Some Success in the City!

               The past few days have been exhilarating, confusing, and have finally, finally felt like progress! On Tuesday, Neil and I decided to make a trip to try to talk to members of the Slum Rehabilitation Authority, the official government agency that works on most slum rehabilitating issues in the city. When we got to the SRA, we introduced ourselves as students. We were asked to go to speak with the public relations representative (not very public relations-y!). When we went to speak to him, we again introduced ourselves as students. That was probably the wrong tack to take, because he told us that we are not in a classroom and that these busy government officials do not have time to attend to all the whims of students. We think speaking Marathi would have been an asset, because most of the signs/posters/placards were in Marathi, and most of the officials were Maharashtrans. All we could do was speak in our broken Hindi.

                The public relations officer did in fact seem rather busy, however; people were continuously coming in and out of his office to get his signature on this or that document, he was advising people in between our conversations, and he was leaving documents for other people to pick up as we sat there (he was also a bit scary-looking, with no bottom teeth save two bottom teeth on either side, that stuck out of his mouth like the fangs of a bulldog. But who am I to judge?). He gave us a very brief explanation of what the SRA does. Basically the SRA gets sent habitations that are officially designated as “slum” habitation. Then they also get bids from builders who want to make bids on the land. They inspect the land, hand it off to the highest bidder, and resettle slum dwellers in tall high-rises on the same land. He then sent us up to the fourth floor to buy the SRA “What We Do” packet.  We achieved a modicum of success, but we were still unsatisfied with our progress.

               The next day, however, Neil and I got an email response back from the Slum Rehabilitation Society, an NGO that agreed to meet with us the next day for an interview about what the organization does. When we got there, Felix Thomas of the SRS spoke to us for over an hour about the organization, its goals, and policies it aligned with. They seemed to believe strongly in the Rajiv Awas Yojna, but didn’t seem to think it was necessarily the best tactic for Mumbai. He informed us that the SRA is really the only enforceable policy to do in Mumbai in regards to slum development. SRS serves as an advisory body, working in residents’ communities, addressing their problems they face that are different from housing as well, like healthcare, education (forming libraries), and addressing problems like drugs. They use these strategies as “tools” to better ingratiate themselves in the communities in which they work in. Once the residents are more comfortable with the SRS and the work that they do, the SRS starts to address housing issues with the residents—forming a residents’ cooperative housing society, looking at the land titles, etc. SRS’s goal is for residents to obtain ‘self-development,’ or mobilize in their community to secure their land and housing title rights. At the end of our talk, Sachin, the community mobilize head, informed us that he was going to a slum, “Sathenagar,” that day for a play that was partly sponsored by the SRS about anti-drug awareness. We then went for a very long and expensive lunch at China Gate, then headed over to Sathenagar, which is located in Mankhurd. We had to go from Bandra to Dadar, which connects to the central line, then Dadar to Kurla, which connects to the Central Line, then Kurla to Mankhurd, which is on the harbour line. Whew. We got there, and talked to a worker in Sathenagar who was overlooking land properties in the SRS-sponsored library when we arrived. There was another man sitting there in some sort of uniform when we arrived, a man we were later introduced to as a community leader, an auto driver. We sat around for awhile and listened to them look over the property rights card (which designated this land as agricultural land). They mostly conducted their business in Marathi, though they were kind enough to do some explaining and answer our questions in English. Another guy joined us while we sat there, a white guy! He sat down excitedly once he put away his big rainbow-colored umbrella and rain boots to sit in the room. I later found out he was another international researcher from Brown University, doing research for his thesis about property rights, slum development, and architecture (I can’t remember exactly, his idea was a little complex to comprehend). He’d been there for three weeks, he told us, but didn’t really feel that he had achieved much success until today (so gratifying to hear). Geraud is actually a French guy, but brought up in France, the US, and Delhi!

                Anyway, when we were there we saw the play, which drew in a huge crowd. Although some came in the end and didn’t quite get what was going on, they were very interested and definitely had a lot of questions for us. One guy thought I was the director because I sat there taking notes while the play was going on! Although I still felt like my Hindi was a bit lacking in expression (and suddenly wished I could speak Marathi), it was exhilarating interacting with so many people. We came back by taking a rickshaw to Sion and then training back. I got so stuck in the crowded train, however, that I couldn’t get off the train until Thane! I then had to turn around and head back to Mulund. But I came back very happy.

