Slums, Dabbawallas & Dhobis

Around 5 million people live in an estimated 2,000 slums in Mumbai, 1 million of whom live in Dharavi, the slum featured in “Slumdog Millionaire” and the one we toured today.

Dharavi is a strange source of civic pride in Mumbai, an area of entrepreneurial activity at the very lowest level of manual labor. It is divided into areas of trade. One section is devoted to making already tanned hides into belts, wallets, suitcases, jackets and shoes. Since cows are sacred, the hides are from water buffalo or lambs. They’ve even started stamping their slum name, Dharavi, on these leather items, as if it were a designer brand.

The biggest industry here is described in “Beyond the Beautiful Forevers” by Katharine Boo. People sift through garbage, sort pieces of desired items by type and sell them to scrap wholesalers. Dharavi is the place where this scrap usually then goes for further processing, packaging and selling to manufacturers of recycled goods, in tiny dark back rooms with rickety machines on dirt floors.

Here’s the first thing we saw, a canal of raw sewage in midday as the heat was hitting 102. The stench made me feel sick. I pulled my scarf over my nose as we walked away and through some narrow alleys before my guide, kindly and appropriately, said if I continued to do that it would insult the residents.

When the monsoons come, the canal overflows. The alleyways turn to mud.

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We were asked to not take pictures of the residents, only the goods. There were men and women of all ages, the women in traditional dress, the men generally in jeans, walking barefoot in the dirt, doing their jobs in their own trades. The children were so beautiful and each one, boy or girl, waved and smiled and shouted “HELLO!” as we approached and “GOODBYE!” as we passed. Boys were playing cricket or chasing balls, girls were seated together giggling, there were lots of kids just being kids and envisioning their future was heart wrenching.

Another area of the slum is dedicated to making pottery, for sale there and to all kinds of wholesalers and retailers throughout the city. They start with piles of dirt, add water to work it into clay, and hand make pots of all sizes.

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  Making clay from dirt.

One exceptional fact is that the slums are not dangerous places. No one will try to steal from you, or even beg. We’ve seen 2 or 3 beggars in 2 weeks in this country, all gypsies, less than those that approach me in Baltimore on any given day.

Street crime is rare in India. When we were walking around bustling Bombay I asked the guide if I should worry about someone trying to grab my phone. He looked perplexed and said “no,” that it simply doesn’t happen.

“If someone took your phone it would be on the news. It would be a very big deal.”

Of the 24 million people in the Bombay metropolitan area 30% are poor. In Baltimore the rate is 24%. Most houses and apartments in the worst neighborhoods of Baltimore are much, much better than in Bombay … but the level of crime is much, much worse.

When I asked about things I was reading about the slums in “Beyond the Beautiful Forevers,” like prevalent alcoholism particularly in the men, boys swimming in sewage to retrieve recyclables, babies bitten by rats at night, Morgan the guide said “yes, that is true.”

Except for the unusual businesses in Dhavari, people that live in slums have low paying jobs elsewhere. The children start in school but are often needed to take care of younger siblings or to earn money before their education is complete. Nothing new there in the cycle of poverty.

On a much nicer note, around noon we went to an area to watch the dabbawallas organize the lunch boxes they pick up from homes and deliver to office buildings every day. Unique to this city, there are 5,000 men that deliver 200,000 lunches every workday using a unique system of numbers and letters. If you haven’t seen it, watch “The Lunch Box,” a lovely Indian movie on this very subject, now on Netflix and “available for download.”

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Finally, we saw Dhobi Ghat, the largest outdoor laundry in the world, where 200 individual Muslim businessmen wash clothes and linens for hotels, hospitals and others. The same 200 families have operated as “dhobis” here since 1890. If you aren’t born one, you aren’t going to be one.

Each business must also have dryers to use during the monsoon season, mid June to mid September.

Earlier in the day we were taken by speedboat to Elephanta Island to see ancient Hindu sculptures. I learned 2 things: first, the Arabian Sea is polluted, with swaths of brown foam floating about; and second, I learned how to say “speedboat” in Indian. It’s “speedboat,” with an accent.

Tomorrow we go to Bangalore for Jerry’s Mackrell International conference, a consortium of law firms around the world and a reunion of rich friendships.

Love to all, Georgia