LAXMI'S STORY
In India they
call Mumbai the City of Gold, of Lakshmi - the Goddess of wealth - where you
can come with nothing and end up a millionaire, or a movie star. Tens of thousands
flood into Mumbai every year. The rich want servants. Downtown offices want
staff, the factories want workers. And everyone wants fast food and the thousand
and one services that keep a fast-paced city going.
The newcomers fill those gaps, and nobody ever goes to bed with an empty stomach
in Mumbai. But for thousands of these workers the pavement is their roof,
their stars, their bed. It's the only home they can afford. For many, the
only home they'll ever know. Whole villages have sprung up on the pavements
that line once-elegant middle class districts.
One such area is Byculla, smack bang in the centre of the city, a place you
usually pass through en route to somewhere else, a place of middle-class apartments,
small businesses, old cotton mills; a kaleidoscope of cultures, languages
and religions, of immigrants from all four corners of India, and the world.
This is the story of how a group of illiterate women set out to achieve the
impossible - a home of their own - a journey that has inspired millions throughout
Mumbai and much of the developing world.
“My name is Laxmi Naidu. I live in Nagpada, Sophia Zuber Road and I
am 35 years old.”
Neat, concise, to the point! That just about sums up Laxmi. Always well-dressed,
hair freshly washed and glistening with coconut oil, usually sporting jasmine
blossom. Compact, calm, self-confident, the sort of person I could depend
on in a jam.
Mother of two - a girl and a boy, both now in their teens and both going the
whole way in school.
A typical middle-class mum. Except that she isn't middle-class and she lives
on the pavement, in a tiny eight by ten hut.
Laxmi's story is unsensational and typical and gives the lie to all those
who think of pavement dwellers as lazy bums or mentally ill. It starts in
the neighboring state of Andra Pradesh, when Laxmi is just thirteen years
old.
“I came alone from my village Srikakulam. I came straight to Do Tanki,
which is close to Nagpada. I used to work there as a domestic servant. My
husband used to stand at the junction at the end of the road. And he used
to wait - he was a mason - and he used to wait for jobs everyday at that junction.
That's how I met him. We got married, then we lived on a little bunk for a
few days. After that, we found this place at Nagpada and put up our little
shack there, and continued to stay there.”
Why did she leave Andra Pradesh in the first place?
“Everything was fine in my family. Then I suddenly realised that my
father was an alcoholic. And he used to beat up my mother everyday. I was
eleven years old and then I started understanding. I didn't like what he did
to my mother. I took up a job as a domestic servant nearby and used to feed
my family with the money I earned. One day, I got so frustrated that I just
decided to leave that and come to Mumbai. That's how I came to Mumbai!”
It all sounds so simple and matter-of-fact. Until you remember Laxmi was only
thirteen! That she was illiterate! That she'd probably never been outside
her village! That Mumbai is many hundreds of miles away!
In the retelling, and with the passage of time, what must have been a pretty
rocky journey gets smoothed out. Mountains become mere bumps in the road.
It's only when you stop to think about what Laxmi has just told you that you
realise the journey wasn't direct, it was painful. And there must have been
a lot of fear.
“I didn't come directly to Mumbai. I first went to Tirupati. I worked
as a domestic servant there, in a household where there was an old couple.
And they had a daughter. They began to get so fond of me because I did very
nice things to them, that they kept comparing me to their daughter. And this
made their daughter very angry because the old man kept feeding me well. And
he would put extra cream in my milk to fatten me. So the daughter started
getting jealous of me. And so I decided it's time up for me to leave that
house. I left Tirupati and reached Chennai.”
“In Chennai I did daily labour work and earned four or five Rupees everyday.
It is there that I met some of my villagers from Andra Pradesh. And I asked
them: "What is the route to go to Mumbai?" And they showed me the
train that comes to Mumbai. I sat on that train and came to Mumbai. I didn't
know anybody in Mumbai. When I reached Mumbai I met another person who spoke
Telugu and reached Two Tanks - Do Tanki.”
Just like that! She slept on the street and worked as a servant. And when
she got married to the handsome young man she used to see waiting for work
every morning at the corner of the road, they set up home on a bunk bed belonging
to a street barber.
“It was a barber's shop. He used it as a shop during the day - it was
a wooden bunk where there was storage space below. So, we stored some of our
stuff there, and we were given that place from seven in the evening till eight
next morning. And we paid 20 Rs as rent, and the space was sufficient for
the two of us.”
