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Click on an Episode title to read a full description, or click play to hear the full audio.
Kanpur is a sprawling industrial city in northern India. Thirteen people from Mahila Milan, the Railway Slum Dweller's Federation, and SPARC head north for five days to the Kanpur Slum Dwellers organize (against strong opposition) and build badly-needed public toilets for their slums.
Sagira came from Jitvapur, the village in Bihar featured in IBA's Gamv: Life in an Indian Village and Letters From Jitvapur, the short series extracted from Gamv for NPR's weekend edition on Sunday. Sagira's husband has been severely ill with complications form jaundice for twenty years, forcing Sagira to work in Crawford Market, the city's fruit and vegetable market, sorting out mangoes.
When I first knew her, Rehmat Shah was being taught to read as part of grooming her for leadership. Two years later, the program has been abandoned. The pavement dwellers had concluded that literacy created hierarchy, was divisive, and that the disadvantages outweigh the benefits.
Kamar Ahmed, Rehmat's Husband, is a tailor and embroider, and earns good money working at home. But he and Rehmat are big spenders: they're already on their second television, and they're up to the ears in debt. So Kamar's accepted a two year contract to go and do the same work in Dubai, for twice the pay. But will he really hit the jackpot? And can their marriage survive the strain of his absence?