Contradictions Abound: Dharavi to Vegas

Mumbai, India

Bombay is such an intriguing city and the reoccurring theme here is: Clash of New and Old. I keep trying to understand why in this massive, metropolitan city where rickshaws drive on the sidewalks and people spend gobs of money on clothes, electronics, etc., there are still cows and elephants strolling down major roads.

I’ve now crossed the one week mark in India and by the amount of information I’ve taken in and adjustments I’ve made, it feels like I’ve been here for months. Ric drivers do NOT speak English, hell most people here don’t understand my English. The accent and the speed with which I’m talking I think really throws people off. As a result I’ve now gotten to the point where I will just start talking in Hindi to make it less painful for the other person and myself. Aside from talking to ric drivers, my first visit to an artisan group here in Mumbai has really necessitated and helped my grasp of Hindi.

I commenced my wage research in Asia’s largest slum ‘Dharavi’. I realized that I was in Dharavi after the fact, but at the time I did pick up the fact that I wasn’t in Kansas by the worse than normal conditions – dirt, large number of half dressed kids hanging out, Diwali lanterns still hanging (pictured), etc. Patwa, who is a jewelry maker pictured at left and the first artisan I visited, didn’t live in a ‘typical’ shack – he used to live in one of those shacks, but with the growth of his jewelry business and the help of Asha, he moved into an apartment within Dharavi.

When I got there, Patwa and four of his salaried artisans were conducting their day as usual. I broke the ice by speaking in Hindi – yeah, we all had a good laugh after that. As Patwa was my first producer group to visit, it was as expected a bit rocky. Patwa was well versed in his product costing, but had never considered the labor cost component of his craft. Language was a barrier, but I am so grateful for having grown up watching Hindi movies b/c I could understand most of what he was saying. I collected costing information on nearly 10 of his products, after which I just started asking him questions about the handicraft sector and fair trade environments. It was gratifying to learn that Patwa does receive a monetary benefit (in addition to receiving social services) from his fair trade sales – meaning his fair trade profit margins are indeed higher than his non-FT sales.

Having visited a slum in Bombay, highlighted one of the most interesting things about the city - the level of development taking place and how it is taking place. A significantly large portion of Mumbai is occupied by slums – these aren’t necessarily shacks on a roadside, rather they can be much more sophisticated in their architecture and social culture. It is not abnormal to see two-story slum housing with running water, electricity, TV’s, cell phones, etc. though they may take bathes and use open gutters facilities. These structures are semi-permanent b/c Indian regulations have practically encouraged slum development. According to Indian law, after a certain number of years (2-5 years) a squatter is permitted to legally stay upon his/her land, meaning rent-free.

India’s economic boom has tremendously increased property values and real estate development is seizing the city. Many of the areas that are being developed are former slum lands due to two reasons – slums sprawl over a LOT of undeveloped land and slum lands are cheaper. Interestingly, a slum relocation phenomena is occurring in the city as private developers have begun to purchase slum lands from the government for all kinds of uses, but predominantly for residential buildings (pictured at right: residential building in Hiranandani, which reminds me of Vegas' Belagio) the government in turn is requiring of the developers to construct apartment buildings (think inner city projects) to relocate the slum residents. What's really funny to me, is that Indians are so protective of the abudnant cheap labor surrounding them (average middle class families at the very least have a maid come to the house to clean the dishes, laundry, etc. and some afford a cook and driver), that these slum relocation projects most of the time are being built right next to the newly constructed luxury apartment buildings. So imagine a project in River Oaks or in Highland Park!

This developement is transforming Bombay rather rapidly and I think it is for the good. There definitely a lot of negative points to this development - a fair amount of fraud is occurring, the permitting process like most processes in India is ridden with corruption, and many people have told me that rapid construction of these buildings is occurring with the use of cheap materials. However infrastructure construction is necessary and it's good to know that major infrastructure construction projects are currently on-going such as: (1) a subway system in Delhi, (2) bridge linking two sides of the bay (Bandra to Worli, pictured below), and (2) above ground tram in Bombay (in fact one of these tram stations is being built very close to Suvida, my grandparent's place.)