“How did you then get a place on the street? How does that happen? I
mean, it's not as though there are advertisements in the newspapers!”
“My husband was in Mumbai ever since he was a little boy. So, he knew
Mumbai very well. And he used to live on this same bunk since many years.
So, all I did was after marriage join him, and when we had our eldest daughter
the space was less, and the shopkeepers nearby allowed me to extend that bunk
and build a little hut. And they were very fond of me and supported me with
everything I did. And everytime they left their shop and went, if they had
some work, I would look after their shop. So it was a very close relationship
that I had with everybody on the street.”
But all good things come to an end. In the lot behind the hut a hospital was
built. Laxmi, her husband SatyaNaryan and their daughter had to move.
They ended up, a few hundred yards away, on Sophia Zuber Road.
“When I went, there were only two or three people there. Now, there
are fifty houses.”
“Why did you build on the street? Is it because there is no alternative
that you can afford?”
“My husband didn't have a very good job. And if he had to get into some
kind of a better house we would have to pay large amounts of deposit, which
were not able to afford. So, in a situation like that the footpath was the
best option.”
“And, presumably, also the nearest to your work?”
“It was convenient for both of us, because Two Tanks was very close
to Nagpada. And he went there every morning at 7 o clock after his breakfast,
and to stand at the same junction to look out for a job. And I continued working
as a domestic servant in two houses.”
“As long as he didn't stand in the junction and pick up another wife
as well!”
“That time I'm sure he didn't have anybody. Now, I'm not very sure!”
“How many times has the Municipal Authorities broken down your house?”
“Well, if you talk about the BMC, before Mahila Milan was formed they
used to come every second day and break our houses, break our homes. We had
no control over it. They used to take our beddings and our vessels and everything,
and go off. It was a regular thing.”
“They took everything and they never returned it?”
“Never, never returned it.
“But you can't - every other day - afford to go and get nrw bedding?
New cooking utensils, whatever? It must have been terrible.”
“Yes, it was a regular affair. So, all the month, whatever we earned
for the month would go in going buying these things, again and again, clothes
and vessels and other stuff that they carried away.”
Laxmi has pretty definite views about all those Mumbayaks who spend their
time deploring the existence of pavement dwellers and want to clear them out
of sight, out of mind, and, as they put it "make Mumbai beautiful again!"
“It was the business of the government in the very first place not to
allow people to leave their villages and come to the city. We've had to come
to the city to fill our stomachs, and now that we are here we expect the government
to be responsible and give us a proper..give us a proper shelter. We don't
enjoy living on the footpaths. We don't think that is the best thing for the
future of our children. We want a better home. We all dream for a better house.
And we are trying very hard to get that and it is the government's responsibility
to make available good quality shelter for the poor of the city.”
The rich who live in Colaba and Malabar Hill - the posh areas of the city,
like to complain that the pavement dwellers are ruining a once-beautiful city.
Laxmi may not be formally literate. But she can smell hypocrisy when she sees
it.
“The rich people talk on both sides. It doesn't matter to them. And
it is very clear that the rich is not on the side of the poor. They would
prefer government policies which perpetuate their own race. And even if we
live on the footpath, and we maybe clean, and we maybe looking after their
children, well, in spite of that they think that just because you live on
the footpath you are useless and you are dirty and you stink and you are smelly
that may not always be true.”
Laxmi says the rich in Mumbai would curl up and die if the poor weren't there
to pick up after them and do their dishes
“I'm sure if we didn't work in their homes, their homes would be dirtier
than ours because they would just leave their dirty vessels there, stinking
away, waiting for somebody to come to wash it for them.”
And, of course, that's the dirty little bargain that the rich don't really
want to give up, and that the poor can't afford to give up.
Clear the streets, move the pavement dwellers to vacant land on the city outskirts.
It's easy enough to do. It doesn't solve anything. The poor have land but
no work. And the rich just wait for another batch of hungry immigrants to
pour into the city, ready to keep their houses and the city clean and functioning,
even if it means sleeping out on the pavement.
Essay
Episodes 1 - 4
Episodes 5 - 8
Episodes 9 - 12
Episodes 13 - 16
Episodes 17 - 20
Episodes 21 - 24
Episodes 25 - 28
Episodes 29 - 32
Episodes 33 - 35
Main
Episode List
Cast of Characters
Credits
MP 3
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