Dharavi Slum area of Mumbai

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We decide to take a tour to the famous Dharavi Slum area of Mumbai, after speaking with a number of people who had visited them they all said it was very interesting and well worth it.

So our tour started by us meeting at the Church Gate railway station at 9am where we were to be met by our guide. After paying the guide 12rp each the guide bought our train ticket, this was to be a short ride on the very wide Mumbai local train. These trains have doors but they are constantly open, they have a huge number of handles hanging from the roof of the train for people to hold on to and all the bars or what look more like cages are shiny silver. Even though we were travelling after the rush hour it was remarkably quite.

After 20 minutes on the train we arrived at Dadar station where we got split in to groups of about 4 people and then walked over the railway bridge to the slums.

Crossing the railway bridge was the start as it was a hive of activity, there must have been some 20 people weaving baskets all doing their own thing, each making a weaved basket which looked like the ones that the woman carried goods on their heads.

Our guide explained that the slums covered about 40 football pitches and had some 1.6 million people both working and living here it was going to be crowded. We were asked not to take pictures out of respect for the people living there but they would send us some ‘approved’ photos by email at a later date.

He also explained the whole area used to be swamp land and lazy people dumped rubbish there instead of taking it a few miles further up the road to the dump. So the swamp filled with rubbish and then people built houses on the rubbish as land was really hard too find in Mumbai as it sits on a peninsular.

A short walk took us in to an industrial area where the plastic which was collected from all over the city, was being sorted in to different grades and colours and then crushed down. This in turn is then used to make other plastic containers - although not food containers as they use a harmful chemical in the process.

Other small workshops were taking paper and shredding it before turning it in to a pulp for further recycling. The worker was pushing the shredded paper in to the machine with his arm, okay he had a rubber glove on but his fingers must have been going so close to the grinding blades it just made you shudder to think what could happen. Workshop after workshop each a different process in the chain.

We saw workshops dyeing cloth, some were washing and cleaning up paint tins to be reused, others were making leather which would be exported all around the world. We saw buffalo hides stacked ready for the tanning process in Chennai (apparently the process is too toxic for Mumbai people but Chennai people don’t mind!).

Then we reached what was like a metal workshop with lathes, they were making the machinery that the other workshops would use to work with. Fully self sufficient and all so close to each other. We walked through the metal workshop, the lathes working flat out and iron filings going everywhere. No sign of any protective glasses, masks covering faces or any type of protection. Why? Apparently it slows down the work as they can work much faster without the annoyance of protective clothing. A tourist who was concerned about their safety provided them with all the protective clothing and glasses that they needed. All the work men did was put them through the recycling process and made something else out of them. Now there is ingenuity if ever I heard it!

Passing more and more workshops. We entered one workshop that was recycling vegetable oil cans. The workshop was stacked high with these aluminium cans and a workman sat with what looked like an axe which was heated by a blow torch. He would cool the tip in water and then place it in some solder which he then used to seal up any broken seams or holes in the oil cans. We realised that he was fixing up was the the punched whole that you put in the oil cans when emptying the oil from the can to make it flow more easier. This man was the man who fixed that hole you make, how amazing is that!

We then walked through very small alley ways no wider than a metre in a maze, left then right, backwards and forwards as the work force needed to squeeze past us.

Our guide stopped at one workshop where we were offered a pastry each. He explained these are a delicacy and they were sent all around Mumbai from here, and some were packaged nicely and sent all around the world. After we had eaten it and agreed it was very nice, we walked a few steps further and saw inside, where some young lads were rolling out the pastry ... ON THE FLOOR!!!

Coming out of the work shop small children playing with their spinning tops in a clearing beside the river that flows in to Necklace bay. When we were told that’s where it went, we understood instantly why you are not allowed to swim in the bay. On the bridge over the river were four trucks emptying their rubbish directly in to the river. This river is just full of garbage, faeces, dead animals, just about everything you could imagine. It stank! So it was good that Bryan had opted not to swim on Chowpatty Beach.

