Research in Dharavi Part II: Actual Cases

It is not hard to find women working in Dharavi. Even before we arrived in Dharavi, we met some women working as sales people in the women’s compartment of the train. One woman dropped her bin of pomegranates onto the seat beside me before going through the compartment haggling prices on the fruit. Another woman sat in the doorway vending bags of pistachios while her son played under the seats of the train. From the entrance to the main road going back towards Sion Station, women sell Chat and other snack foots and they carry baskets of fruit and roasted peanuts, selling them along the street. There were far fewer women working on the main road than the men operating snack stores, barbershops and restaurants. Women working in this street tend to be with their husbands or a male figure while they work, hardly any of them are here alone. Overall, women seemed to be far less involved with the public face of these businesses, and far more involved with the behind the scenes work. This also seems to be true given the statistics of female versus male street vendors in areas of the city like Colaba.

Once we started moving through the dark, twisting alleys in this informally planned space, we saw more women. Each little house front had clear signs of someone caring for the space: whether it was plastic flowers hanging from the doorway, curtains sewn and hung over the open door, carefully swept front steps, and clothes drying from wires outside of the home. Women sat together chatting in small candy and odds-and-ends stores in the less public parts of Dharavi. 

We ran into three older women, probably in their late 50s, sitting in a circle chatting and making brooms out of dried grass and twine. They explained to us that these are sold in bundles to stores and businesses outside of Dharavi. Just across the narrow dirt and rubble road from them was a young woman in her early 20s printing on an old fashioned printing press. While she worked, her husband sat on the floor stacking and cutting pages. She showed us how she ran a round of printing and then went back to work. The little shop sold paper, printed goods, and provided a cheap printing service for manuscripts and books. 

A third young woman, at most sixteen years old, was sewing pants with a sewing machine in the doorway of her home. She was working alone. She had a pile of finished men’s trousers beside her, and she excitedly showed us how much English she knew by pointing at various things in the room and giving us the word for it in English. Most of the women that we saw producing goods independently were working alone or with other women off the main streets. In this capacity, their work seemed to be very limited in its interaction with customers or clients.

A few industries within Dharavi are famously run and operated by women. One clear example of this is the Popadam industry in Dharavi, which is run entirely by widows. The widows work in a collective to make this kind of bread, which is then sold in restaurants all across the city. Women making and drying this bread fill one of the public spaces in Dharavi with colorful saris, kids running around between the baskets, and baskets with drying bread. Their work is limited by the weather: the process in which the bread is dried and cooked requires the round sheets of raw dough to lie on wicker baskets to dry before it is cooked, so they must find other ways to supplement their income during the monsoons. 

The traditional fish market is also an industry dominated by women. Bombay began as a Koli fishing village, and this rich history remains in the heart of Dharavi, where Koli women have sold fish for generations. Women originally inherited this job because the men would fish while the women sold it, but now, even as others have taken up the job as local fishermen, the Koli women of Dharavi continue with this tradition (see appendix A). There are 60 women who sell fish in this space, and the tradition is passed down through women in family. Once the sons in the family get married, their wives are trained and expected to sell fish in the same way the elder women do. These women go to the wholesale fish market from 4:30-5:00 am, buy fish in bulk, and then return to open their market stalls at 9 am and then again at 6 pm until the sell all of their fish. Each woman has a marked block where they sell their fish, and the stands are passed down through generations of women. While there are men selling fish in other parts of Dharavi, this market space is an integral part of Bombay and Dharavi’s shared history as a Koli fishing village. While other factors have changed, the presence of women in this part of the industry serves as an important piece of Dharavi’s economic activity.

Outside of these professions, the majority of workingwomen are drawn into a few keys industries that offer them informal “contracts.” Often they are given work in construction sites in a sort of delivery service, where women bring supplies like bags of cement back and forth between trucks delivering supplies and the construction site. Another 1.68 million women are employed as domestic labor for the middle and upper classes outside of slum areas across India.[1] Many another women are employed as low skill labor within informal garment production in Dharavi, offering help as assistants to trained tailors and finishing garments before they are sold off to western companies. These jobs often have very low entrance barriers, which is appealing for women without training in specific skill sets, but their wages were usually far under minimum wage standards and come with very low job security.[2] 

Another option for work comes from self-employment and running local, small-scale businesses that often end up employing other workers. The benefit for women who start their own businesses is that they control their own wages and have direct access to their profits. On this level, they are more likely to receive the same wages as men working in the same industry. Street vendors are some of the most visible workers in the informal economy for any part of the city, and about 40% of them are women.[3] Often, these women can run and operate their own small-scale business while competing alongside men without significant barriers to entry based on gender or skill set.

