Slumdog

I promised you more about Mumbai, and here you go. I especially want to tell you about one tour I took. In the world of tours, this can probably be classified as an “umbrella tour”. You know, the ones where the guide runs along in front holding up a colourful umbrella so that the 50 geriatrics following know where he is.
This one was same same. But different. You see, I went to a slum. Before bursting out in indignation that the poverty of others is not really a tourist attraction, let me say that the tour operator is actually an NGO which has a school and community center in the slum and uses the tours as a way to generate funds. Furthermore, there is a no photo policy, implemented by the slum-dwellers themselves.
Having said this much, here some facts and figures: About 55% of Mumbai’s 16 million people live in slums, so about 8 – 9 million people. Dharavi, where I went, is the largest slum in Asia with about 1 million people in an area of nearly 2 km2. It also has a yearly GDP of 650 million US $. A lot of young, working people also live in the slum, simply because it is located in the heart of the city, the rents are affordable and there is an acute shortage of housing in Mumbai in general.
So on Thursday afternoon me and 4 other young travellers piled into a Jeep and drove through the craziness of Mumbai to reach Dharavi. What struck me is that it is, basically, another part of town. The houses are small and close together, but they are clean and most of them sport a television. The people on the street go about their lives just as anywhere else. Nearly all the children I saw were wearing a school uniform and seemed interested to see us.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not glorifying the lot of a slum-dweller. There is only one toilet per 1500 persons and so the street effectively becomes one. The work to be had is back-breaking and 14 – 18 hours of work will get you 200 Rs (ca 3 Euros) a day. In my village that would get you by, but for example in Colaba, the tourist part of Mumbai, a coffee costs 60 to 70 Rs. In the end, had I come straight from Europe, I would very possibly have been shocked. But having spent a lot of time in rural India (as do over 90% of Indians), I am sad to say, I have seen even worse poverty.