Homes in Mumbai
I don’t believe in ‘reinventing the wheel’ or trying to say something better than someone who has said it so well. In the Saturday November 24, 2012 issue of The Globe and Mail newspaper, Lisa Rochon wrote an article entitled “In Mumbai, ‘monster’ home has multiple meanings. I will include some of that article here for you.
Rich man, poor man: What constitutes a home in Mumbai for each is starkly, shockingly different. If you are as wealthy as you are shameless – like Mukesh Ambani, India’s ultra-billionaire – home is a 27-story tower resembling a corporate American sky-scraper………(400,000 square feet) dedicated to one family..
Local civic authority has vacated Mumbai, ……It turns out this epic, endless city ………has no true mayor – the title is largely ceremonial. That means nobody to lead the charge for desperately needed running water and flush toilets for about half the population. Nobody to advocate for more public transit (there’s no subway). Nobody to champion pedestrians’ rights, which currently rank at zero compared with cars”. Instead, a chief administrator charged with overseeing the entire state of Maharashtra governs Mumbai. That’s a dangerous power vacuum.
Mumbai is estimated to contain more poor people than any other city in the world. About 2.5 million of its people live on less than $13 (US) a month, according to its 2010 statistics.
But the city’s slums are not centres of crime and violence like many of the cocaine-poisoned favelas of Latin America. On the ground, the impoverished population in Mumbai scrambles to make do, often with elegance, grace and innovation. Their homes are typically the size of a modest condominium bedroom in Canada – measuring about 10 by 10 feet – and they are impressively designed as laboratories of efficiency. Against all odds, despite the buzzing flies and uncollected trash as well as the barely functioning public schools, families inhabit their tiny cells with stunning resistance. …………the path leading into the dark density was narrow, often with grey water running directly outside of the curtained front doors. Inside, however, the floors were scrubbed, even when there was a goat cohabiting with the family. ………..
Garbage and human waste were thrown into heaps along the narrow laneways but the interiors of the single-room homes were pristine, even though several family members occupied them………
…Dry goods and spices were organized into metal canisters and lined up on shelves. Plates were kept in drying racks suspended from the wall. A small Hindu shrine was displayed next to an electric fuse box…..who lived with her family of six in a home measuring 3 by 7 feet. She slept indoors while the others slept outside, typically on mats or ratan beds. “It’s extremely hard during the monsoons,” she said…
It seems impossible that government would abrogate its responsibilities of providing basic sanitation for its citizens. But such is the harsh reality of Mumbai. And what of civic leadership from some of the several dozen billionaires living in India, the ones profiled in the latest Forbes India magazine?…….
During my last moments in Mumbai, waiting on the tarmac for the plane to take off at sunrise, I watched as people came to life nearby ……located just beyond the international airport on the other side of a concrete wall topped by a menacing coil of barbed wire…..A boy dragged a plastic bag onto the open commons …to see if there might be anything worth scavenging. Several men squatted in the open, separated by a few metres, marginally apart from each other but fully visible from my plane. Day had broken in Mumbai, a city of tormented, wondrous – neglected – humanity.
Here are a few pictures from One!’s files.
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