We found a one-room schoolhouse run out of someone’s first floor apartment and children poured out of the room chewing on sweets and being led out of the alley by their sisters. The kids looked ranged from ages three to six and they were taught by a young woman who looked like she was in her early 20s. One clear benefit of a community like Dharavi was that children could go through the streets in groups while their parents worked and it was safe enough that boys and girls alike did not need constant supervision beyond that provided by the community. The space and the street belongs more to these families here than the streets in middle class neighborhoods do to those families. Only when we stood in corners, watching games of cricket or cards, did groups of children gather around us, curious about what had drawn our interest, and often older women would appear and shoo them away, giving us more space. In some ways, the neighborhood helps lessen the burden on working mothers who need to care for the family as well as complete domestic work, an added benefit of living in Dharavi rather than living in other parts of Bombay.

Even the space seems to have certain expectations to it for men and women. We walked through a few “men’s spaces,” where we were the only women present. Often these spaces were filled with little boys and men of all ages playing cricket. We typically found women interacting socially by sitting in their door thresholds and chatting with their neighbors. At first, most the women looked at us cautiously, or even warily, but we grinned and said “Namaste!” to all of the women we saw along the way, and often they returned our greetings very kindly. Their presence in the social sphere was much less public than that of the men in the community. Unlike my interactions with men in other areas of the city, all of the men that we encountered in Dharavi provided us with respectful amounts of space and only communicated their curiosity about our presence in Dharavi by asking if we were lost and needed directions. Besides the typical problems workers in the informal sector face, women also face cases of sexual harassment, limited access to restrooms near their work places, and limited bargaining power in their workplace.[4]

---

[1] Geetika, 535.

[2] Ibid, 535.

[3] Ibid, 535.

[4] Mathew, 8. 

Bombay and Dharavi: a Brief History

I thought I'd put up chunks of some of my research here, for those of you who are curious.

First: A brief history of Bombay and Dharavi --

Bombay and Dharavi:

A different kind of development took place in Bombay during the 1850s that made way for workers to create spaces like Dharavi within the city. After the colonial period of the city’s growth as a major trade and port city, Bombay expanded from rapid industrial growth and migrant workers who came to the city seeking jobs from the booming textile mills. The “native city” in Bombay developed as workers moved in to live near the textile mills in areas like lower Parel. Chawls sprung up to house the male workers pouring into the city.  It was common to find as many as 12 men living in the same room and about 200 of them sharing the same bathroom.[1] During the American civil war between 1861-5, the cotton and textile industry in Bombay lost a major competitor and did particularly well. The promise of work, better wages, and a chance to escape the limiting caste system of the villages attracted more and more workers to the city. Workers were now earning enough to send home to their families in the villages, work for a few years, and then return to invest in their villages, therefore gaining a better position within their communities. 
           Economic expansion, however, was not limited to mills and formalized industries. Workers developed communities around their work sites because Bombay did not offer affordable housing options to meet the needs of the rapidly growing working class. Dharavi itself developed as a community of workers who were not incorporated into the mills and needed to seek employment elsewhere. These workers took up jobs that offered goods and services to the rest of the city though the work itself was considered undesirable but necessary, like recycling and leather tanning. Most of these workers found jobs in the informal economy, taking up work as daily wage earners. In their lifetimes, most of them will never have a legally protected contract with their employer, and end up with the title of “temporary worker,” which makes them susceptible to abuse, arbitrary termination, and poor working conditions. Communities like Dharavi and Jari Mari expanded over time and supplied the city with many necessary services and alternatives to the formal business sector, providing employment and housing to an enormous number of Bombay’s residents. Today these communities have strong internal markets and self run businesses that international companies are studying for their own production methods. 

