal conditions are found in the workshop for recycling containers used for various oils. The smell of chemicals literally hangs over the street and it is almost impossible to breathe freely. People wash containers with chemicals with their bare hands, without protective equipment or convenient tools, and the working day in such a workshop is on average 10 hours.
Lighter types of production in the slums include cardboard processing, fabric printing, pottery workshops and bakeries, and a basket weaving workshop.
A few words about living and living conditions in the slums of India
As mentioned above, residential Indian slum areas are distinguished by neatness and cleanliness. The courtyards are quite spacious, and the small rooms in the houses are often furnished in an upper-middle class setting. Some slum areas have electricity and water; in others, residents go without electricity and get their own water. Inside the rooms there is always a place for ablution and a place for cooking. Most often, several people live in one room - at least five or six, but there are exceptions both in the direction of increasing and decreasing the number of residents.
There are schools inside residential areas, and they are organized at a fairly decent level, according to the European education system. True, they are located educational establishments right on the streets of the slum.
There are also streets of shops in the slums. The shops sell locally produced products and food.
Slums of Mumbai. Dharavi, video:
Using the example of the largest slum of this city, Dharavi. More than a million people live on an area of 215 hectares (according to some sources, 3 million people live here), and there are also various social institutions and industries. A blogger who recently visited Mumbai talks about how life goes in this area.
Let's start from the very bottom. The poorest residents of Bombay live in tents. Tents are built near the sea or very close to railways, where it is impossible to build normal houses. This is also where they cook, where they throw away garbage and wash dishes.
The life of such tents is short-lived, they are blown away by the wind, and they burn down when residents try to keep warm on a cold night.
In some places you can find entire blocks of rags, tarpaulins, and plywood.
A courtyard in one of the blocks of such slums.
Local residents.
Despite the dirt around, the residents themselves try to take care of themselves, their clothes are clean, everyone washes regularly, the girls dress up. If you meet them in another place, you wouldn’t even think that they could live in tents in the middle of a garbage dump.
They also try to maintain cleanliness in the dwellings themselves and the passages between them.
The main type of Bombay slums are these multi-storey houses made of metal sheets and plywood. It all starts with one-story houses, and then grows upward. I've seen 10-story slums!
On the left is one of the blocks
It is impossible to understand these houses. Nobody knows where one ends and the other begins. Of course, there are no addresses here and these houses are not on any map of the world.
Such slums are terribly picturesque!
Let's go inside. Narrow passages where it is sometimes difficult for two people to pass each other. Almost no sunlight gets here. Numerous stairs that lead to the upper floors.
Entrance to one of the dwellings. The home here is actually a bedroom-living room. They eat, cook, relieve themselves on the street.
Minor needs are relieved wherever necessary
Another type of slum is along railways.
They are built in close proximity to the railway.
Indian train is coming
Slum dwellers run off the tracks. I wonder if anyone keeps statistics on how many people die here under the wheels of a train?
The rails are often used as the only road to get out of the anthill of the slums.
Children play on the rails
The outskirts of the slums and the famous big pipe
Look how cozy it is!
One of the courtyards
The White house.
Some slums are located on the banks of rivers and canals. In ordinary cities, the proximity of a river or seashore is rather a plus. In India it's the other way around. Garbage is dumped into rivers, beaches are used as large toilets, so the poorest sections of society live on the banks.
Sometimes the river is not visible because everything is littered with garbage.
Please note that garbage here is thrown directly from the back door of one of the houses. That is, people could live on the banks of the canal, but they decided to live near a stinking garbage dump.
This is also a canal completely filled with garbage. Somewhere down there there is water flowing... The garbage is decomposing and rotting, the stench is terrible.
But people like it!
Here is such a resident. The monkey turned out to be evil and almost ate me!
Let's take a look inside the home. As you can see, it is very clean there.
Living room
Some houses house tailoring or food preparation businesses. Maybe your favorite jeans are made here somewhere!
