Pampered Misfit

Week 8 of 9

After counting down the past seven weeks, Anouche finally arrived last Saturday night. It’s been interesting to experience getting used to the city all over again and seeing everything through her eyes. I’ve remembered certain aspects of settling in here that I went through in the first few weeks that I forgot about like having almost no appetite and always feeling a little off-balance, noticing every time my shirt was soaked with sweat and wanting to take a shower a few times a day, and saying “wow” every few seconds as I sat in cabs or walked around. Now I can see how much I’ve gotten used to this place and adjusted.

We’re both totally baffled by the obsession with change in this city. Every store and street stall asks for change - a two rupee coin, some ten rupee bills, etc – if you give anything them anything other than exact change. How does the shirt stall guy or the cab driver not have anything other than 100 Rupee notes after working all day? Is it always a scam to get more money? When I went to Bandra to interview Darryl D’Monte, the Auto driver had to walk a few blocks away while I waited for 10 minutes to the nearest street stall to get change because all he had was a ten and 100 Rupee bills. And it isn’t even out of necessity all the time; it’s more like a habit. The grocery store where we bought umbrellas this morning had a whole drawer stocked full of metal cups of gleaming coins, yet the cashier still asked for a two rupee coin when we gave 400 Rs for the bill of 332 Rs. I don’t get it.

I asked her if the poverty, especially the begging on the streets and the slum areas we walked through, was affecting her and she replied that she actually thought that the homelessness and poverty she sees in New York is more depressing. She mentioned that here, everyone seems to be aspiring to something more, to be active towards achieving something and most of all, busy doing it. She noticed how very few people seem to be sitting around, doing nothing and lacking any motivation. In New York on the other hand, you often see homeless with obvious mental disabilities, alcoholics, and anger and idleness. I could see her point. She also mentioned that more than a few people among her friends and family painted a horrific picture of Bombay, with dead children on the streets and being mobbed by begging crowds every time you step outside. Sensationalism of India’s poverty lives on.

My final work for CRH will be providing content for their website that they hope to completely relaunch. It’s hard for me to separate the technical and design aspects of the work, but I won’t be around to help with that so I have to focus on editing Janna and Hideko’s papers to make them more website-friendly and writing up blurbs on the Behrampada slum community and the Umang Mahila Women’s Federation. I’m also organizing and burning CDs of all the photos I’ve taken of CRH activities over the past two months for them. Going along with what seems to be the working style there, we’re rushing to provide all the website content before we leave, for a total time of two weeks, for work that would (and probably should) take a couple of months in the U.S.

Like walking in a movie scene...

It was sometime during our single-file march through our sixth or so five-foot wide, almost-pitch black alley in the slums of Behrampada that I realized that I’m ready to go back to New York. As I looked down at every step, making sure to avoid rats and stepping into stagnant puddles of mystery water, falling into creeks of raw sewage, and as an endless stream of kids pushed and ran by me, asking me questions about where I was from or making fun of me in Hindi, I kind of wanted to be back in my life at home in New York. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I’m not enjoying my time here. I’ve had so many great conversations, met so many great people and seen things daily that blow my mind. I’m just ready to get back to my home and my regular life. We were marching through the slums on Thursday afternoon as a part of a rally with the Umang Mahila local women’s federation in Behrampada, pushing for the community to clean up trash and maintain good sanitation practices. 

 

We began the day by writing signs in Hindi and Urdu for the rally with slogans and messages of community hygiene and health. Or rather, I began the day by watching the signs being made on the floor of the CRH office. Some of the signs mentioned the infamous date of July 26, 2005 when the entire city was hit by horrendous flooding, with slums communities such as Behrampada being the most affected. We then spent an hour or so hanging up posters (some written with UNICEF’s logo, I noticed) on malaria, dengue and leptosiriosis (the lovely big three sicknesses of monsoon season. There’s a daily article in the paper on the latest citywide hospital admissions and death counts). Next, we walked to the Behrampada slum area, which is basically a few block walk from our office. Working with the community on solid waste management and sanitation is a major focus of CRH’s work. The slum area is made up of entirely concrete, 2-3 story buildings that have been around for around 40 years. All front doors were open with curtained doorways. I looked into a few doorways and noticed tiled floors and even cupboard in corner kitchen areas. Despite this, less than 10% of households have private toilets. There are a few dozen public toilets for a community of thousands. Throughout the day, we gave out handbills – one side in Hindi and the other side in Urdu since almost 90% of the community is Muslim – that gave tips to residents on how to properly handle waste and garbage. Everyone read the handbills eagerly and shared them with their friends, fellow shop workers, etc. After a break in a courtyard, some more women from the federation showed up and we started our rally through the maze of endless dark alleyways through the slum where I hit the end of my patience and wanted the day to end. We marched and marched with the organizers yelling out slogans, mostly “Bangaro! Bangaro!” (“Stop it! Stop it!”), urging residents to stop littering and take care of their community for health reasons and to stop the worst effects of monsoon flooding. We finally made our way through the alleys onto a main road, where we could get the train home in the rain from Bandra station.