Bombay and Dharavi have been interconnected for a long time: neither one can survive without the other. Out of the 21 million people living in the city, eight million people live in Bombay’s slums.[2] Dharavi covers 550 acres of land and has a diverse population of individuals who create their own communities within the space.[3] New migrants arrive in Dharavi all the time for specific training in their trade before they move into other areas of the city.[4] Most of these individuals are daily wage laborers who are members of the Dalit caste, but there is also a significant Muslim population in the area. This is still a space for migrant workers to leave their villages and join relatives or friends in the city and where their social networks help them find work and housing. Dharavi provides labor for many of the services consumed by the upper and middle classes of the city: workers from the slums provide drivers, maids, nannies, cooks, and cleaning services for families across the city. Since the closure of the mills, Dharavi has also become an increasingly important site for manufacture and production. Entrepreneurs and business owners running small shops within Dharavi operate under lower start up and overhead costs that formal manufacturing jobs because the work usually takes place within the same space that a family or group of workers may sleep, eat, and work. There are roughly 5000 informal businesses operating within Dharavi, turning over more than $600 million in economic activity per year.[5] Manufacturers here supply the garment industry with western style shirts for export, dancing shoes worn by famous celebrities, and the leather bags carried by India’s elite families.

Bombay creates some of the demand for work that Dharavi’s residents have developed ways to supply, but Dharavi has also created and supplied its own market. Dharavi is an informal city: there is not enough water for residents, and often ten or more families will have to share a water tap that will provide them with water for less than three hours a day.[6] The city does not provide this part of the city with a garbage collection system, which means locals residents have developed their own way to manage waste and recycle. Services like garbage collection, recycling and others were developed by local residents to meet the needs of their community. In addition to providing an important part of Bombay’s manufacturing sector with products, Dharavi exists as a self-sustaining local economy where products are developed through local innovation to meet the desires, preferences and prices demanded around them.[7] Residents from Dharavi run their businesses without the support of the government or formal finance structures. Banks will reject often applicants for credit cards or loans when they see that the applicant’s mailing address is in Dharavi or similar areas within the city.[8] Microfinance firms are moving into the area and offering their services, but many business still operate independently from formal loan systems. Residents are also challenged by the government when they try to reinvest in their homes and the space despite how much of their time and production happens here: Dharavi exists on a highly desirable piece of land within the city, making it a target in discussions surrounding redevelopment and relocation of the slum-dwellers.

---

[1] Ashish Chandra, Lecture, June 18, 2012.

[2] Jim Yardley, IHT, Dharavi: Self-created special economic zone for the poor, http://www.deccanherald.com/content/216254/dharavi-self-created-special-economic.html, Online.

[3] Hanna Ingber, The Shiva Rules: Lessons from Asia’s Largest Slum, The Global Post, May 17, 2011, http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/india/110516/dharavi-economy-slums-urban-poor?page=full. Online.

[4] Yardley.

[5] Ingber.

[6] Yardley.

[7] Ingber.  

[8] Interview with Mathias Echanove, July 4, 2012.  

Hillary Clinton's Biggest Fan

... is apparently a 91 year old Mumbaiker restaurant owner who owns the famous Bombay eatery, Britannia and Co. (As you can see from the reviews, this place is amazing)

He told us so himself. When we arrived at our table to greet us, he asked the two Indian students where we were from and his eyes lit up when they said, America. He told us, after we ordered, that we needed to pass along a message of greetings and how much he adores her, in case we happen to see her when we returned to the US.

The restaurant is an open, cement room with crumbling sea foam green walls. There are images of the Queen of England on one wall and a life size cardboard cut out of Prince William and Kate Middleton attached to the raining of the loft overlooking the room. This, in addition to the laminated letter from the Queen and the newspaper clipping of the restaurant owner receiving a letter from the queen confirms any doubts you may have had that this restaurant owner is an anglophile.

There arent too many options, but EVERYTHING is delicious. The restaurant specializes in Iranian and Parsi food -- I had the Veg. Dhansak which was spicy and delicious. Everyone else had the chicken berry pulao (there is also a goat meat option for the braver folks), which is basically meat with saffron flavored rich, some magical flavor things, and dried pomegranates.... delicious.

We had a lovely time (I feel like this is the stereotypical quaint saying, which meant I HAD to say it in this occasion, what with British themes and all. Yeah ok, I'm a dork).

In other news... One more day of class this week before we head to the Ajunta and Ellora caves this weekend. A 7 hour train ride into the countryside.... but it's going to be COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY worth it. Seriously, look at the pictures I just linked to. I cant wait to add photos here for you to see.

