We have fallen on our feet - this hotel is amazing! The manager - Mr Norbert Pinto - is an amazing chap, he helps us plan our time in Mumbai, covering the best sites to see and shop and then organises a car to take us to his travel lady who magically sources tickets for our next 3 train sectors (we have been unable to find any) and we are relieved to know that for the next 10 days the transport at least is arranged. Sadly this does include a 28 hour train journey to Varanasi but it will be nothing if not an experience to add to our collection - and we have learned that a long distance train is far more preferable to the same on a bus!
Mumbai is a beautiful mess. It's crumbling architecture in various states of decay forming a chaotic city that is never still and never sleeps. A mix of fantastical architecture and modern skyscrapers and frenetic streets. It is home to the most prolific film insustry in the world, the second largest slum in Asia and the largest tropical forest in an urban zone. It is India's powerhouse, fashion and fine dining centre and a melting pot of religious tension. We also learn that despite our initial concerns it is one of the safest cities in the country. Renamed officially in 1996 from Bombay to Mumbai - the original Marathi name derived from the goddess Mumba who was worshipped by the Koli residents who have inhabited the seven islands that form Mumbai since the 2nd century AD.
Our first stop is possibly one of the most challenging afternoons that we have spent throughout our travels and the one that Nicole has to fight hard to get David to go along with. A trip to Dharavi Slum with Reality Tours which runs socially responsible tours of the slum using 80% of its post tax profit to fund community projects , a kindergarten and community centre for the residents of Dharavi. Slum tourism is a polarising subject and we both have mixed feelings but, with a little persuasion from our friend Norbert, David finally agrees to go.
We meet our guide at Mahim Junction station and also Darren and Andy from the UK who will be on the tour with us and we walk parallel with the railway line and up onto a bridge across the station overlooking Dharavi. He explains the history of the area, giving a brief overview of the places we will see and the people we may encounter. There is a strict no cameras policy on the tours - this guards the identities of the residents and no one can be exploited or exposed - privacy is protected and images cannot be used detrimentally. Therefore the images of the slum are the ones from Reality's website and not the ones I would have taken!
It is only when we reach the hotel and the crisp white sheets and towels that we realise just how filthy our feet are!
The "boys" left behind at the hotel have had a busy afternoon to - watching TV and raiding the minibar!
Mumbai is a beautiful mess. It's crumbling architecture in various states of decay forming a chaotic city that is never still and never sleeps. A mix of fantastical architecture and modern skyscrapers and frenetic streets. It is home to the most prolific film insustry in the world, the second largest slum in Asia and the largest tropical forest in an urban zone. It is India's powerhouse, fashion and fine dining centre and a melting pot of religious tension. We also learn that despite our initial concerns it is one of the safest cities in the country. Renamed officially in 1996 from Bombay to Mumbai - the original Marathi name derived from the goddess Mumba who was worshipped by the Koli residents who have inhabited the seven islands that form Mumbai since the 2nd century AD.
Slums and shanty towns are very much the foundation of life in Mumbai and 55% of Mumbaikers live in one. The second largest slum in Asia (it was recently pushed into second place by a slum in Karachi, Pakistan) is Dharavi. Originally an area of creeks and bogs, it became an inhabited area as the swamp began to fill by natural and artificial sources - mostly as a result of it being used as an enormous waste dump. One million people live in between two of Mumbais major railway lines in an area of 1.75 square kilometres. (This would make it the UK's 3rd largest city by population after London and Birmingham.)
We meet our guide at Mahim Junction station and also Darren and Andy from the UK who will be on the tour with us and we walk parallel with the railway line and up onto a bridge across the station overlooking Dharavi. He explains the history of the area, giving a brief overview of the places we will see and the people we may encounter. There is a strict no cameras policy on the tours - this guards the identities of the residents and no one can be exploited or exposed - privacy is protected and images cannot be used detrimentally. Therefore the images of the slum are the ones from Reality's website and not the ones I would have taken!Dharavi was the basis and filmset of the recent Slumdog Millionaire film which stirs mixed feelings within the local community and our guide "Chitor" explains that one of the aims of the tour is to dispel the negative images and perceptions about slum dwellers who may be thought to be the lazy, criminal, dirty, impoverished underclass. In fact 55% of Mumbai policemen live in Dharavi and the average income is higher than the rest of India - there are over 10,000 thriving businesses generating an estimated annual turnover of $665 million US, many of which export globally. It is this commercial part which we will visit first, before moving on to the residential areas and then finishing at the kindergarten and community centre.
