DHARAVI

Dharavi is famous, infamous would probably be a better word, as Asia's largest slum. Dharavi is situated at the top of the seven islands that originally were called by the Portugese Bhom Bai, or we came to know it - Bombay. It was once marsh and mud-flats, washed by Mahim Creek, a piece of open land between the districts of Matunga and Sion, bordered on either side by railways leading out of the city to the north and East. Dharavi is now home to more than half a million men, women and children. Dharavi’s the lung for all the jobs on Apna Street.

It had just rained. So Yunus was a few minutes late. He'd gone to pick up Gracie who works in Dharavi and had offered to be my guide to its lanes and alleys. So I hung around Jhula Maidan and ended up in an slanging match with Samina's husband about the price of chickens. Finally, Yunus and his battered yellow taxi turned up, and we set off to what many call The True Heart of Mumbai.

Mohammad Ali Jang Bahadur's corporate headquarters is a gloomy shack - made of bamboo and scrap wood- all lit by a 40 watt bulb - and connected to the outside world by a very old rotary phone.

And in the muddy alleyway outside two men in shirt and lungi are using heavy metal bars to bash the hell and the dents out of one-gallon metal cans, that were once full of cooking oil. A third man wanders in to join them. Takes out a pair of small rubber hammers.

And starts bashing away to his heart's content.

If I close my eyes I hear the great Alla Rakha and his son Zakir Hussain. Making magic with their Tablas - right here - outside Jang Bahadur’s office.

If Central Park's the green lung that keeps Manhattan alive, then Dharavi’s the recycling lung that prevents Mumbai from choking to death - on its own waste.

In the shed opposite a kid's scrubbing huge oil drums with wire wool. I start watching him- while Gracie goes to find out why Jang Bahadur isn't here. Someone tells her he's had to go to the hospital to get antibiotics for an abscessed tooth. Now - Jang Bahadur's one of my favorite people. He’s built up this little empire, recycling metal cans in all shapes and sizes.
“This has come from the factory, from Goa,” Gracie explains. “So it's going to be cleaned and again sent back to the factory for refilling.”

Any dents are bashed out by the first man. The second sands it with the wire wool, finally the third man paints it - inside and out - till it gleams brand new. It’s already been bought by a wholesaler in the city. Who’ll in turn repaint it and resell it , and will probably fetch a good price.

The barrel’s turned upside down.The boy gives it a few more wipes inside. Turns it again, Gives it a good bash - to get out the dust out. Then wheels it away to join the finished pile And the whole sequence again.

It’s hard for Jang Bahadur - to get used to the idea of Mahila Milan women - working outside the home - and bossing men around. To his eternal credit, Jang Bahadur’s trying to adapt. But it isn't easy and the strain and bewilderment often shows.

You remember the scrap metal Nawaz and Jackie collected on Malabar Hill? That ends up in town - at a smaller shop - where it can be melted down.

Jang Bahadur’s operation is much more ambitious in its scale and efficiency
Dharavi.(pp) takes in all the flotsam and jetsam of modern Mumbai living, and gives it a new lease on life.

At the head of the lane, in a space kept dry by corrugated metal sheeting Jang Bahadur's got a veritable recycling factory going.

There are twenty or thirty women here. They squat on stones. Clean and hammer back into shape - two liter cooking-oil cans. The cans are dipped into scalding water, given a vigorous scrub-and then taken away to next stop on the assembly line.

I ask one of the women how much she gets paid. Instinct tells me this is not one of the best-paying jobs around. Anjunabhai says twenty rupees a day for an eight hour day. Seven days a week if she’s lucky.

“It depends. If there's work, I work regularly. If there is no work I have to go back home.”
Home for Anjunabhai is a village near Nasik, in the heart of Maharashtra. Fifteen years she's been doing this work here in Jang Bahadur's lane.

In the heart of this cacophany sits a solitary man, holding basic welding torch and solder - no safety goggles. Healing the torn and ripped area round the spout in the top of the can. You don’t need to go out of Dharavi to find work. There’s plenty of it right here.

“There are many small-scale industries. Plenty of them.” explains Gracie, “Everything is recycled in Dharavi. See, these are cardboard boxes . For packing you need it. Then again they'll repair it and make it new and again it's used for packing.”

It's the great recycling lung of the city!

We work our way down a concrete lane, two story workshops on either side, dip inside a small dark room lit only by a glowing coals. I have a sudden suspicion Gracie’s in cahoots with whoever’s inside.

“You're heating gold in there at the moment?”

“Gold and silver. Oh my English!” apologises PK Sawant.

Recycling oil cans isn’t the only industry in Dharavi. Not by a long chalk! This particular alley’s an assembly line for various things to do with gold. Poor Indians still prefer to wear their wealth, rather than put it on deposit in the bank. Here there are stores which clean your gold and silver jewelry and make it shine like new. PK Sawant's busy melting down some silver bracelets to make into mini silver-fingers.

