Dharavi - India's Biggest Slum

Dharavi

“My first visit to Dharavi came about after a chance meeting on a train. I’d been a regular visitor to India for a number of years, and the boundaries of my comfort zone had moved considerably during that time. During my first visit to India, I remember feeling uncertain even stepping outside the grounds of my hotel unless I was with one of my local business contacts. Every time I visited I would make a point of straying just a little further.

In the early days, I considered myself brave and adventurous when simply walking into a local fruit and vegetable market. Later on, I was proud of myself for taking an auto rickshaw on my own or eating in a restaurant where I didn’t understand anything on the menu. I would have been on my tenth or twelfth visit to India before I graduated to using public transport. And a couple of visits beyond that before I felt up to travelling on the bus or train during rush hour.

It was on such a day that I found myself crammed into a suburban train, the tallest person in the carriage by half a head. “At every station, the crush increased as more people boarded the train and I found myself pressed further and further towards the end of the cabin until, by some miracle, I landed in a seat vacated by another passenger who needed to start the arduous trek to the exit. By my estimate, it would take him three or four stations to reach the door and free himself from the heaving, sweaty throng currently blocking his way.

As I sat, most relieved in my newly acquired seat, two young men standing nearby smiled at me. One of the asked me where I was from.

“Australia,” I said.

With much-excited head wobbling, his friend joined the conversation with an emphatic, “Oh! Ricky Ponting! Shane Warne!”

Ah yes, cricket. The great leveller for both Australians and Indians. Both of our countries’ national teams had been serious contenders for the title of world’s best team for many years. Just as Indians knew the names of Warne and Ponting, Australians boggled at names like Tendulkar and Gavaskar. As nations, we had something powerful in common, and it was an easy and guaranteed conversation starter.

My new friends and I talked about cricket for a little while, but my knowledge of cricket not extending far beyond the four names already mentioned made it hard to go much further.

“As the subject matter started to dry up, I enquired about their lives in India. I learnt that they were both students at the University of Mumbai. Tauseef was studying Chemistry and Fahim was studying Economics. They told me they lived in a place called Dharavi.

Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, the name seemed to have a place. Yes, I had heard of it, I told them, but I knew nothing about it. I was quite shocked at what they told me. My idea of slums prior to this conversation had not included residents who were university students. Surely slums were hotbeds of crime, danger, filth and lives without hope? I congratulated them both on the efforts they must have made in school to be able to go to university. After all, that would give them an opportunity to leave the slum and move into more salubrious surroundings. My preconception was further shattered when they told me they had no intention of leaving Dharavi. It was their home.

Back on the train on our first encounter, Fahim and Tauseef asked me if I would like to visit Dharavi with them. We had only been talking for twenty minutes, so perhaps it was foolhardy of me to accept the invitation so readily. Certainly, it did not fit with my previous slow and steady approach to moving my boundaries. Nevertheless, I went with my gut. This could have been a bad idea considering the stories of foreigners losing kidneys in some slums around the world… going with their gut in a most unfortunate and dramatic fashion.

Tauseef and Fahim have become my great friends and have visited a number of Operation Toilets projects

I’m happy to say that my decision to trust Fahim and Tauseef was a good one, and my life and the lives of tens of thousands of children in India have been beautifully and permanently changed because of it. I can no longer imagine a visit to India without visiting Dharavi these days. In Dharavi, my inner humanitarian was awakened, and every visit reminds me of the deep sense of purpose that arose in my life on that day. Indeed, it was this visit that ultimately lead to the founding of Operation Toilets”

Excerpt From

Toilet Warrior

Mark Balla

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