               On Thursday, we spent the first half of the day recuperating; I had blisters on my big toe from my shoe, and was very sore from the train ride the day before. We decided to go back to Mankhurd to try to interview some residents. We again went to the Human Welfare Research Society (which works in collaboration with the SRS) office room across the street from the R3 redevelopment building. We sat with Rajkumar Shinde, who introduced us to the new Vice President of coordinating activities at HWRS. They mostly spoke with each other in Marathi, though they were kind enough to listen to us and answer any questions we had in English or Hindi. Neil asked some questions about the organization, the land, the infrastructure of SRS, etc. What we really wanted to speak to Mr. Shinde about was how to approach residents without being intrusive, as well as whether to approach one certain community leader first, etc.

               After a while, Geraud arrived as well; he also wanted to conduct some interviews and dip his toe in the water. We spent awhile talking about Geraud’s project—now that I understand it, it’s actually pretty fascinating. He wants to examine the ways in which residents use the space that they are living in slums, both inside the home and out. How much time do people spend in their homes? Where do they go out and gather in a community-style setting? Where do children play? How much interaction is there with one another? All these questions are actually fascinating when you’re thinking about the use of space. He also wants to do a comparison between NGO-led redevelopment and private-developer-led redevelopment, and look at how much each of these take into context the needs and wants of the residents themselves. He’s going to be sketching out locations of residents’ homes to get a better spatial understanding of the way they use space.

               Anyways, after a while, however, we didn’t seem to be getting anywhere with the HWRS and, additionally, we were running out of time. Finally, we decided to leave and start talking to people ourselves. After a bit of bathroom confusion (ask me for details), we got back and started talking to a few people. Right across from the SRS office was an extremely friendly and gracious family who invited us into their homes for us to speak to them for a few minutes. Neil and I discovered that our questions, while conveying the thrust of what we want to get across, seemed to be coming out as awkward and stilted when we asked them to the Sathenagar residents. We decided to come back again once we adapted our questions a little.

               Yesterday, I left home at about 2:45 to meet Geraud (Neil had left for Valsad for the weekend). He was planning to do some interviews with a translator and I wanted to tag along. I met up with him at the TISS campus around 4, and he told me he had been waiting for his translator to arrive since 3! We waited another twenty minutes, tried calling the guy and his mother, till finally we decided to just go. I would do the best I could as a translator.

               When we arrived, we went back to the first house that Neil and I had tried interviewing yesterday. We spent over an hour with the family (six people plus a parrot in a house of 21 x 7 feet), talking with them about their jobs, their religion, their daily routine, and their interactions with the people around them. Sathenagar is really one of the better slums you’ll find around here, with most homes having decent tiled floors, a few taps along every chowk, and kitchens within the home. People here have better employment situations than in other slums. Additionally, the other striking aspect of Sathenagar is the overwhelming sense of community one finds, especially within each chowk (mini stree). All doors/curtains are open, people walk in and out of each others’ homes so that you can’t even tell which kid is whose, music blasts in stereos for all to enjoy, and people gather in crowds whenever they glimpse something interesting. Part of this is a lack of space to really exist in any other way, but part of this is just a different sense of community. People rely on and support each other in networks that travel much deeper than the ties of family.

               After we conducted this one interview, however, Rajkumar-Ji called us back to his office to ask to make sure we bring a letter of authority from our university, and get permission from the HRWS before we set out on interviews. Then he took us on an auto to the Govandi station. Geraud and I then went back to the K Star Mall, where we hunted out a kurta for Geraud and then wandered out to eat some delicious chaat (made with mineral water for sure). Here’s to new friendships and learning more about Mumbai!

सब कुछ बदल रही है

            Over the last few days, I’ve been reluctant to update because I haven’t been sure of what exactly to say. Neil and I have had to undergo a complete restructuring of our project, and while I think this will be more feasible, I’m disappointed that we’ve had to move so far away from our original idea. My disappointment comes namely from the fact that we have restructured the project so as to render interviewing people who are actually affected by these macroeconomic policies unnecessary…Sorry. That was jargony and incomprehensible. Let me clarify.

