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Two and a half years ago during my very first visit in India I spent two days walking all around the slums of Mumbai and
Even though I got to learn so much about the life
And the slums I didn't really have the chance to live
Inside the slums and so I left with more questions than answers
So now that I came back to India for the second time I decided to go back to Mumbai and actually spend five days
Living inside the adi, which is one of the largest slums in the world
This is how it looks?
At the end of the 19th century that IV was a sparsely populated village inhabited by coldy fishermen
Then the slums were established in 1882
During the British colonial era and grew exponentially fast due to the expulsion of various polluting industries from downtown Mumbai
Throughout the years millions of people have reported to Mumbai from rural India in search of a better future
And some of them settled in Dharavi this led to the local population being incredibly diverse in their religions cultures and languages
These days that I've is one of the largest slums in the world housing up to a million people
Since there's very little government regulation it has become a hub for entrepreneurs and in place of incredibly cheap labor
It is estimated that the annual turnover of Dharavi some around a billion u.s.
dollars with most of their goods being exported overseas
In the 21st century the Ravi has become a topic of interest in mystery for
Millions of people due to the publicity to received from movies like Slumdog Millionaire and books like Shantaram as for me
I'm not a scientist or a researcher of any kind
I simply wanted to learn more about what life was like in the slums of Mumbai. I knew I would find this experience
I open it. I just couldn't have predicted how much
It is 12 p.m.. In Mumbai a few kilometers away from the slums
And I'm finally going there so my friend who lives in the slums. Who's called Praveen is already waiting for me
I'm gonna pack my stuff and take a back seat to meet him
It's been almost two years since I last saw Praveen and I was incredibly happy to finally meet him again
Yeah
brother
Once we met we started exploring the slums right away and made our way to one of the biggest markets in all of that that
Was completely packed with people there's literally thousands of people buying and selling stuff
There's kids going home from school. There's all the vegetables fruits clothing electronics and everything else you can imagine
It didn't seem like all the food stalls were properly sanitized
But the locals told me the products were fresh so I dug in walk garden for 15 euro cents. That's a good deal
Then we kept on exploring other areas of that, I'll be passing through dozens of tiny crowded lanes
I'm gonna try playing cricket for the first time in my life right now
right here
After a couple of hours in the slums I asked permian if I could use the bathroom somewhere
He said no problem, bro
And we ended up here in those houses these houses these houses
Or these house people don't have any toilet
So everyone just crosses this sheet and goes to the bubble toilets right there every single day over
2,000 people used this public toilet, and it cost only 5 Euro cents to get it they have toilets on both sides
This side right here
Every single door has a different toilet
It turned out the day I arrived to Dharavi was a really important celebration across India called Guru, Poornima
It is an Indian festival dedicated to spiritual and academic teachers during which the students pay their respects and express gratitude
Praveen brought me to a tent where everyone was paying their respects to their spiritual teacher status fighting the atmosphere was really
Festive and everyone got as much free food as they wanted. I couldn't resist it, too
Which is like well here it became smart a single
Everyone was really excited that I came to the festival and they brought me on the stage which was quite a unique experience
Eventually, we hit the streets and spend hours parading all across the slums
the police have stopped the whole
Traffic in this intersection so that we could pass a little in the middle of the street and now the chorus goes together this card
And the procession will continue
Late at night pravin took me to the place that would become my home for the next five days
I finally go to the place where I will be saying for the next five days. It looks like a proper slum
There's many small houses a lot of moist dark lanes
Sometimes there's some lighting, but not always
Yeah, yo Praveen
I'll wait I need to leave money wishes
It is already 11 p.m.. At night, so I guess it's the end of the first day of me being in the slums
But so far has been awesome right now. Just go straight to bed
I'll try to wake up early next morning to once again explore as much as I can
This morning I went downstairs and everyone was taking a bath
And then my host said so where do you want to take a bath?
I said I don't know I'm too lazy to think about and then he said no no no no
If you live in the slums you have to take a bath every single day no exceptions
So I guess it's time for my morning bath they
Start with a pina
Fresh feeling of freshness and
For your head you guys use like a shampoo
After the shower we had a quick breakfast and continued exploring that Island that day Praveen wanted to show me the only
Non-urbanized place in the slums, so we walked at the edge of the lobby and hopped into his friends Pratt
How do you like it Praveen?
It's good
Good you want to swim you want to go swimming
Well hater ha ha
Some minutes later. We arrived to this really tiny fishermen's village where we met up with a few more praveen's friends
We just came to some small island and look at the color of that water. It's even more interesting hey
We have a floating platform right here
Then a bathtub right there. It didn't take me long to understand
Why this place was so incredibly important to Praveen and his friends?
