Taxi drivers in Mumbai are loyal and diligent. While I was wondering if I could find the driver, I saw him waiting right at the final landing. In new places, small tasks assume larger size and it feels light when help gets available. I was relieved to see the driver friend. He guided me back to the car which was parked about a hundred yards away. Those were small alleys for pedestrian traffic, but cars also moved. The freedom of movement in India is admirable. The traffic jam is an after-effect. I wanted to go to a handloom store to buy some clothes. Then we would proceed to Mahim to my niece's house to drop off the temple offerings with my aunt. The driver suggested that we go to the central hand-loom store near the Mumbai Railway Station and proceed to Mahim that way. I agreed.
Mumbai Railway Station, popularly known as Victoria Terminus is a special architectural masterpiece of nineteenth century to proclaim the opulence of Great Britain under the rule of Queen Victoria. Done with exquisite style and expensive stones, the magnificent structure is a beautiful landmark. The area is called BoriBandar something to do with the luggage from the port. The area became the breeding ground of Trade Union activity in free India. I had seen massive labor demonstrations in the area. The station now called Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus under the new administration. We were on our way to nearby market in an area called Fort. The British offices were located in the area that included an ammunition depot called the Fort. There were other well constructed architectural buildings surrounding a large fountain. The taxi reached the Fort market which contained the handloom store. The government employees take the Sunday off and the store was closed. It needs more care to know the logistics in a city.
Passing by the Times of India building I saw the old commercial places of Mumbai. It is principally a port city. Old businesses of textiles, leather and food products had large presence in Mumbai. Lately it is jewelry, oil and technology. Mumbai is India's fashion city. It is one of world's largest movie production centers. Movie and fashion billboards show up prominently in various parts of the city.
We rode on what is called the fly-over, the elevated road that takes traffic to the north. After about ten miles or so, we turned west towards Mahim. Here we entered the slum city of Dharavi. Dharavi is a shanty habitat of about a million people confined to a swamp area of two square kilometers. Built by the British in the nineteenth century to drive away the "natives" from the port area, the town shelters people that serve Mumbai's upper class.
The "natives" were thrown out because of their occupation with the leather industry. Preparing animal hides for usable material needed procedural biochemical treatment, the wash water could develop bacteria and cause infection. Leather preparation centers have been always kept out of the village to reduce pollution in drinking water. Early Indians were not strong into curing animal hides for applications.
It is believed that the leather tanning as an economic profession led to original segregation in Indian villages. The task was filthy and unhygienic. Bacterial diseases like plague could wipe out the total population of a village. Historians think that the fear of infection led to the perpetuation of un-touchability which was labeled on families carrying out the leather work. The origin of Dharavi had to do with the spread of plague in Mumbai in the nineteenth century.
Though began as a segregated township, Dharavi now provides cheap housing to Mumbai's poor. As people from villages migrate to the town for employment, the slum like Dharavi becomes the night rest for the uprooted individual. Though other slums have developed in other parts of the world, Dharavi has gained reputation through its depiction in films and its documentation by the activists. The sanitation and water conditions are known to be pathetic. Though I have interest, I dared not enter the area without proper inhalation protection.
My first exposure to the Dharavi slum happened in 1969, when I was returning from a meeting in Santa Cruz airport. Something looked like a low-rise airplane hangar and my escort told me about the conditions in the slum. He had said many airport employees lived there since there was not enough affordable housing units available in Mumbai. Urban housing is a problem in suddenly developing metropolis.
I was visiting an engineer's family that lived in a slum while I was a student in Pune. There were about forty eight-foot by eight-foot units surrounding a courtyard. One entered through a narrow entrance and went to a unit crossing the courtyard. The whole structure would appear like a temporary shed from the road. Inside area of my friend's unit was spotless but no windows. The common toilet and bathroom was outside somewhere in the complex. Water had to be carried in old style and stored for use. There was one electric outlet. Half of the unit was broken into two tiers, the upper being used as bed for the two children. We would squat on the floor to eat some flavorful dishes my friend's wife created. She came from an established family in TamilNadu. My friend came from a literary family in Orissa and that was my link.
Economic segregation and throwing people to suffer in unsanitary condition is a pleasure of the modern society. India developed caste segregation, the western capitalism shaped the racial segregation. Some people trick other human beings to subjugation and use them as personal slaves. The rules are made such that a slave may not escape. In south Asia, the choice is disease versus starvation. Both lead to early death. People choose disease to starvation. The ancestral land of people could have been usurped by the agents of the Empire through the use of force. The Islamic rulers invented the arbitrary tax schemes to fetch land. The poor finally converted to Islam. About one third of the residents in Dharavi are of Islamic faith, the new converted breed in India who are misunderstood because of their history. They are the homeless and the support-less poor. They are aliens in their own land of birth. The treatment of support workers as less than human beings has bothered me. The master assumes that the worker's life has a lower value than his and his family's. Such treatment is rampant in India even in homes who are expected to know. Many champions of liberty treat other human beings as less liberated. I was stunned to see the slave quarters in the residence of the American champion of human freedom, the great Thomas Jafferson.
Dharavi slums' satellite dishes caught my attention. There were brick structures some of them had two or three floors. I was not sure of crime or drugs. There would be tendency for the young to be depressed or angry. The current Pope worked in the slums of Argentina. I do not know if there were enough volunteers to help out the youth in those disfigured environments.
While I was proceeding to visit my aunt, I was thinking of many old ladies I had met during my various visits to India. Women are strong but appear helpless in old age. The society hardly recognizes the contribution of mothers. Mothers keep the universe going.