Village Visits

Photos are here.
We set off around 7:30am on Friday, after meeting Arunima in our lobby, in our rented van for a one-night visit to tribal villages, government employees, schools and NGOs in rural Maharastra. It was an amazing and sometimes surreal trip. There was so many times that I thought to myself “Wow. I’m sitting in the middle of (a school, village, etc) in the middle of the countryside IN INDIA!” We managed to pack a lot of experiences and memories in just two days. I’m just glad I never had to deal with scorpions or snakes when we slept.
Our first stop after about a two-hour drive was an office of the Ministry of Tribal Development. In retrospect, it’s interesting that we got the government’s side of the story first because much of our later visits and experiences totally disproved the rosy scenario the government official tried to paint. It was a typical visit to an Indian bureaucrat – kind of awkward, a bit too formal, and not a lot of free discussion. He told us about the various programs (or “schemes” as they’re called here – which I always find amusing because of the word’s negative connotation in America) for tribal peoples. I was actually surprised to know that there were so many communities labeled as tribals in Maharastra. I had assumed that tribals were more isolated and closed off from state government activity. Instead, the state has an entire ministry for the tribal people and they attempt to either mainstream them into Indian society, mostly through education, or allow them to continue their traditional way of life through farming or handicrafts. As we later saw, this is not viable because there is always a new Special Economic Zone (SEZ) or dam or other huge project that threatens to displace the poorest and most vulnerable – the tribal farmers. It’s always the poorest and most vulnerable that are screwed over by “development” and infrastructure projects. And of course, it’s not just in India but worldwide.
As we walked to our next stop, a protest against a proposed SEZ, dozens (although it seemed like HUNDREDS) of kids ran up to us, followed us, asked us questions, and – this was a first for us – insisted that we sign their hands with their pens. They loved it. It was a kind of strange. I would write my name on a few of the sea of hands in front of me, having no idea whose hand I was writing on, then would have to run and catch up with the others. The protest was surprisingly muted. Everyone was sitting and listening to various speakers. The organizers were in the middle of a fast that they insisted would only end once their demands were heard. Apparently, it’s not uncommon for these kind of organizers to die while fasting. They were demanding the government offer proper compensation to the farmers that would be forced to move if the SEZ was constructed. Some would lead the crowd in chants or songs in Marathi, the language of Maharastra. Some would sit and speak into a microphone for a while. We stood and watched, while always wary of the bird shit that would keep dropping around and sometimes on us.
Our final stop of the day was a rural school. We were led into the administrators’ office and teachers kept piling into the room as we sat around in a circle on plastic chairs. By the way, these plastic chairs are absolutely everywhere in India – in city slums, in NGO offices, in rural schools, in churches, etc. I wonder how many thousands or millions there are in this country…Anyway, the teachers were hilarious. I just remember laughing for most of our visit there. A lot of the humor came from communication issues with the school’s English teacher asking us questions and trying to translate them back. All day leading up to our visit, we were asked to “think of a game” to play with the students. Once we found out we’d be talking to the ones in the 10th standard (15 year olds), we kind of thought that a game of duck, duck, goose or musical chairs wouldn’t really cut it and were at a loss. We finally decided to just sit and talk with them which turned out to be better. I was really surprised at how shy and quiet the students were, considering how loud and boisterous other kids I’ve seen