And then I have 3 more days of class... and I'll be home next Thursday! Pretty wild. This last part has gone really quickly. Which means I've been working on a crazy combination of Colombia work and closing up my project on informal economies and Dharavi. I'm thinking about adding my findings to my blog somehow... but that might be weird. I'll keep you posted.

Dharavi Fish Market in the Monsoon

My favorite parts:

1) When I feel awkward because I see the guy whose fish I was filming staring at me at the end and I say something quickly like, oh.. sorry

2) Shortly after this was filmed, one of the larger catfish jumped out of the bin and swam away as it made a bid for freedom through the Monsoon puddles 

Women in Dharavi

I'm trying not to take pictures of people in Dharavi (I have some issues with the whole slum tourism thing and judging myself for my own interactions and romanticization of Dharavi), but I stole this photo from a friend on the trip and needed to share it because it is beautiful and exemplifies everything I have been trying to explain about the women of Dharavi.

So beautiful.

Women in Public Spaces

Apologies, I know I havent been as good at writing the last few days. We've had some adventures... Since you last heard from me in any serious matter (as in, before the brief episode that I described with the old woman and my anklets) I have visited the Chor Bazaar (the "Thieves Market." It received its name because once upon a time the royal family came to visit Bombay and Queen Victoria's violin was stolen from the ship. Eventually it was recovered in this market, where someone found someone else trying to sell it...), we walked around Bandra (one of the cooler districts) because we wanted to celebrate our friend Ada's birthday but... it was a dry day for the entire city since elections were going on. The irony. We went through the markets around Coloaba, I went through some of the alleyways near here that are rumored to have independent designers... and made some friends with women making their own designs for clothing and selling them right there (seriously cool work). And I kept working on my Dharavi project.

Something interesting: I rode in the women's compartment on the train when I went with Emilie to Dharavi tomorrow, spending the day intentionally getting lost and figuring our way out. The women's compartments are these genius spaces on the train for just women. There are less people, you dont get groped, and everyone relaxes. AND NO ONE STARES AT ME!!! Great success. I can finally blend into the wall. Only the little girls peer at me curiously. Which I can totally handle. 

I guess I never quite realized how much I love the anonymity of big cities until right now. When I can never, no matter how hard I try, blend into the walls. Even though I'm in the sun everyday here, I'm never going to catch up. So... I have to embrace feeling like a weirdo, glow in the dark pokemon kind of thing for now (thats how people look at me sometimes. It's made easier by the fact that I am wearing kurtas everyday now. But still...). We sat on the train and I took notes on what I was going to work through once we got to Dharavi, the vendors arrived. A woman dropped her crate of pomegrantes on the seat next to me, startling me from my furious scratching in my notebook and tried to sell me a pomegranate. I was tempted. They were beautiful and I would have to peel them... which meant I could eat it... but then the idea of the sticky red juice all over my kurta and my hands screamed BAD IDEA.

It's still not raining much... so I was going to be sweaty and sticky. Decided against that. 

Once we arrived at the train station we encountered our first group of little boys. Something to keep in mind: the area surrounding Dharavi is middle class and has pretty nice housing, super markets, tailors etc. Then over the train station and all over the place is the tight, twisting city space of Dharavi. So we ran into some of the boys from the middle class neighborhood, who saw us, grinned evilly and said, "Hello. Candy!" Just like that. Like, oh hey foreign girls give me candy now. 

We said "hallo" and kept walking. They kept yelling after me and then chucked a rock straight into the middle of my shoulder blades. I flinched but didnt turn around. I was not going to give them the attention that little boys around the world seem to demand. (I speak with experience: I have a charming and very outgoing little brother)

I knew they werent from Dharavi because we climbed the bridge to cross over and they dashed in front of me midway. Hands on hips. Staring up at me and I smirked back. "CANDY!" To which I replied, "Nahi" (this means no in Hindi). At that point, they let us walk past and we went straight into the wider streets of Dharavi. 

Within seconds we were surrounded by people coming in and out of the area. Some smiling, some looking at us cautiously, some grinning. We also ran into another, larger group of little boys. But they werent demanding. They smiled and laughed and asked us what our names were. I told them simply, "Diana" and a few of them chanted, "oh what a beautiful name. It is a beautiful name." 

