Mumbai Maddness

Mumbai, arguably the most famous of the India's Megatropolises, "houses" over 20 million people in 440 square kilometres. India's bustling financial nerve center manages to capture the extremes of Indian life; from the Dharvai slums to Bollywood, individuals gather like moths to a flame from around the subcontinent to capture their break.

This is a city pulsing with people, with faces from afar appearing in every corner. There are approximately 29,000 people per square kilometers, almost 3 times more than America's densest and largest location, NYC (10,482/km2).

And what are all these people doing?

They are making Mumbai the commercial and entertainment centre of India, generating 5% of India's GDP and accounting for 25% of industrial output, 40% of maritime trade, and 70% of capital transactions to India's economy.

This is the sort of place people in the west are starting to talk about, worry about and wonder what will happen in the coming years. It is the kind of city that generates statistics which support the global power shift from west to east.

However, these glowing reports sometimes overlook the fact that the majority of Mumbai's population lives in the slums, around 55 %. Harshly, this is a fact too often overlooked even by Mumbai's own neuvo riche residents. The largest of Bombay's shantytowns, and even in all of Asia, is Dharavi. Joel and I decided to travel to the 1.7 square kilometers that house over a million people to see what slum life in India was all about.

Joel described in his "Rude Awakening" as seeing the "utter filth and a rare kind human solidarity we've not encountered anywhere else on our travels. The slum actually boasts an annual "GDP" of $660 million. The area, nestled between two railroad tracks, is divided in two by an open-air sewage drain; the commercial district on one side; residential on the other.

On the commercial side, factories buzz around the clock, recycling the mass of waste spewed forth from around greater Mumbai. By day, the "rag-pickers" troll the city, collecting plastics, metals, bottles and all manner of other reusable matter. These materials are then melted down or repurposed in Dharavi before being sold back to metropolises all over India and,in some cases, across the region. All the machines are made in the slum. The men and women work 12 hours per day and each cook a welcome meal for the incoming shift.

Bound by the common oppression of multi-generational poverty, the people of Dharavi live and toil side by side, breaking their backs in the slum's commercial district. Muslim peoples carve household Hindu temples, which then sell in the city's markets, while the religious rift between the two groups rages on in the "outside world." Christian women watch over Muslim children, youngsters from different castes play together in the yards and Indian boys and girls learn in the slum's schools alongside their classmates from all over Asia.

We spent the afternoon at one of the three Dharavi schools where the vast majority of the children come to learn and enjoy a free meal. Mostly they learn English and computer classes. Understandably, our young friends were keen to impress their visitors with a flurry of "what's your name, sirs" and "welcome to our home, sirs." Each and every child offered a truly priceless smile. Not a single one asked for a cent.

If you find yourself in Mumbai, we highly recommend spending a day in Dharavi. Reality Tours & Travel , an NGO operating in the area, charge about 400 rupees ($8) for a half-day tour and all the proceeds go to building non-denominational schools."

The Dharavi Slum was a sad, hard place to see at times, but also a testament to Mankind and what people are able to do with nothing. While our western concepts of poverty and hardship whirl in a realm of relativity ("They can't afford a TV?") The fact of the matter is that people choose to come to the slums of Bombay to make their break. While it may be striking to us that the average daily income in Mumbai is only 134 rupee (US$2.90), one has to consider that it is three times the national average. These hard workers flood to the metropolis for money and to escape the even greater poverty, without a chance for work, found in the villages throughout the country.

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On the other side of the spectrum, India's most beautiful and talented flock here for the largest movie production power house in the world, churning out 67,000 movies since1931. A quick glance on the tele or a flick through the Celebrity gossip mags will quote stars promoting their 6th movie, this year. These blue eyed, brown skinned beauties are dancing away, and India's billions are loving it.

Only a few days after our shantytown excursion, we got cast as extras for a Bollywood film. Apparently westerners are oft recruited to add 'authenticity' to the foreign set segments. Not wanting to miss out on the chance to see the guts of this massive industry, Joel and I signed up and responsibly showed up for the Bollywood bound bus early the next day.

The dilapidated bus was not inspiring faith in the Bollywood glamour, and Joel and I momentarily feared we were somehow being taken for a ride, beyond the obvious of course. Two hours northbound and we found ourselves on a busy, dirty, loud street just like the one we left in Colaba. Beggars and hawkers crowded the small pavement in front of a blackened gate guarded heavily by one man. We, along with 6 other fair, blond, westies found ourselves directed to make shift dressing rooms and onto a set, filled with an assortment of Indians, Westerners, Africans, etc. The stars, clad with 'yes men' carrying stools and water to pamper at a moments stall in production,flout across the stage. Another extra, a young Indian fellow, standing near me confides,

"These stars have more power than most governors"

I look at our six foot doe eyed hero, attended heavily with paper wipes to ensure no smear. These are the people with real power!

I had read not too long ago about an Indian model, who, when her career was not going successfully, ended up begging on the streets and was found out by the tabloids. I thought to myself, they all come here to make it and some do- some are high Bollywood stars, some make it out of the slums, some just pay their sister's weddings.... but one way or another they either make it or not. However, unlike our Hollywood's famous breakdowns, which only include dramatic haircuts, if you don't make it here, you barely make it at all.

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Interestingly enough, about a month after seeing the Dharvi slums, we watched Slumdog Millionaire- an insightful movie on the different types of eduction found in the slums. While some Indian pop stars have criticised the film for showing a 'dirty underbelly' of India- we found it rung true from even our superficial experience in the slum. This article on the begging mafia-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1127056/The-real-Slumdog-Millionaires-Behind-
cinema-fantasy-mafia-gangs-deliberately-crippling-children-profit.html -does not seem to exaggerate at all to us. The sheer number of disabled children begging on the streets of Mumbai are too great to be caused naturally.