Leonard's birthday fell on a Sunday this year, so the day before I took him on a 3-part date. The first part in the morning was on a tour of Dharavi. We were not allowed to take pictures while on our tour, however our tour guide provided us with the following images. Even though a picture tells a thousand words, they cannot convey the smells, sounds, and feelings of such a place.
One of Mumbai's nicknames is Slumbai :(. There are 2,000 slums in the city and 60% of the population lives in them. Dharavi is the largest (3rd largest in the world) with one million people living and working in one square mile.
A slum in India is defined as dwellings built on government land without authorization. The residents of Dharavi work across the city in a variety of jobs, such as manual labor, police officers, bankers, and doctors. Many also work in Dharavi itself.
Recycling, and especially plastic recycling is a huge industry in Dharavi.
The plastic gets sorted by color and quality, then is broken down, shredded, melted, formed into pellets, and sold. It is also made into suitcases, on site. They are so efficient with this recycling (which is done mostly by hand and with tools they've made, not factories) that they buy garbage from many Asian and European countries to recycle!
Beef is illegal in Maharashtra, but water buffalo is fair game. So the leather made in Dharavi comes from buffalo, goat, or lamb. They receive 20,000 goat skins each week to process into leather. On our tour we saw a man oiling down these skins, then we were taken to a leather shop. It was nice and air-conditioned and sold all kinds of leather goods- bags, purses, wallets, belts, shoes, jackets, and I even saw a cute pleated leather skirt. Len and I each bought some goodies, that I'll share in the next post.
Pottery is another big industry in Dharavi.
We saw hundreds of pots of all sizes, lanterns, and dishes drying in the warm sun after being spun that morning. We also saw the huge (and so hot) kilns that have to cool down for 2 days before being reopened.
Summer vacation is from April to June here, so the kids were enjoying their break for a couple of more weeks. All the kids we passed had big smiles, and lots of "hellos" for us!
The homes in Dharavi are very small. There's one room for cooking, living, and sleeping. They have a wet corner where the ladies shower. Some of the men use the wet corner, but most shower outside on the walkway. None of the homes have bathrooms. There are public bathrooms for them to use, averaging 145 people per toilet. Our guide said the bathrooms always have long ques. Even though the homes are weak, the sense of community is very strong in Dharavi. As the government has tried to deal with the problem of the slums, they have built many nice apartment buildings for slum residents to move to. The apartments are 10 times bigger than the homes here, but the people don't want to move and lose their community. I can completely relate to their sentiment. My hardest struggles in India have been from the loss of my community and not being able to establish a new one with the friends I have made here because we live so far away from one another.
One square we came to had lovely carved doors like the one above in pinks and blues and other homes in vibrant lavender and peach.
In the square I mentioned above, several women were hard at work making these papadum. That's one thing I don't think I've tried here, ah man.
The last thing we saw before our tour ended with this colorful Hindi temple. There are Hindi, Muslim, Christian, and Buddhist communities all within Dharavi.
It's always great making new friends. Our tour guide has lived in Dharavi his whole life. His grandfather moved in with his 9 children. His father lived here with his 3 children. Now he lives here with his 2 children. The rest of our tour group was from Singapore.
I had debated for a long time about visiting Dharavi. I had heard the expression "poverty pornography" and didn't want to partake in that at all. I'm glad I decided to visit. I saw hard-working people living their lives with smiles on their faces. They inspire me!