They followed us for a while, more little boys joining in. Curiously staring at us from behind stands in the street, cars, motor bikes, and occasionally goats before they joined in. They asked us where we were from. "England?" they said, point up. (Not sure why up...) No, we told them. Emilie pointed to herself and said "France" and then to me and said "Mex-i-ko." They shrugged. Not many of them have heard of either of these countries, which was better. We dont tell people we are from America anymore because they get a strange look in their eyes. In Colaba you almost see the money signs pop up. 

I drew a mental map for myself during our wandering, but my understanding of landmarks is pretty limited. I mostly remember the color and shape of buildings, since I cant read anything on them... It was a sunday, so the streets were quitter than when we were there last. It was a much nicer experience, to be honest.

We stayed on the wide street and went right for a while before we turned into a dark alley. After a few minutes we noticed a peculiar and familiar smell. That's when we heard the noises. We were in the butchers district of Dharavi where they practice Halal. This means that the throat of the animal is slit in a particular way to allow the animal to bleed to death and purify the meat. There is a struggle while the animal knows that it is dying and usually it produces sounds that are... a bit disturbing. So, of course, Diana and Emilie, the two vegetarians of the group, walk by a chicken undergoing this kind of slaughter and we both simultaneously gasp and cover our mouths, eyes wide in horror as we see a chicken screaming while its white feathers soak up it's blood and it's wings flap wildly, flinging blood against the walls of the small space. 

Both looking a little pale, we left that area of Dharavi and quickened our pace until we found an open square filled with men and boys of all ages playing cricket. One man approached us and asked if we were lost/looking for something. We said no, and he was very gracious before he returned to his game of cricket.

SEE! THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! He didnt look at me like I was a prostitute, he didnt ask me to buy anything from him, he just asked if we were lost because we were in some random square in the middle of some unknown area of Dharavi. This is why I prefer being here. They let us watch their game without a second glance, and then a new army of little boys appeared and began asking us questions until we crept down another dark alley and into another district.

A little further down from this apartment with murals, we found an open square with women working. HOORAH! This is what I was looking for! A few women were sitting in a square chatting and making brooms out of long, dried grasses and twine. We said, "Namaste" with huge smiles and they immediately smiled back and invited us to sit with them. We asked them about their work, what they were making, and they mimed answers in response. These were older, Hindi women with brightly colored Saris. Across the square we found a younger woman working at a printing press while her husband sat on the floor stacking pages. We asked her about her work and she also mimed and showed us how she was printing these pages. She smiled at us shyly and we thanked her before we kept walking. 

We continued this way through the darker alleys in the center of this district for a while. Finding young women perched into thresholds, windows, and stairways chatting with each other. The younger women looked at us warily until I smiled huge toothy grins at them and greeted them. Most of them would laugh or gasp with surprise, and say "Namaste!!" back excitedly before saying something rushed and excited to their friends. 

We walked by a school with children holding candy wrappers as they chewed on sweets. The older girls carried the smaller children, and when we pointed to the room and said "school" they nodded and stared at us wide eyed. 

We found another little girl (probably around 11 years old) working at a sewing machine in the doorway of her apartment repairing pants. When she saw us she grinned. We asked her about what she was doing, and she started pointing at things in the room and saying the words in English. "Pants." "Fish" (there was a fish tank next to her) "Machine" "Door" "Girl." It was awesome! We had fun playing with her too. 

After our first adventure with the butchers, neither of us were sure that we'd be able to handle the wander. But we slowly found our place among the women and it was far more comfortable than I imagined it could ever be. I was grateful to have Emilie with me because it is a very confusing space. There is a lot of darkness, rats the size of small kittens, and areas with a lot of sensory overload going on. Originally, I was going to be exploring and writing by myself for this project. Which in itself is super intimidating. Now I have a partner in crime and I relax a lot more. 

Our return back had us jumping into a very crowded train during rush hour. Luckily we found the women's compartment and someone behind me essentially picked me up and threw me into the crowd on the train. My inner control freak positively died, but at least I made it on the train in one piece.

I have a lot to think about now. I'll be going back and forth all week doing some interviews, observing and wandering through this crazy and wonderful place. But it has really put a few things into perspective for me. I'm sure I'll have more to say by the end of the week, but here's to my first trip nearly alone to Dharavi!