“Whatever is mixed in gold I remove that with the help of chemicals, after melting it. And I make pure gold. Twenty four carat. Right now I don't have any gold for you. But I'll melt silver for you.”

Sawant says he can show me how to melt gold, if I’m willing to part with my wedding ring. I suggest Gracie’s earrings. Howls of protest from Gracie.

So instead Sawant places some silver in a little clay pot. Puts that into a bed of charcoal on top of the electric furnace. Presses the switch, and in five minutes - the silver’s turned liquid. Finally Sawant pours the liguid metal into a mold and then dips that mold into cold water with a pair of tongs.

And Hey Presto! A silverfinger.

We head back out and up another broader earthen lane. On the ground wafer thin circular discs are baking in the sun. Most of the little things one takes for granted in Mumbai are in fact made right here in Dharavi.

Things like Papad - the crisp wafer-like bread you get in Indian restaurants, drying right here in the sun on the bare earth.

Or Bindis - those little dot-like fashion statements Indian women place on their foreheads.
Or the clay idols of the great elephant god Ganesha for his annual festival each September.
If you look at aerial photos of Dharavi, the houses appear to be jam-packed so close together it's hard to imagine anyone ever seeing the sun! But when you're actually on the ground inside Dharavi it’s more like a little village, Workshops where just about everything is made: leather handbags and soccer balls.

Dharavi got its start tanning leather. Today - most of the tanneries have moved - or been moved out. The chemicals polluted the groundwater, But the real estate's worth a fortune - in anybody's currency.

But there's one traditional industry that does survive and thrive, employing anywhere from thirty to seventy thousand people.

On the edge of Dharavi just off Sixty Foot Road in a deep earthen pit in Kumbharwada two men, dressed only in shorts are yanking clumps of thick grey clay from the walls of the pit with short pickaxes, plonking them down into shallow wicker baskets, which a third man carries off somewhere behind the house.

This clay doesn’t originally come from Kumbharwada. It's been trucked in from outside Mumbai, Then mixed with water and stored in these pits until it needs to be used.

Next stage in the production line is Ranjanbhen. She’s squatting inside a dark hut. Her hands are tearing at a pile of the raw clay. She slaps it down on a wooden board, stands up, then squishes it with the heel and ball of her feet until it's elastic enough to work by hand.
Ranjanbhen next starts kneeding the clay with her hands on the board. She does this - day-in, day-out - ten hours a day.

Ranjanbhen doesn't make the pots herself. Her husband and his brother-in-law do that.
In the next hut Sahmat Sharma’s turning clay on a wheel. Nothing extra-ordinary about that. Except quite literally on a wheel! A small cart-wheel, - hub - spokes and rim. He keeps it level by rotating it with a stick.

And while it’s turning - he slaps a lump of Ranjanbhen’s clay onto the wheel, And shapes it into the rough outline of a pot, And then deftly cuts it away from the wheel with a piece of string. Like a cheese monger uses a wire to cut cheddar from a wheel of cheese.
No electricity. This is the most ancient form of wheel that exists.

Sahmat's neighbor Hirabhai is shaping a clay drinking pot. He spanks the outside of the pot (with a wooden paddle. His other hand is deep inside the neck of the pot. And that hand holds a piece of smooth curved metal, so it’s absolutely smooth inside.

When that’s finished he’ll decorate the pot. While one hand continues spinning the wheel, with the other he takes a thin stick - whittled down to a sharp point and delicately etches in lines in the wet clay - for decoration.

When he's finished the pot he simply puts it outside to harden in the sun. And he gets on with spanking and shaping the next pot.
These are the sort of pots you see outside train stations all over Mumbai, painted deep red or black. Used for household drinking water. And they sell for twenty rupees, or double to a white-skinned firangi.

The final stage takes place outside. In front of the houses is a shallow brick pen full of unfired pots. Men are stuffing old wool and cotton fluff around the pots..

Mejibhai, the man in charge explains the process. “First, we have to spread all the cotton. Then you have to keep all the pots. And then from the holes below there, we put fire in. We put the fire from the holes and then the cotton will all burn. So the pots get baked. We cover this all with a tin roof. It takes three and a half hours to bake them on average.”
The wool is waste from the mills in Mumbai. Mejibhai, the man in charge, says it’ll take all afternoon to burn. Very simple. Not very efficient. But it works.

We thank them and head back out to Sixty Foot Road.

A squat, fat truck is trying to get past me down the lane. I’ve got to flatten myself against the wall!! It inches towards me - very tight squeeze - very tight. And then it’s past!!
Dharavi’s no Paradise. There's far too much suffering and squalor and violence within its lanes. But it does breathe its own humanity and energy. I’m certainly not the only person who thinks it’s the true heart of the city.

It also boasts has one of the best South Indian vegetarian restaurants, with a rice that can be just out of this world. But that is another story!