Our first look from above of Dharavi is startling - a mish mash of constructions from flimsy corrugated iron shacks to permanent concrete towerblocks, busy, noisy and almost impenetrable. It is a city within a city - and Chittor shows us several small movie theatres, post office, bank, public and private hospitals, restaurants and shops. Whilst it may look shambolic from the outside it seems to work - possibly because it has grown up organically and where there is a need for a specific skill or industry someone, somewhere within the slum is able to fill the gap in the market.
Our first look from above of Dharavi is startling - a mish mash of constructions from flimsy corrugated iron shacks to permanent concrete towerblocks, busy, noisy and almost impenetrable. It is a city within a city - and Chittor shows us several small movie theatres, post office, bank, public and private hospitals, restaurants and shops. Whilst it may look shambolic from the outside it seems to work - possibly because it has grown up organically and where there is a need for a specific skill or industry someone, somewhere within the slum is able to fill the gap in the market.
We visit recycling areas where old computers, parts and plastics come from all over the world to Dharavi to be recycled and watch the recycling plants in action where the separation and melting of plastics takes place. Also the recycling of cooking oil cans, paint cans, and textiles and cardboard, piles and piles and piles of "rubbish" which the people here diligently rework in the most horrific working conditions - and all for £1 a day. Hindus work in industries alongside Muslims - in fact we met one Muslim who manufactures wooden Hindu shrines and complained to us that he had a real job finding skilled enough craftsmen!
We watch as the most perfect wax resist fabrics are printed, all by eye and laid on a damp sand bed to cook the wax on contact and set the pattern. At lightening pace the fabric is printed with hand blocks and then moved to the next stage of the process in another mini factory further along the street. There is a pottery quarter and we watch as the clay is worked on, for days and hours and hundreds of identical pots and dishes are dried first in makeshift ovens and then to finish off in the sun outside.
At the bakery we taste the tea biscuits and the lightest pastry ever that you can buy anywhere in Mumbai, hot and fresh at the source and further into the slum we watch the women of Dharavi make popaddoms, the essential appetizer of any Indian meal, by baking them on wooden baskets that are turned upside-down.
Next we climb up and over sacks and bales of plastic pellets and onto the corrugated roof of a tin hut, several storeys up to get a view from a Dharavi factory rooftop. The tin hutments that house so many human lives stretch on as far as we can see, and birds screech overhead in the blue sky. Plastic pellets laid out in rainbow colours on rooftops drying, metres and metres of fabric freshly dyed hanging out in the breeze and piles of plastics, sorted into stacks e.g. plastic chairs, car parts, computer sections, water bottles... the list goes on.
We negotiate our way across the road and away from the "commercial" area towards the residential part of Dharavi and into the narrow alleys - this was closer to what we had anticipated! As we cross this open sewer/canal it was bubbling. Quite literally bubbling with the amount of noxious chemicals within the water - at monsoon it floods directly into the areas where people live and work.
However, everyone we encountered met us with a cheery smile and shouts of "Hello!" and "What is your name?". The presence of the girls drew huge amounts of attention and fascination and there was a lot of touching of hair, stroking of skin and playful pinching (a bit too exuberantly in some cases). Yes, we did see some parts of the slum which were truly shocking and caught our breath (quite literally) - a child - naked from the waist down wandering out onto an open rubbish dump and squatting due to the lack of toilet facilities - and there was rubbish and detritus and mess as far as the eye could see, and yes we were stepping over open sewer and water channels as we picked our way through the narrow footways.
All the stereo typical images were present. But life here is strikingly normal, residents pay rent, most houses have kitchens and electricity and water ( albeit for only 3 hours a day). Many families have been here for generations and some of the younger residents have white collar jobs and they choose to stay in the neighbourhood they grew up in.
As we emerge onto the streets outside of the alleyways and into the office of Reality Tours for a cold drink and a seat ( we have been walking in the heat for 3 hours!) there is a contemplative quiet amongst our little group. David and Nicole are not sure what the girls make of it or even what we make of it ourselves. We say our goodbyes to Darren and Andy and Chittor hails a cab for us.
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