Confessions of a Fair Trade Shade Grown Vegan Hipster.

Hi.

I'm not actually vegan. I'm not a plant so I cant actually be shade grown. And I'm not a product so I cant be fair trade. But this phrase was coined by a friend to describe my weird, personal brand of granola crunching hippie activist.

I used the sephia photo setting to give the illusion of me being a hipster, though in truth I'm really not that either. Apart from the glasses... which I still love despite their hipster-ness.

India has had a few already clear effects on me. I've learned to haggle much more effectively, complete with are you kidding me?? expressions when cab drivers try to rip me off... by adding an extra 20 cents to a 30 cent going rate on my morning commute (Ok so I hate myself for that, but just accepting that they are charging me more than a local means I am not getting into the full experience, right? Or at least I got in trouble with local students when I told them that I usually gave in. So I'm making them proud.).

I think I have been accidentally vegan for a few days... just because Indian food is very easily to be accidentally vegan with for a few days. I didnt really even notice until today when I realized it had been a few days without dairy products. Interesting. Not as bad as we all thought. It has been SUPER easy to be vegetarian and happy here (much easier than at home in a Mexican household with beautifully prepared traditional things that I die trying to avoid). It's weird though. My brand of vegetarianism is also linked to my politics... which dont really apply here... so there is this limbo: I could eat meat. My reasons for not eating meat dont exist in the same way here (long story short, I have a problem with the way that the mass meat industry handles it's undocumented laborers, aka it treats them as slaves and doesnt pay them on COUNTLESS occasions, and its exporting services, which are horrifying and I can send you a documentary if you want to see what I'm talking about [I KNOW I KNOW #hipster #GRANOLAGRANOLAGRANOLA I just cant in good conscious buy into that]). There are numerous other things I could do for both of these situations and SHOULD cut out of my life, I know that, but this was an easy first step.

So the political limbo is there, but I'm having a grand old time not eating meat here. Because EVERYTHING (except Dhal which I hate... it's watered down and crushed lentils. It pretty much looks like... well I wont say it. You know) tastes delicious.

It's been pretty interesting -- these last few days. We've been reading a lot about the terrorist attacks in this city, as I mentioned before, and in some ways its impossible to imagine them taking place at the sites ACTUALLY down the block from where I am sitting right now. But there are photos on flickr to prove it. I guess you ultimately realize that no matter what happens, people find a way to survive and live because they have to. Because we're wired this way. Because giving up means letting them win.

How does this apply to real life? In a lot of ways actually. I keep sitting here and thinking about Mexico. It's actually one of those moments where you hear your heart crunch a little bit. Yes, I love my imagined community (credit, Benedict Anderson. I never stop quoting your theories, it's really nerdy and weird. Hipster??) but how much do I really understand about the violence, from within my beautifully crafted guilded cage?

I think media in all countries causes us to fear the lower classes. What I mean by that, is since media blew up the discussion surrounding crime and people flock to news articles about CRAZY things (like the woman in new haven who tried to steal a wig near campus, ran, and then bit off the arm of the guy chasing her down the street... definitely not the first thing I think of when it comes to New Haven, but for some people this WILL BE the first thing they think of). We have these images in our minds of the extremes. We fear crowded, dark and less controlled spaces because we are told to.

And then I walk into Dharavi which is a knot of a community, and there is peace. Everything looks a little run down, some things are held together with string and magic, but it works. And it's not super hyperly dangerous like we assume slums are.

So... it comes back to my theory. People will do what it takes to survive and create a sense of normalcy for themselves. If this means dodging cows on the highway while you are driving, then so be it.

End of Confession.

Reckoning With History

Running full steam ahead into my final project for the trip! I was typing out details during breakfast this morning. We found a cafe with wifi and a super hipster atmosphere. So hipster, in fact, that the inside had modern furniture, worn iron walls meant to look like an old warehouse, and a fixed gear bicycle tied to the railing of the loft that we sat in and sipped black coffee. Ever day I edge closer to fair trade shade grown vegan hipster (but not really).

I decided to research and write about women entrepreneurs in Dharavi. The industries they tend to work in, how they started working in this particular field, how many people they support through their work etc. Think of it as a series of ethnographies about the informal economy in India, through a case study of Asia's most famous "slum." It's incredibly awesome how much this research contributes and takes from the other work I'm doing on the side right now.