Now the slums are being actively developed. Multi-storey buildings are being built in place of dilapidated houses, and overpasses are being made instead of narrow passages. So, soon you will only be able to see the famous slums of Bombay in old photographs.
Be sure to take a walk here
You will not regret.
I won't give bad advice.
Tomorrow Bombay will be like this!
Of the 21 million people living in Mumbai, 62% (or approximately 13 million people) live in slums in different parts cities.
Most slum dwellers survive on $1 a day or less, spending 10 hours working hard in the hot sun, using the local river as a shower or toilet, and at the end of the day sleeping on sidewalks or under bridges.
This is what the real one looks like.
When I traveled through India and stopped in Mumbai, I spent several hours in what is considered the largest slum in Asia and one of the largest in the world. The slum is called Dharavi. You've probably heard about them - that's where he lived main character movie Slumdog Millionaire, Jamal, and it was there that most of the film's scenes were filmed. 
Walking through Dharavi turned out to be the most enlightening experience of my entire trip to India, and perhaps of all my travels. This place is so populated that it seems like a separate city inside Mumbai, with its narrow dirty alleys, open sewers and huge piles of garbage. 
Before explaining what a person sees and feels when visiting Dharavi for the first time, I will give a few facts:
About 1 million people live on an area of 2.5 square kilometers. Dharavi is the most densely populated place on planet Earth.
- Average wage here is from $1 to $2 per day.
- Dharavi is the most productive slum in the entire world with an annual turnover of almost a billion dollars.
- In Dharavi, there is 1 toilet for about 1,450 people.
- The average life expectancy of a Dharavi resident is less than 60 years.
- The slums are divided into communities based on religion in the ratio: 60% Hindus, 33% Muslims, 6% Christians and 1% others.
- Only men are allowed to work in the workshops of Dharavi. 
The biggest surprise for me was how incredibly organized life was in Dharavi. Today this area of Mumbai is a giant factory where people work - in difficult conditions - but they work. The slums produce goods that are exported throughout India and the world. You can even order the product from Dharavi online. 
The slum is divided into industrial and residential parts.
In the residential part you can meet Indians from all over the country who came here from rural areas, as well as local residents from the state of Maharashtra. The residential area lacks any infrastructure: there are no roads or public toilets. This part of Mumbai was the dirtiest place I have ever seen in my life. The area is divided along religious lines: Hindus live in one part, Muslims in another, Christians in a third. In the residential part there are several temples and churches. 
The houses here are small and densely packed with people. I was able to look into one of the houses and see how the locals lived: in a small room, seven people slept on the floor, next to each other, almost huddled together. None had a pillow or mattress. There was no kitchen or toilet in the house.
Life in the industrial part is chaotic, it is very hot, dirty and smells terrible. There are more than 7,000 different businesses and 15,000 one-room workshops, which are filled with thousands of people working from dawn to dusk without air conditioning. When I walked through the industrial part, I saw only men. Men were everywhere. When I asked an Indian friend (I didn’t dare walk here alone) why I see only men in the workshops, he replied that women are not allowed to work in Dharavi.
The most common goods in Dharavi are ceramics, leather, plastic and iron items. There are several smaller industries that engage in recycling. Moreover, they recycle garbage - everything that we in Russia and the West are used to throwing away. Perhaps some of your garbage that you threw away yesterday will end up here in Dharavi in a month, and it will be turned into something that they can sell. 
I'm not just talking about paper, plastic, leather, aluminum or glass waste. I've seen workers ripping parts out of old VHS tapes from the 90s to make something out of them. I saw workshops dedicated to recycling bars of soap that hotel guests leave in their rooms.
After several hours of walking through the slums, I was able to look beyond stereotypes and see Dharavi as not just the “largest slum in the world”, but as a vibrant, regulated community with a strong economy. Slum dwellers are very hardworking. Despite the difficult conditions, they all call this place home.
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Author.