in India. After a few moments of awkward silence, with about 40 of us sitting around in a field, it was decided that we would introduce ourselves. I started with my name, my age, where I lived and what my favorite subject was in high school (history). We all took turns – each of the local kids would stand when introducing themselves very nervously in simple English and we’d all clap and cheer when they were finished. As the meeting went on, the other classes were let out and more and more kids stood in a circle around us until we were literally surrounded on all sides by hundreds of school kids. It was one of the more surreal experiences here. Afterwards, we were hounded of course, especially after we starting taking photos.
Then it was time to settle down for dinner and hang out at our lodging for the night. We stayed in the office room of a local NGO that was hosting us. We had our dinner of Maharastran flatbread with cream cheese and ketchup and, very happily for me, some cup noodles. We carefully strategized the best placement of mattresses and sleeping positions for the eight of us on the floor space we had, eventually laying out the mattresses so that the floor became one big bed and we slept side by side, alternating foot to head, four on each side of the room. We were all pretty freaked out by thoughts of roaming roaches, rats, snakes, scorpions or god knows what else was around. After talking and laughing for about half an hour in the dark, we started falling asleep. Just as I was dozing off, Arunima and N’dye turned on their flashlight and were pointing it into the corner, whispering intently. I knew they saw something and didn’t want to tell us so we could sleep. The next day, we were told a rat had crawled on them and ran into the corner.
After a fitful sleep of waking up around six times throughout the night, I was so happy to finally see the sunlight and we all woke up around 6:30. The rest of the day was spent visiting two distinctly different tribal villages, both in the middle of some of the most beautiful countryside I’ve seen in a while. It was amazing how many shades of green there were between the hillsides, trees, rice paddies and fields we walked through. We took our big plastic bag of garbage from the previous night with us in the van since there was nowhere to dumb it in the village we stayed in. We thought we’d get to a dumpster or something. Our van pulled over looking over a creek leading to a river. The drive got out, and threw the entire bag over the edge, into the crystal clear waters. I was pretty shocked and horrified. The first village was one with the Katkuri people. The vibe was strange even when we arrived. Our meeting in the village schoolroom with a bunch of the men became a bit strained and intense. There was lots of yelling and talking over each other. It was clear that they were complaining about the lack of care and decency from the government but we couldn’t tell if any of the hostility was toward us as well. They thought we were coming with some kind of donation and we were asked to send back clothes and school supplies for their kids. Apparently, foreigners have come before from NGOs for charity work. It was an uncomfortable experience because I wasn’t even sure what the purpose of our visit was, what they were told about us (if anything) before we came, what they thought of us, etc. It was like we just parachuted in from another planet for an hour and left.
The second village was a Thakoor one and the difference was immediately apparent. First of all, everyone wasn’t milling around aimlessly. People were off working somewhere. The houses were built much more sturdily. The land looked like it was cared for better. We talked with the elected village head, a woman, who gave us locally grown cucumbers. Apparently the Thakoors live on more established land and are registered on the land with the government. The Katkuris are more superstitious and are prone to move after some bad even, which makes their livelihood more unstable and leads to a lack of recognition from the government.
After the final village visit, it was time for our drive home and a MUCH NEEDED shower and hot meal.