Side note: a relevant TED talk!

And really, it kinda feeds into some of my ideas for fellowships for next year. Yes, I have returned a little bit to this possibility. I think I stumbled on a really great idea while I was here, and I'm trying to flush it out amid Colombia reading, Bombay explorations, and my class. Which is still super awesome, in case you were wondering.

This week we have started our discussions around violence. My professor and I have a really funny relationship. Whenever he talks about the slums, I bring up gangs. Which have a very different sort of relationship to the city than anything I have ever seen before. I find it utterly confusing... especially since I felt safest of all in Dharavi. In fact, I'm so excited to be working there because it was the only place outside in the city that I felt calm, collected and not flustered by honking cars and people essentially running into you or men loudly blowing kisses (gross. This needs to stop.). I digress. Our relationship is funny because he knows I'm going to bring up violence, and he even indulges me now by including comparisons to Latin America.

Today we discussed partition and the 1984, 1992, and 2002 riots. We talked about the history of religious tension between Muslims and Hindus in India, the first census and numerous other factors that made this tension all the more palpable. He lived in Bombay during the 1992 riots and showed us images of the violence from his 20s. He talked about working with the refugees and victims after the violence -- and gave an example from one of the camps where a member of the mob that ran through killing muslims using a textbook provided by a political group here (with the best methods to kill and rape without getting caught... yes it's as horrifying as it sounds) ended up working as a volunteer in some of the centers.

Talk about coming to terms with the past. Going through the waves of following the community blindly, then reckoning with your actions, and finally seeking redemption. Can one ever repay a community that it has taken so much from to begin with? Honestly, dont you surrender your membership to the larger community when you trespass on this level?

And then... you get to Dharavi... where, as far as I can tell, there isnt the same religious tension you might be able to feel in other areas. I'm really curious about its history during the riots, since all I have heard about is the harmony of these groups living together and providing each other space for religious centers in a city that really doesnt have any space to spare.

I'm working out the details for a translator and access to the city this evening, but maybe in my digging I'll be able to learn more and figure out how this magical place that is Dharavi can exist as it does. It's funny. As soon as we were leaving, my professor stopped me and said, you need to work in Dharavi for your final project.

He was right. I think it's in my blood now. It's constantly on my mind as this mystery I want to start unraveling.

The last thing I'll mention is the interesting gender dynamic that has changed the way most of the girls in my class are doing work. Our projects include mine and a look at "Beauty" based on skin tone and gender in advertisements for beauty products, and a few others. Many of us are talking about writing on gender. Probably because yesterday was the first episode in my life where I really wished that I was not female. I wished it more than anything so that I could feel safe going out in the dark to buy myself dinner. I knew that I could not. That barrier, that KNOWLEDGE that my GENDER prevented me from feeling safe in the city.. it was a lot to handle. Especially for a female college student who grew up with empowering parents and access to anything that I wanted to do. Here I was needing to fill a basic need that I could not fill.

I think we are all looking for positive examples of female empowerment in the city. Really looking, digging, seeking... ANYTHING. Because walking down that street everyday to people looking at me like I am a sandwich and really feeling scared to walk around alone as a result is not something I want my daughters to deal with. I am sure part of it is the foreign experience and my own tainted perspective, so I want to teach myself to see the positive.

And Damn it, that's what I'll do.

Sipping Chai in Dharavi

If you find yourself lost, you have only just begun your journey.


That's what it felt like when I looked at the sea of people crossing the bridge over the train tracks and pouring into Dharavi, famously known as "Asia's Largest Slum" and, supposedly, captured in the movie Slumdog Millionaire. 

Dont look down, they might say to you, as you dodge children and waves of people moving in every direction over the bridge. You hit the ground on the other side. Look up! See the woman leaning in the doorway of the second floor apartment, sewing and adjusting her sari? Children in uniforms scatter around you, running, pushing each other, and throwing a rock back and forth. The older ones are clinging together, staring at you wide eyed and giggling. "Hello," they'll say. And then they'll burst into laughter with pleasure when you respond.


Now the road forks and you have to decide where to go. To you it looks the same on both sides. Here no one stares at you because they want something. You feel safer walking around in the very crowded, busy and tangled streets there than you have anywhere else here. People dont look at you like they wanted something (this is the first time this has been true for the entire trip). They just look at you as though you are a new face in a very tight knit community, and when you smile they smile back. 