For most Indian cities, slums are an indispensable attribute and look quite harmonious. But Mumbai is a successful and large metropolis, which means that the size of the slums here fully corresponds to its size. Tourists are mostly misled into thinking that the Dharavi slums in Mumbai, India are necessarily filled with immoral individuals and other destructive residents - this is not the case at all.
Not long ago, this area was the largest in Southeast Asia. Its area is 217 hectares, with a population of up to 3 million people (it is difficult to accurately count them due to constant migration). For a long time, among similar agglomerations on the planet, it rightfully occupied the palm. In this article we will look at how life works in the slums of Mumbai (Dharavi), how they arose, what their residents do, etc.
History of Mumbai slums
This Western invention has taken root well here and has taken on its own unique form. Due to this, the history of slums in Mumbai (India) is quite interesting. With the beginning industrial revolution In America and Europe, masses of people began to move to cities from villages in order to gain financial well-being and, accordingly, not die of hunger. Thus, crowds of homeless people seeking a good life arose. They needed somewhere to live, and since most of them were outspoken proletarians, they looked for housing to suit themselves, therefore, in every big city slum ghettos appeared, most of which are still thriving today.
In Mumbai the story was similar. The modern city was built on islands, while in the 18th century most of them were on their own, and there were much fewer inhabitants here than today. Mumbai was growing, and at the same time it required more inexpensive labor; only in the 19th century the city’s population was able to exceed the mark of 500 thousand people, while only 50 thousand lived in London.
The peasants who arrived here began to settle anywhere, including settling in the fishing village of Kolivadas - now here is the famous slum of Dharavi in India (Dharavi Mumbai Slum). Soon, fishing here became irrelevant, and a slum area began to slowly grow in place of the village. The then owners of the country (the British) did not care what happened in this area, since it was outside the city. The European part of Mumbai was actively built according to interesting architectural plans and corresponded European cities. At the same time, slum areas had absolute freedom of action.
However, Dharavi was not the only place where the Mumbai poor lived. She lived compactly in various areas of the city. At some point, the time came for change - an epidemic of bubonic plague began, which significantly reduced the number of local residents. The sanitary conditions in the areas of compact residence of cheap Mumbai labor caused great concern among the British; it was necessary to quickly localize their spontaneous settlements and somehow streamline this process. It was decided to move all the workers to one remote place - to Dharavi. At this moment, the area began to live life to the fullest and became more and more beautiful every year. The Dharavi slum area appeared in this way, perfectly preserved to this day.
Government of this city has a huge interest in a large piece of land in this expensive city, on which shacks are located, and it is likely that very soon the inhabitants of these slums will have a chance of being thrown onto the streets - this is exactly what happened with similar slums located in Delhi. Of course, the government has plans to resettle local residents into comfortable homes, but this outcome only makes all people, including those who came up with such a plan, just smile.
Slum dwellers
Incorrect, it cannot be said that the slums of Mumbai are a place of residence for non-humans, as well as other obscene public - the phrase “city within a city” is more suitable here. In fact, young people who have recently arrived from all over the vast country to earn money live here, and they can live for a month in a room of 10 m2 for just 3 dollars. At the same time, Mumbai is the most expensive city the whole country. Large, real Indian families also live in the local slums, and they have settled here from the very beginning of the slums.
Residents of Mumbai are trying to live a full life and keep up with the population of prosperous areas - there are schools (private and public), there is even a street for carnal pleasures, where for 2 American dollars you can get to know Indian guys and girls better. There is also a choice for the advanced - getting to know hijras ("third gender", i.e. transvestites).
What is life like in the slums of Mumbai?
Slums, like other urban areas in India, are divided into small settlements. In one place there are tanners' workshops, in another there live waste sorters, in a third there are shops. Muslims and Hindus also traditionally live in different areas.
Slum dwellers can do whatever they want - collect garbage and beg, or even open their own small business. In everyday life, Indians are indeed very unpretentious, and often shop owners who work away from home do not bother purchasing or renting housing, but relax right in the shop.