Pipeline Slum Visit, pt.2

We spent much of our workday on Thursday in the home of one of the community leaders that CRH works with in the pipeline slums of East Bandra – about a 10 minute walk away. CRH calls her Radha Mausi (Aunt Radha) because they don’t know her surname. In fact, she doesn’t know her own age because she has no birth certificate. She said she was around 40 although she looked more like 60. (“Because of no proper food, I have become old” she said) She was incredibly sweet and gracious. Her and her daughters gave us bottles of some kind of mango juice/soda/drink that was pretty thick and waaaay too sweet, but I swallowed it down to be polite. She told us she was one of the first residents of the community, having moved there in 1989 because her husband found work as a driver in Bombay after leaving their village - the familiar story of slum-dwellers. The first thing you notice when you walk in is the size of their room. It can’t be more than 7x10 feet and her family of five sleep on the floor. Every corner and nook was strategically used for the best use of space. One wall was taken up by a metal rack filled with aluminum cups, tins, plates, etc. She told us her dwelling burned down in 2003 and she had to pay 20,000 rupees ($500) for the construction of the dwelling (she hired a carpenter) and furniture and belongings, some of which was donated to her by neighbors. They received electricity in 2002 through Reliance, a private company who they have to pay a monthly community payment. As we sat and talked, her two daughters watched an Indian soap on Star Plus – a cable channel. It was a bit strange to sit there seeing middle class Indian lives being played out and ads for cars, stereos and luxury apartments on TV while we talked in her slum dwelling. Kids and women walked by the doorway and would freeze and stare for a bit when they saw us then walk on. She had to beg on the streets when her husband left her with their child soon after moving here. She happened to get a job doing domestic work through a connection her street-sweeper friend had. That was almost 20 years ago and she’s had the same job ever since. (Although she told us she still doesn’t know the first names of her employers!) Being one of the oldest residents, she has respect in the community and people listen to her, she said. CRH is working with her to organize women in the community to fight for better sanitation. Right before we left, she told us how surprised and appreciative she was that we came to visit her home and weren’t so filled with ego that we avoided the slums, like other residents here do. I didn’t quite know what to say to that so I just sincerely thanked her for her hospitality and we left.

Rules for the Train

1) Personal space doesn’t exist in India. Don’t be annoyed at people pushing you to slide onto the bench when there’s only 2 inches left on it. No one else minds and bitches and makes a scene about it like in NYC, so why should you?
2) Personal space doesn’t exist in India. When you’re packed in a moving sardine can and pressed against sweaty, smelly guys and someone gets up from the bench seats and nudges you to make room so he can get closer to the door, there’s always a way to move an inch to let him by.
3) When pulling into Churchgate or Victoria Terminus (the two stations at the end of the line), DO NOT attempt to jump off the train before the crowd of shouting and murmuring men finish jumping onto the train as it still moves into the station. They’re rushing, smiling and shouting to get the first seats on the train for the long commute home. Stand against the walls near the doorway. Once they’re on, you get off, not the other way around. This rule will keep you alive.
4) It is bad luck to refuse to give money to the haidras (eunuchs) that come by, pat you on the top of your head, and hold their hands out.
5) Sometimes, you just have to realize it’s not worth it and wait until the next train. When the only option is to grab onto the pole and lean out the doorway for the entire train ride, it’s best to get the next one.

