mumbai

mumbai, india

this is the first indian city, or place in india for that matter, that has surprised me. the entire sub-continent has shocked and awed, frustrated and amazed, wow'd and silenced me, but mumbai is the first place where i said to myself, 'self, this is mumbai?'. this is not to say that when i saw delhi/varanasi/rishikesh/etc, that it matched exactly to what my mind's eye had anticipated. but when i walked the streets/ghats/trails/etc of delhi/varanasi/rishikesh/etc and told myself where i was, it all made sense. based upon the things i had subconsciously picked and chosen to remember of what others have told me about mumbai, i think i was expecting more of the good ol' fashion indian chaos. there is some of that, to be sure. but why do i see so many reminders of london? buenos aires? rio?

there are black taxis navigating wide, paved roads where vehicles follow more than a semblance of order (lack of rickshaws is my hypothesis) . while many buildings are a little old and worn, they look stately and stuffy enough that one can still imagine them sharing cups of tea across their wrought iron fences (pinkies distended, of course). there is the wide promenade along marine drive where people walk for exercise in the funny way that people walking for exercise do. the silverware shares tablespace with cell phones in the cities numerous restaurants and the wide open lawns of the cities parks and the trees lining the streets add a sense of healthy animation to the metropolis.

it is not like this for all, of course. the jury is still out for slum tours as far as i'm concerned, but the 'no camera' policy of reality tours convinced me to go to dharavi today. with over 1 million people in less than 2 square kilometers of real estate, dharavi is asia's biggest slum. it is sandwiched between wealthy zones of the city, giving it a sharp visual juxtaposition to its neighbors from the outside, but also economic opportunities that other slums do not. this slum's economy accounts for over half a billion u.s. dollars per year according to estimates and our little group of five got a first-hand look. residents take buffalo and goat hide and transform them into jackets. locals melt down aluminium and several forms of plastics to sell back to manufacturers. when this is all added to the wages people can earn from finding work in nearby wealthier neighborhoods, the picture is not entirely bleak.

but it is still a slum. 'smells like shit' is not a simile in dharavi. those fortunate to have the aforementioned jobs perform them for 12 hours a day, between 6-6.5 days per week, in conditions that would have us calling osha within seconds: spaces are too crampt, fumes inhaled are too toxic, and monthly wages are less than a weekday lunch shift waiting tables at a rural applebee's. a walk through the residential quarters is just as depressing. we squeezed into a 5' x 8' space that a family of four calls home. narrow alleys (barely wider than my shoulders) snake underneath hanging wires and over streams of liquid one would never think of drinking. but the people persevere in ways i can barely imagine.

this is not to say that there are two mumbai's or two india's. there are hundreds, thousands of strata that occupy these geographical spaces. but there is something off-putting about walking through dharavi and then seeing a teenager with cell phone walk out of a churchgate cafe with a shirt reading 'i <3 money'. she really should, but i don't think she understands the first about why it's so precious.