It is worth noting that a slum is not a place where only the poor live. Local residents have an average monthly income of about $500. Of course, salaries here are very different. For example, servants earn about $50 (about 3,000 rupees) per month.
Problems
Poverty, unsanitary conditions, one toilet for a huge number of families, lack of drinking water— it’s difficult to call these living conditions pleasant. And all this is typical for the slums of Mumbai. The government is trying to solve these problems as best it can. For example, the famous slums in Delhi near the banks of the Yamuna, in which about a million people lived, were demolished. True, the government did not build or provide new housing, while the fate of a million people slipped through the fingers of officials like sand. After this, many went to their homeland, others remained to live right on the street.
Advantages of slums
Oddly enough, life in the slums of Mumbai has its advantages. Depicting all sorts of horrors and problems, you can understand how lucky you are, living in an apartment on the 10th floor. But India and its slums teach a lesson to representatives of the entire Western civilization. Thus, when local residents meet each other, they smile and treat each other with care and politeness. Living conditions fade into the background, while living conditions come to the fore human relations.
At the same time, it is so incomprehensible and strange why living in a city in which the air is thoroughly saturated with toxic fumes, and there is so little space that one has to share a room with strangers, is preferable to living on the ocean, among a snow-white beach and surrounded by palm trees? We'll probably never know.
Economy
Civilized tourists are very surprised to learn how much money is circulating in the slums of Dharavi. On this moment The trade turnover here is about $650 million annually, while the average person's income is $500 (as mentioned above, this depends on what exactly the person does).
So, what else is interesting about the slums of Mumbai? Here they sew clothes, produce ceramic pots and lamps, bake bread for city cafes, and grow all kinds of vegetables in small fields, which will also go to the tables of city residents. There is a high probability that the T-shirt in which you are now sitting at the monitor, bought in one of the city’s supermarkets, was made in these slums.
The Dharavi region is divided conventionally into different zones according to the areas of activity of representatives of different specialties, as we discussed above. Moreover, Hindus and Muslims also have different areas in the Dharavi region.
Excursion and tourists
Thanks to the famous film “Slumdog Millionaire”, filmed here, tourists wanted to see everything with their own eyes, walk along the large pipe that locals use instead of a road, plunge into the true Indian atmosphere, look at all the houses, etc.
Many tourists book excursions and go to the slums as if to a kind of human zoo. Having paid a fairly decent amount, a person expects an adventure similar to a safari, only instead of animals there are people here. Yes, there is actually poverty here, unsanitary conditions, problems with water, as well as 1 toilet per 1000 rooms - these living conditions cannot be called pleasant or even acceptable, but the local residents remain human.
From the point of view of modern ordinary people, accustomed to a mortgage on a cozy apartment, sitting idle in traffic jams in a credit Hyundai, these are terrible conditions, but, oddly enough, they do not make people unhappy. In dirty courtyards, unwashed children are having fun and running around, women in colorful saris are sitting on porches and lively discussing the joys of home, while men are drinking tea and playing chess.
Slum dwellers do not look angry, but on the contrary, they seem open and polite. Stop by to visit someone (they will gladly let you into their house) and see for yourself how people live. Basically, the inside of the home is incredibly poor, cramped, but at the same time surprisingly quite clean.
Some of the tourists who have been here rethink a lot, including their attitude towards each other and towards comfort. Terrible living conditions fade into the background, while human relationships remain in first place instead of the eternal counting of money and other modern tinsel.
Although there are still tourists who sincerely want to burn everything with napalm in the hope of making life easier for the unfortunate Indians. Decide for yourself whether this excursion is necessary for you.
How to get here?
Potential tourists do not have to overpay for an escort and take an excursion; they can get here independently and cheaply. You need to take the Mumbai Skytrain (local train) to the Sion Railway, Maxim Junction or Chunnabhatti station, adjacent to this area, and walk a little.