An invisible rope of shared foreign-ness keeps you tied to the other students you came with. You follow them through tiny, dark spaces, stepping over exposed pipes, drying clothes that have fallen from the wind, the lost cricket ball of children playing just ahead of you in an open square, and the occasional potato chip wrapper. 

We sat on the third floor of a loft with a small chat store on the ground floor. A man arrived selling Chai towards the end of our discussion about the community and the city (I, of course, was asking about local gangs, crime and violence... none of which played a huge role in this neighborhood). People live SUPER close together, but it isnt scary and claustrophobic which is what I was worried about. This community is one of the examples of this city where 60% of the population lives on just 5% of the land. And this is the 3rd largest city in the world. (Does this help with you picture of volume?)

It is really dirty: there is trash everywhere because the city doesnt provide sanitation options, and there is just 1 public toilet for every 1,440 people so people shit in areas where they can find space/some semblance of privacy. But there are little tienditas everywhere, there are potters, and tanneries and all of these highly skilled craftsmen who have been practicing the same trade for generations and supplying the entire city and export market with really incredible goods.

The children also came up to me and shook my hand, introducing themselves in English and asking me for my name with huge smiles. I felt much more welcomed here than I had anywhere else. And there werent cars etc mowing you down.

The Chai was a nice touch. It was boiling hot outside, the sun was out in full force for most of our trip but it made the city so much nicer to see and be part of then the sheets of rain from a monsoon would have been. The tea was sweet and dark...sort of like the conversations we were having in that room before we headed out to explore the city with a man who knew his way through all of the twists, turns, stores, homes and people we found across the city.

And really, it was like a city all its own. 

So if you find yourself lost in Dharavi, you have only begun your journey. 

Dharavi: A First Trip in Photos

Sitting on the floor eating cornflakes.

But these are honey flavored, so maybe that makes this less boring?

I've been realizing how confusing language is more and more today than I have in a while. Not in a language barrier way. Somehow we have managed to make it many places, bargain and eat in a non-Delhi-belly inducing way without speaking much Hindi or Marathi or anything else. More in a general, successfully communicating my ideas way.

Actually, it kinds feels like I'm back in my sophomore year when I was an exchange student in Germany. I know what I am saying. I can see the pathways my mind has illuminated for me. The steps of logic from one to the next. But my language skills fall just short of the understanding of the person I am talking to.

It's weird. I chose to come to India because I have so little context for all of this. I read about Indian history for a semester and thought, AWESOME IT SOUNDS LIKE MEXICO LET'S GO. Oh naive... so naive... I find myself more frequently sitting and listening quietly. There are all of these themes and mysteries that I just cannot wrap my head around.

Like how we walk through super crowded areas with huge disparities and I feel safer than I expected to. I mean, apart from the car/autorickshaw/motorcycle/bus/truck/train/cow/goat/person/water container that I need to be vigilant for while I am walking anywhere. But it's not the same as Mexico or Latin America, where I look behind me every few steps to make sure the same person hasnt been following me, come up with alternative routes to wherever I go everyday and changing my times of departure to stay safe. People still stare at me, but it doesnt feel threatening in the same way.

Maybe it has something to do with how closely together everyone has to be all the time. There is an understanding that there just isnt space within the city not to interact in some way. And with that there is some peace? I am just speculating.

It's weird. Clearly I'm settling in because while I was in a Taxi heading down a 2 way street without any clear divisions in it, such that several buses, cars and trucks were heading straight for us at various points, and a COW was suddenly walking straight towards us without any clear intention to get out of the middle of the street, I was unfazed. Actually I was laughing to myself because I was thinking about this gif and how real it is.

I'm a bus

But then when I'm trying to explain a social structure or idea from my point of few... there is a lot of blank staring and clear communication failure. It's like the lenses of my point of view tainted windows here are foggy beyond recognition. I think I actually just dont get things... which is cool and weird and uncomfortable... and probably like that point in Germany just before the language barrier broke and I started to understand what the hell was going on.

We are visiting Dharavi tomorrow and spending a good chunk of the day exploring the site and hopefully not getting horribly horribly lost.

Should be interesting. more then.