I step out from the midday heat into an air conditioned jeep and feel uneasy about what I am about to see. The stories I have heard of Dharavi vary greatly. Just the day before, I had been informed by my Indian friend that if I go, I won’t be coming back and as I say goodbye to him, he wishes me ‘good luck!’
Our guide is a young man with a dry sense of humor. He can feel our nerves which he plays up to. He is blunt with us from the beginning as we drive past homeless shelters and the infamous ‘street of a thousand whores’. Vacuum packed in our A/C car, we are immune to an extent from the women who litter the streets. Wearing their crude-coloured saris with a smile on their face yet deep pools of sadness in their eyes, they restlessly wait for their next client. Most of these women are victims of sex trafficking, having being lured away from their rural dwellings with promises of a better life in the thriving city of Mumbai. I can hardly believe what I am seeing and feel simultaneously disgusted with the people living here and by my own lifestyle, which is so sheltered from this world before me.
We stop at the Dobi Ghats which by comparison seems tranquil and logical. The workers earn around 150 rupees a day for 10 hours of intensive labor in water teaming with bleach. I think again how lucky I am. The gleaming white sheets fly in the gentle breezes of Mumbai winter and I consider what skill these men must have to produce such results from their murky pools. Yet just on the other side of the road is a colossal horse racecourse – the height of opulence in an area where space is the hardest of things to find.
It is time. We drive towards Dharavi and I worry if what we are about to see is really worth it. For a start, I am concerned that the very idea of a white woman from Britain walking through the dwellers of Dharavi’s homes and workspace is patronizing and demeaning. I fear I will receive a justifiably cold reception. I have no time to think as my fellow tourists race forward into the unknown.
The first of my expectations diminishes – the place doesn’t smell of anything unpleasant. We continue forward and my defensive crossed arms relax to my sides. Yes people look at us, but who wouldn’t be a little surprised if a tour group were to pay to look around your habitat? After all, it is us who have come to stare at the other. Converse from the expected animosity, people wish us a friendly ‘hello!’ as we peer into their cloth printing workshops and resourceful recycling methods. We are invited to ascend to the rooftop of a plastic-washing house and are greeted to the most spectacular view of the slums. The rooftops are covered in bright plastic containers and above us are a thousand kites flown by high-spirited children. I observe two boys playfully wrestle in plastic pellets on the neighboring rooftop when my phone rings. It is my father calling from his office in the UK. “Guess what dad? I am on a corrugated rooftop overlooking the slums of Dharavi.” I am a world away, but I feel glad to be here.
We are invited to look around varying cottage industries that run from here. Every sort of recycling is done in the famous slum which proves the economic benefits of the age-old phrase ‘make do and mend.’ There are two parts to Dharavi. The first is the business district and the second is residential. The 1993 riots painted a picture of religious unease. I am surprised to find that today’s Dharavi is peaceful and tolerant. Muslims and Hindus live side-by-side. We are told that the wooden Eooja Mandirs before us are hand-made by skilled Muslim craftsmen. We pass a bakery and are offered Khari biscuits by the tray-load as our guide, tongue in cheek, tells us the salt comes from the sweat of the bakers. A dark and narrow alleyway confronts us but I have lost my fear and happily walk on. These streets form a swirling maze brimming with colourful trinkets and concealed pathways, like a world constructed out of a child’s imagination. We turn into an opening and I see daylight again. Children rush up to us odd-looking ferungis and wish us ‘Hello! What is your name?’ I am quick to respond ‘Namaste! Mera nam Cara ho!’ and we all start laughing. It has just been Eid and the smell of slaughtered goat meets my nostrils. The pungent smell makes me choke, but this is the first time I have confronted such a smell since entering Dharavi and I expect this experience is confined to only a few days of the year. The goat leather production houses nearby are organized and the workers, with their well-spoken English, explain the process of production. We are shown a mini clothing factory which is producing maternity wear to be shipped to Mexico and the USA. Each garment takes only 5 minutes to make which, considering the intricacy is hard to believe.
Boys play cricket in a rare patch of free space and beyond, their mothers make papads in their well-maintained homes. As our tour grinds to a halt, we are seated in the community centre made possible by the profits taken from the trip we have just walked. Since we were not allowed to take photographs, a rule I think is absolutely warranted, I buy a round of postcards that give a real sense of what Dharavi is like. We take the train back to our affluent suburb and I reflect on the day. The city feels safer, more understandable. What a truly liberating experience it is when your negative expectations are demolished by the positive truth.