Crossing the bridge took us in the the residential area with clear divides of Muslim and Hindu streets. This segregation happened because of the riots in 1973 where many people were killed as a result of arguments between the two religions. These days things are all very civilised and we saw muslims making hindu prayer shrines and both hindus and muslims mixing in the streets together perfectly happy again.

After a number of very, very small alleys full of small children playing and saying hello we reached an opening or the public toilets the only public toilets for 1500 people. Most people do not have toilets in their own homes as they are so small, so they rely on these toilets and our guide described how the queues stretch for miles in the mornings.

Then in the opening you could see the small children playing on heaps of rubbish piled high, some of them just dropping their pants and going to the toilet, pulling up their pants and carry on playing. Just past the piles of rubbish was a wall and behind this wall were government settlement flats, these flats looked as if they had a toilet system from the outside, but it was over the wall out of reach of the people on the slum side.

Walking though the residential area we were told that the oldest home would have been 171 years old, which was the first recorded home. With people laughing, children playing, women washing, and everyone had a purpose you sensed a huge sense of community spirit.

Further in we looked in to a workshop of very expensive sewing machines embroidering sarees on a huge scale. The machine were bought by a business man who provided the machines and then employed the locals to make clothes and materials for the outside world. Paying them cheap wages and making huge profits, exploitation if ever we saw it.

Around a corner we saw poppadoms being dried in the sun and many ladies on the floor, rolling, cutting and then laying each poppadom on a bamboo basket to be dried. They got something like 25rp per kilo, that is a lot of poppadoms, and they could make about 3 kilos a day. All the materials were provided, all they needed to do was provide the man power. The street value of a kilo of poppadoms is about 120 rp.

One of the poppadom ladies kindly showed us in to her home, a small room, very clean, washing and cooking stove at the far end a TV at the other and a concrete floor where they would lay their mattresses to sleep at night. One room for a whole family but you know - she was very proud of her home and she was really happy to have us there - but we were not allowed to stand on her clean floor!

Our guide explained that some of the people that live here may work in the city and have good jobs, others earn what they can in the slums. Most of the men in the workshops however, are from poor farming families in the countryside and spend 7/8 months a year working, eating & sleeping in the workshop to earn money to take back to their families. This way they can earn up to 100 times what they can on the farms. It’s a very hard life for them.

Around the corner there was a whole district for pottery. There were thousands of pots drying in the sun, the kilns fired by cotton - not wood as that burns too quickly - and men making pots. Further in people were painting the pots and then standing them out to dry again. Apparently they make 400 pots a day which are then transported all over for sale.

Our guide took us to see a nursery for children, all the children were on the floor and while the teachers were singing trying to keep them from being distracted by us tourists, it really was not working as we were all waving and saying “hello.”

We then suddenly appeared back on a busy main road like you would see in Old Delhi, busy and full of activity.

We were shown in to the NGO’s community centre & education for young adults camp where they taught English, Computers and Soft skills (Soft skills being how to look after yourself and take pride in yourself). Each course was 3 months and to join the course you paid a small deposit which you got back when you completed the course. Which meant that the courses were completely free. This setup was being funded by Reality tours who were our guides.

We then walked back to the office of Reality tours and had a cup of tea and filled in some questionnaires for them. He explained about how Reality tour works and how 80% of the profits from the tours go to fund community projects. This is a British charity and if you are wondering what to do for Christmas and whether to donate this year, then we would recommend this cause. They have a website www.realitytoursandtravel.com where there will be a link to say how to give.

Our experience of the slums was a good one. It really wasn’t what we were expecting we were surprised that there were no horrible smelly smells other than the river. The people that live here have been abandoned by the government and have been resourceful enough to build their own city within a city. They have supermarkets, doctors, pharmacies, industry, schools and a huge sense of community. They are making the best of what they have and take pride in what they have. Hats off to them....

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