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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