It was their only get away from the hustle and bustle of life in Dharavi now. We're going to some sort of another swamp
That's much bigger than this one apparently and also Praveen told me that no foreigners have ever
Visited this place only the local people who who live in these tiny houses or our huts
Somewhere somewhere there, that's that is garbage
That's that is
Relatively clean water so they have this water drainage system
where basically the fish from this side they cannot pass to that sides to the garbage and
The water level increases on that side the water without the garbage can flow to that side
Lucas's house, yeah
We have some images so that and for the yeah
Yeah, so they also sleep here or just rescue
Fish catching so they catch fish here
Here, and then the rest here the place wasn't the cleanest but the guys didn't seem to care all that much and made the best
of their time in the nature
The woman in the vote now has a helmet. Let's race guys who's gonna be first
Would you like to live here
This is a small island. They say it's the small Thailand right here
Coming here was like going into a time machine that took me hundreds of years back to the end of the 19th century
when that IV was just a group of tiny fishermen's villages housing only a few thousand families a
few hundred meters later
I was thinking back to the 21st century where I could see the mind-boggling
Contrasts between the fisherman's village the slums and the high-end office buildings that were so close to one another yet
So completely distant at the same time. This is still the swamp side. That's a super black river, and these are already the slums
Someone's building their house right now. We're so close literally 3 meters away
Though I don't think you can cross this part so easy
bye, bye
bye Hey
From then on I would wake up early every morning have myself a refreshing shower either inside or outside
Yes
Then I'd get something to eat and spend the whole day exploring throughout those few short days
We went absolutely
Everywhere from children's playgrounds to workshops where praveen's friends worked to busy
intersections and tons of other interesting places a couple of times
I borrowed my friend's motorbike and drove to a few of the many other slums in the area some didn't look that good
But others surprised me with incredible views well, Jess. It's one slum
That's just by the sea the sea is right here. The waves are really strong today
So apparently everything is wet even the walls of these houses
I didn't expect this but some of the slums we visited were so clean. They didn't feel like slums at all the slum
We're visiting right now is
extremely clean and
Every Hut is basically a house
So definitely look like Islam, it looks like a normal cute area the houses are color for that's a ping pong
That's a yellow one blue one the red one the orange one the other one
Though it--one and the best part is there's no smell it feels clean. It feels very beautiful very well preserved
We also checked out a few areas in the slums that the government redeveloped into proper apartment buildings
Just entered one of the houses apparently it's not allowed, but we're gonna transfer you stop. I don't know
Would you look at the view apparently this whole area used to be slams right now this part is to the Muslims
But everything around it became a building
so they would demolish the huts and these tiny buildings and build something like this and give everyone a flats and
The same thing happened here where I'm standing right now
This is a huge apartment building the UCB stands. No one can stop this love
One of those days Praveen told me we could go rooftop
At first it seemed a bit weird to randomly walk on people's roofs in the middle of the day
But Praveen told me no problem bro and off we went
Everyone thinks Hong Kong is the place to go rooftop in but it turns out into that I?
Look at this huge huge tree
There's room right out of the roof
There's a temple downstairs for hanging around on this roof
Next to the tree. I don't know how many roofs. We've been on, but it seems like 50 or more
there's hundreds and hundreds of huts all around this area and apparently can go on most of them as long as you don't break the
Roof because it's someone's house look at all of these houses
Everywhere in every single one of them. There are some people so here someone is drying their clothes
There someone's cooking. I think cuz I can smell it and in every single house
There's at least a few people right now and apparently there's someone down there. Also hello namaste namaste
On my last day that I had a super fun morning dance battle with perviness
Then we made our way to the local train station to check out how the
millions of people of the slums commuted to other areas of Mumbai
Every single day we're approaching the train station to take a train that crosses all of the Navi
It's only two stops, but we can see literally the whole swamp. There's the train. That's the cabin pretty packed
I would say how the chains beginning to move let her get these photos back. There's so many people outside
Today's my last day in the slums of Mumbai and as any
Sensible person would do I decided to get a clean professional shape for 30 US dollars chefs
I know this might look a little different from your ideal barber shop, but this guy was a total pro
He gave me proper clean shape in no time
We forgot those in fact in for good measure
Then everybody
Then ever grow
The five days that I lived in the slums of Mumbai opened my eyes in ways
I couldn't have imagined because they got to spend so much time with the local people who completely
transformed my outlook on what their lives were like
You see as most outsiders had a very distorted view of the people of Islamists
We grew up hearing stories about them dying on the streets
No one being able to read and write kids having to sleep, surrounded by flesh-eating brats
And so on there are of course tons of problems that need to be addressed especially when it comes to sanitation
for example sources say that in Dharavi
There is an average of one toilet for a thousand people also
Livestock general lives in the same quarters with people and that combined with the fact that the local water sources lack cleaning facilities
sometimes causes the spread of contagious diseases
I am obviously in no way knowledgeable enough to know of all the intricacies of life in the slums
However people there are just like everywhere else
They have their own dreams goals careers thoughts and emotions
They are no way different from the rest of us it is said that the Rob is the most
Entrepreneurial place in the world and I found that to be very much true
Most people I met had something going for them some were running their own workshops
Or small factories others had the restaurant shops or food stalls not only that a lot of the slum dwellers
actually work those big office buildings for various technology or financial companies and
Simply lived in the slums to save money on friends
Which is incredibly expensive in Mumbai there were some astonishing success stories to take my good friend shale ash
He was born and raised in Dharavi and started his online business at the age of 22
The business took off a few years later
And now Sheila's rents six figures online business employs 12 people full-time
Goes on vacation every once in a while and supports his whole family. It doesn't matter where we come from we are all equal
Some of us are born with golden spoons at our mouths others are not but that doesn't define us
What defines us is our pursuit of happiness our compassion for others and our ability to adapt to whatever?
Circumstances were in and make the best of them
You