44 hours in Dehli and Agra

(No hyperlinks to photos this time. Just check out the Dehli/Agra album here)
Our SpiceJet flight was supposed to leave at 5:15pm on Saturday. We were supposed to be at the Dehli YWCA by around 7:30pm. Instead, we opened the doors to our rooms for much needed sleep at 2am after a six hour flight delay. I sat between Rachel (who always freaks out on planes) and Corinne (who was convinced we were going to crash in an Indian plane). At one point, the turbulence got pretty bad and Corinne grabbed my arm like she was going to break it off. The older I get, the more nervous I get on planes and I think it has to do with the fact that so many people I know hate flying. It was a long two hours on that plane. We stayed in New Dehli, off of an area called Connaught Place. Our first impressions were mixed. The first thing we noticed on the roads in our pre-paid taxi was the lack of bumping along and avoiding potholes every few feet. And there were trees on the sides of the roads! It was eerily deserted on the streets. The storefronts were closed down and the only people on the street were groups of guys hanging out. It was definitely not Mumbai. Our taxi driver had no clue where our street was so we had to stop and ask about five different groups of guys for directions, each of who would give us a vague idea where to go. One guy kept asking me for a cigarette aggressively even after I told him I had none. It was at this point that our taxi’s engine decided to stall. He then started talking shit to the cab driver and trying to open the door. The engine came back to life just as my heart rate started to race.
The next morning, we woke up at 5am for our day-long bus tour to Agra. There was never a doubt that we were in India when looking out of the bus’s window - water buffalo, donkeys, and camels shuffled along the side road pulling hay, bricks, building materials, food, etc. When we’d stop at toll stations going into different states, snake charmers and hordes of guys selling ridiculous bracelets and balloons came up to the bus and knocked on the windows. Traffic in both directions got stuck trying to cross railroad tracks on a ridiculously tiny path that looked like it was meant for bikes, not trucks and buses, because the three-wheeled cart full of hay dragged by a cow was stuck on the tracks. And of course, being India, the bus driver’s honking never, ever let up on the highway as we passed animals, carts, motorcycles, etc. We stopped at the “Country Inn” for lunch. Sadly, there was an elephant in the parking lot with a huge Country Inn banner on its side and Rachel’s cousin decided it’d be a good idea to pay the owner money to ride on it around the parking lot. Grrr….It was nice to pet an elephant again though…
Our bus drove through Agra to a parking area near the Taj Mahal gates. In a hilarious effort to stem the damaging effects of air pollution of the Taj marble, they require all buses to park a few thousand feet away from the grounds and you have to take an electric bus the rest of the way. I’m sure that few thousand feet of space will make all the difference for the Taj, choking on the exhaust of countless vehicles and factories in the area. Agra, by the way, is pretty much a shit hole. I was expecting chaotic narrow alleys of merchants and shops with a sense of history and character. No such thing. Agra is basically a bunch of piles of concrete and dust. Everywhere. Being on the Taj Maha grounds is a surreal experience. It feels like you’re walking around in a postcard image. It’s hard not to let your jaw drop when you first step through the gate and see the whole thing at once. It’s best to sit there and watch it for a while, seeing how the marble’s color and tone changes with the light and shade of the sun. It’s so beautiful, it’s hard to believe it’s real. It’s not all that impressive inside. You have to put on paper covers on your shoes and you can’t take photos. It’s essentially a really big hall with the tombs of the third Mughal king and his wife, who the Taj was built for. Oh, and hundreds and hundreds of crowding sweaty people, rubbing against and pushing you along in a circle around the tombs. Not too fun.
Agra Fort was next. It was built around 1607 by the Mughals then the Brits took it over in the 1700s and occupied it until they left. The complex is MASSIVE. Hard to put it into words, so I won’t.
Our last stop was a shopping one, of course. EVERY organized tour of any kind in India involves a final shopping stop because they know how easy it is to sucker you out of money after a day of seeing amazing historical sights. It’s like you feel the overwhelming need to decorate your place with something like what you’ve seen throughout the day. We went to a marble workshop. I really wanted to get a marble elephant. It seemed like a good idea at the time It was probably a good thing that it was going for $850, otherwise, I’d have to explain to Anouche why the hell I bought a white marble elephant for our apartment.
We had the next morning and early afternoon to check out what we could of the old section of Dehli. We all wanted to see Jamaal Masjid – apparently Asia’s biggest mosque. Again, it’s hard to put into words. It was amazing – a massive red stone mosque complex in the middle of packed roads and alleys. Oh, and I finally saw my first stand selling goat heads on the street right when we got off our cab. The mosque itself was very quiet and peaceful in contrast to the insanity outside. Our final adventure was getting lost in the tiny alleyways of the old Dehli marketplaces. Apparently, we were in the area selling wedding decorations, stationary, etc. The girls started to get anxious and eager to get back to the main road, but I could have wandered through those alleys all day and not cared how lost I was. Probably the scariest thing we saw was the “dentist’s” office on the street.
Anyway, we made it home after only a two hour flight delay. It was good to be back “home” in Mumbai, home of non-stop life and action and organized chaos. And the people are much friendlier here as well…

My Weekly Journal Entry for School

I feel like this week has been slower than others. Actually, it hasn’t been slower but it’s harder for me to think of things to write about this week. Maybe it’s because I’ve settled in here and I feel like our lives have settled into a sort of routine. We discovered the joys of eating at tandoori meats at Dehli Darbar and sandwiches and pasta at Indigo Deli - all down the street from us. I’ve become addicted and it’s hard to discipline myself to eat the free dinners at YWCA now.

I’ve lived for much of my life in the tropics, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen SO MUCH RAIN as I did last weekend. It was endless for pretty much three days straight. Since we’re pampered foreigners staying in the higher ground of south Bombay, we had no idea that it was badly flooded throughout the city until we saw the news on TV at Café Mondegar for breakfast on Sunday. Around 12 people died in Mumbai and hundreds more in Maharastra…and July (the worst month of the monsoon season) has barely begun! I can’t decide which is better – waking through possible cholera/dengue/leptosirosis/sewage-infested water with my Bata rain sandals and feeling god-knows-what going between my toes or walking with my sneakers on, knowing that they’ll be completely soaked in 30 seconds. The front page of the Times of India today carried a story on the number of hospital admissions in Mumbai because of the monsoon-related diseases and sicknesses and reported the season’s first malarial death. Lovely.

