A walk thru Dharavi

TWO YEARS ago, Dharavi was the setting for “Slumdog Millionaire,” the movie that won the Oscar for Best Picture. It is a 175-hectare slum in the heart of Mumbai (formerly Bombay) in India. But despite the horrible living conditions there, it has over 10,000 registered and unregistered businesses. This slum of one million inhabitants produces an estimated $665 million in goods and services yearly.

In different parts of the slum are recycling centers, bakeries, woodworking shops, aluminum smelters, leather shops, garments shops and many more industries occupying spaces so small we had to crawl through narrow alleys and openings to move around.

From the Mahim train station where our tour began, we crossed the tracks into an area called 13th Compound. This is where the first and largest industry in Dharavi—plastic recycling—is located.

“Ratpickers” roam the streets of Mumbai collecting different-colored plastics which they deliver to the slum. In Dharavi, these materials are sorted by color and type and then crushed into small pieces by machines manufactured somewhere in the slum. The crushed plastic is then ground, washed and dried before being melted and converted into pellets for sale to manufacturers which mold them into various products.

On the rooftops of Dharavi dyed and printed fabrics are hung. Smoke comes out from smelters melting used aluminum into bricks that would be turned into buckles, containers and even the base of blenders in foundries located elsewhere in the slum. We couldn’t enter these areas because of the heat and toxic fumes.

Few of the houses and structures in Dharavi are built legally. Akshay, our guide, told us, “It’s difficult to evict these people because they are voters. Whoever calls for their eviction will not be voted into office in the next election.”

There’s another truth: These people contribute significantly to the economy of Mumbai, and so the government just looks the other way.

Not everyone is a permanent resident of the slum. A good number of the workforce are migrants from other states who come to work for 10 months and return home during the monsoon season when work slows down. Most live, sleep, cook and do their daily duties in their places of work. Their living condition is even worse than that of permanent slum residents.

In another area, we looked into businesses that recycled paint cans and vegetable oil cans. The former is done by putting acid and a chain inside the can to remove all the paint by shaking. The cans are then beaten back into shape before being resold to paint companies.

Vegetable oil cans, on the other hand, are cleaned with soap and hot water. But they can be reused only seven or eight times before they start to rust. At this point, they are flattened into aluminum sheets.

In the textile section of Dharavi, I looked into dilapidated structures and saw machines run by computers embroidering logos on pants and shirts. There were also men sewing shirts on sewing machines under dim lights.

The last area we visited was Khumbarwada where the pottery industry is based. The area houses 1,200 families, most of whom are migrants from Gujarat state. Each family has its own kiln or shares it with another family. To bake spun pots, the kilns are fired up not with wood but with cotton scrap from the garments factories. Wood is expensive and burns too quickly to make strong pots, we were told.

Along the way, we entered one of more than two dozen bakeries making breads and puff pastries for 5-star hotels and bakeshops all over Mumbai. After tasting a few products, we dove into two-foot wide alleys to explore other neighborhoods. We had to watch our heads and steps lest we fall into open sewers or drains. Curious people kept staring at us and little children would run up to us to say hi and shake our hands.

What makes Dharavi different from other slums is that its inhabitants don’t think of themselves as poor. The living conditions may be terrible and they may not own the land, but its many business enterprises allow people to afford the little luxuries they never would have had in their home villages: LED TV sets, cable satellite dishes, and even vehicles for some. Like other people living in modern societies, many are also on Facebook and Twitter.

Dharavi is a mixed community of Hindus (50 percent), Muslims (40 percent), and Christians, Buddhists, and others. After the racial tensions of 1993-94 when Hindus and Muslims clashed, they now live in relative harmony. We looked at woodwork shops in the Muslim section where they made altars—for Hindus. In one neighborhood, there was a community shrine with prints of Shiva, Ganesh and other Hindu gods; the Koran and a mosque; Buddha; and the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. This is emblematic of unity among the people living there.

Dharavi is a city within a city. It has its own hospitals and its own schools. Private hospitals may be more expensive, but patients prefer to go there because the government hospitals deliver free but very poor service. The most common illnesses are typhoid, pneumonia, diarrhea.

To get an education, one has a choice among private schools, government schools or those run by non-government education. One nongovernment organization (NGO) running a school is Reality Tours and Travel, which also organized our slum tour. The school offers English and computer classes for 16- to 25-year olds. It charges a fee of 500 rupees for a 30-hour course, which is refunded if the student attends all the classes.

Apparently, the system works very well. Experience taught the NGO that when classes are provided free of charge, attendance in classes becomes irregular or students would simply drop out. When they are made to pay for the classes, they are always present.

Raj Luz, 17, is a graduate of Philippine Science High School in Western Visayas and an architecture freshman at the University of Santo Tomas. The slum tour was arranged by Reality Tours and Travel.