I’m still reading a lot of theory at work. To be honest, I’ve had enough of theory and of academic writing on the issues of urban development and globalization. After a semester of reading these kinds of materials and preparing for this summer by reading books and articles on Mumbai, I’m ready to actually talk to people instead of just reading texts. Sometimes, it’s hard to focus on any more readings because I feel like I’ve done so much recently and my brain has reached its capacity of information intake on these issues. I’m hoping that the coming weeks will bring us the opportunity to go out into the field and talk to community leaders to hear their stories, insight and opinions on their lives and the city as a whole. I have a whole list of people and organizations to contact in the next few weeks to hopefully set up interviews for my personal research project.

We had our weekly staff meeting today. It’s always an amusing, if slightly boring, experience because it’s pretty much all in Hindi and they tend to go on for a couple of hours. Shweta, our boss, and the NGO Director take up about 90% of the conversation while the nine others silently sit and listen, occasionally adding a quick thought or looking at us and smiling, knowing we’re sitting there with no clue as to what’s going on. The discussions get pretty heated at times and from what I can tell (judging from the English words and phrases that are thrown in), the debates all have to do with theoretical issues. I always find it funny that we’re sitting in the slums of Bandra East in a simple, run-down room and the NGO leaders are discussing issues like capital flows and Marxism. There seems to be a closer linkage between theory and practice here, unlike the U.S. In my years in working for NGOs, I’ve never been a part of a heated exchange about theories in a staff meeting like I’ve seen here.

We’re off to Dehli and Agra tomorrow for the weekend. I can’t wait to take photos…

Work and Research Stuff

After three weeks here, I now feel like I’m settling in. I’m no longer tired all the time and wondering if I’m sick and have mono or something. I can pick which train will take us to Bandra or Govandi without staring at the coded signs at the train station for five minutes. I’m mastering the art of running alongside the train as it pulls into the station, grabbing the pole and swinging myself on, flying between people standing in the doorway to grab my coveted spot to stand and lean against the backs of the seats when there’re no more seats left.
We’re still getting acclimated at work and figuring out how to best support their mission. I find myself going through an internal struggle between the need of the NGO for activism and my viewing of the issues of urban development and slum reclamation from a more journalistic, objective perspective. After making it clear to Shweta, our boss at the Committee to Right to Housing, that I don’t feel comfortable taking an ideological stance in the report she wants us to write, I feel more at ease. I’m finding it hard to take a hard political stance on the very complex issues of land, poverty and the changes brought on by globalization here. Of course I recognize the injustices faced by slum-dwellers as they are forced to be moved without any consultation. I also recognize the dangers of relying on privatization as the answer for city infrastructure and the other processes that are completely bypassing the poor. But I also understand that change – be it a shift away from manufacturing or building new roads, transportation networks and malls – isn’t an evil in itself like some who push for slum-dweller rights seem to believe. Change is inherently a part of what cities are. It’s sometimes dirty and messy, but it is inevitable. The issue is changing the city in a way that includes the poor’s voice and takes their concerns seriously. What’s frustrating to me is the seemingly intractable nature of both sides – the government, private interests and middle class on one hand and the slum-dwellers and the NGOs that work for them on the other. Is there no room for dialogue or negotiation? There’s a HUGE gulf between the middle class and the poor as people, in basic human interaction. I see it through my work at CRH, I see it through talking to my middle-class friends I’ve met here, I see it in daily life. This is the crux of the issue that I’d like to focus my research on – how the forces of globalization that are changing this city seems to be widening this gulf and creating further tension. I want to study the rise of consumerism and advertising in this city and how this is creating further divisions between classes. I also want to see how the media portrays it all and takes sides in this.

Indirangar Pipeline Area Slums – June 28

“The rains have stopped. Are you ready to go out?” Beri asks us in the office of Committee to Right to Housing. It’s our second trip into a slum area near the office in Bandra East, a northern suburb of Bombay. Like our first trip to Jarimari, where sulm communities are being demolished to make way for the international airport expansion, this community is under threat from the Mumbai Municipal Corporation. We’re led through a courtyard, avoiding puddles of brown water with floating trash and within minutes we reach a bridge. The creek below us rushes by, its water higher because of the monsoons. Beri tells us that the floods that are so common in these summer months will raise the water up to the bridge level. I look below us and see openings in the shacks to to living rooms a few feet above the water and wonder how families deal with the annual floods. At the end of the bridge, we take a step onto a metal pathway and it takes a few seconds before it registers – the pathway between the two and three story slum dwellings is actually a huge pipe carrying water to the south, towards the central area of Bombay. There’s about a eight foot clearance between the housings on either side. We walk through the corridor, making sure to keep balance on the pipe as I balance my notebook, camera, bag and umbrella. Calls of “hello sir!” and “how are you!!” echo from dark bedrooms and living rooms with TVs blaring on either side of me. Groups of men stare and nod, women and children smile and laugh as we pass by.
“Out of 100, only 30 people are having electricity. The BMC is paying no attention to these people.” Beri tells us. Some residents get water from the taps at the Bandra train station a couple hundred feet behind the houses at 6am everyday, before the morning onslaught of commuters on their way to office jobs downtown. Others get their water from the pipe we’re walking on. Many of the one-room dwellings, made out of corrugated metal, slabs of wood and maybe some concrete are actually rentals. The owners often live below, with the renters on top. When someone comes and is able to pay more, the current renters are forced to go. Nothing comes without a price in Bombay.
The dark grey skies suddenly bring down a torrent of rain and we run to some cover under the tarp of a stall selling gum, cigarettes, and soap. An old red public phone sits on the wooden counter. The two young men smile at us and talk with Beri in Hindi, asking where we’re from and what we’re doing. Beri tells them we’re here from New York and documenting slum demolition activity. “First he was in Bandra West, now four years he is staying here.” Beri tells us, referring to the shop owner. A group of three young boys and their father are laughing and yelling at us from about 20 feet away. They see my camera and they want me to take their picture. They’re all playing on the pipe and are having a great time. I’m struck by the vibrancy of the people here. At no point during our visit do I sense any hostility or anger. I’m miles away, both physically and figuratively, from the sense of hustling and constant scamming on the tourist thoroughfare of Colaba Causeway. The way this community has built itself up literally around this one pipeline is ingenious. At certain parts, the edges of the pipe blend right into concrete, with stairways leading down to ground level, ladders going up to bedrooms, tiny storeftonts and street food stalls mixed in with the houses.
We’re led back out to the main street outside Bandra train station via a narrow alleyway. It’s a world of difference on the other side of the wall. Auto-rickshaws, buses, cars, motorcycles, and people walking under umbrellas battle to get through the madness to their destinations. Somehow, things don’t just collapse and everyone makes it through.

Bombay or Mumbai?

I’ve unwittingly gotten into the habit of using “Mumbai” instead of “Bombay”, although I’m still reluctant to use the new name for the city. There’s a common misperception that the change to Mumbai represents a shift back to some pure. uncontaminated-by-colonialism, “Indian” past. This is bullshit. First off, when the Portuguese settled on the seven malarial islands that used to make up this area before the oceans were filled in and the city became one big island, there was no city, per se. The area was a rural collection of fisherman. Bombay was basically founded by the forces of colonialism as a trading post, first by the Portuguese then the British. The name shift is part of a nationwide shift over the past decade or so to rename cities, streets, buildings, etc. to reflect an imagined Hindu-centric past. It is as much about excluding Muslims and every other minority religious group as it is a rejection of a colonial past. For example, the former Victoria Terminus train station is now officially called Chipatri Shivatri (even though most locals still call it VT, just like most still call this city Bombay) You’ll also find streets and buildings renamed after this hero of Mahararastrian Hindus who led an uprising and defeated the Muslim Moghuls. Reverence towards this hero is a direct middle-finger to the Muslim population of the city. In Mumbai’s case, the leading chorus that led the name change is the Shiv Sena, an immensely popular (especially in slums), right-wing, Hindu nationalist party that, to site one example, coordinated riots and violent attacks against Muslims in the early 1990s. This is all my way of saying that I’ll take the name Bombay over Mumbai.