            Originally, the intent of our project was to compare and contrast different NGOs' strategies for assisting women to gain property rights, and, from surveys with women, interviews with NGOs about their strategies, etc, and draw conclusions about best practices from this.

The problems we encountered were: 

1.     Our topic was so specific that there was really only one NGO that in Mumbai that we could potentially work with, Majlis, and that NGO was too busy and gets too many other similar requests to be able to engage in this sort of project with us.

2.     Since we weren't able to reach out earlier, it also appears that it will prove very difficult for us to establish enough of a relationship/trust with any other NGOs/community organizations to allow us to conduct interviews with the populations that are affected by these organizations' works.

            Our modified proposal broadens the scope of our research, taking the emphasis away from interviewing the affected populations, and shifts the focus more towards interviewing government officials, NGO representatives, and other community organizations that work on slum rehabilitation issues. Our goal is to note the different works that these bodies work on in a short-term daily basis to assist slum-dwellers, as well as to determine these organizations' long-term visions when it comes to slum rehabilitation. Does this long-term vision tend more towards the notion of "rights-based" property for slum-dwellers (trying to establish credible property/tenancy rights for slum dwellers so they at least have a durable investment in the city), or "reallocation-based" (shifting slum dwellers out of slums and into government-sponsored "better" or "permanent" housing). Our aim is to determine the similarities and differences between the long-term visions of all of these different bodies that work on slum rehabilitation issues. 

            The catalysts that brought about this drastic change were two of our meetings last week. Last Tuesday (the 18^th), we met with Dr. Meena Gopal of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). Located just outside the BARC Hospital (Bhaba Atomic Research Center is India’s top secret nuclear testing facility), TISS is a campus filled with Indian students after my own heart. This is a top-notch college for those not looking to study engineering, medicine, or commerce, those automatically lucrative careers. TISS is filled with Indians studying Politics, History, Literature, Economics—in other words, score! Dr. Gopal proved to be a very attentive listener with good suggestions for organizations to reach out to, but she seemed a bit doubtful of our ability to carry through with our original research on such a niche topic.

            The next day, in a last-ditch effort, we traveled to speak to the NGO Majlis, the organization that works in the arena most closely related to our original research design. Majlis law provides legal assistance to women who are trying to gain property rights for themselves. When we approached Majlis, we got a less-than-warm welcome from an office that was obviously overworked and understaffed. The women seemed genuine and hardworking, but as one of their head directors explained, they had to work around the clock as an organization staffed with only 25 employees. This left them with no time to entertain young potential researchers such as ourselves.

            After a lot of soul-searching, we have come up with this new idea. We are excited (and nervous) to see how it goes. Tomorrow, we are making a trip to the Slum Rehabilitation Authority’s office in Bandra, to see if someone will talk to us. As a former researcher in India advised me, “Most of the time, you just gotta show up.”

Rikshaws and Buses and Trains, Oh My!

            Today, we traveled to see Dr. Usha Thakkar from the Gandhi Institute of Social Thought, and in the process, began figuring out the public transit system in Mumbai. We started by catching an auto rikshaw (a three-wheeled scooter) to the Mumbai railway station, which cost 24 rupees (about 42 cents). From there, we got on a train to Mumbai’s central rail line to Matunga, where my cousin Kirtana needed to drop off a form for college.

             Trains are considered the lifeblood for Mumbai travelers; they connect all parts of the city, are unhampered by traffic as such found on Mumbai streets, and (if you buy a second- or third-class ticket) are really cheap. Each train ticket to Matunga, a location about 30 minutes away by train, cost 8 rupees (about 14 cents). The city’s landscape is so shaped by its railway system that each municipality is divided by East and West, the sides created by the railway tracks. For example, Mulund, where I stay with my relatives, is divided by the railway into Mulund East and Mulund West. One can cross the sides by automobile with a flyover (little-used) or by the bridge at the train station that connects the east side with the west side. I wondered briefly about the possibility of the city using underground subways instead—to save the precious land space over-ground—but quickly dismissed that idea. The train system is set up in such a way as to make an underground system unfathomable. Shantytowns and slums are built along the railway lines, the bustle of food stalls and clothing stores set up close to the station, people jump on and off moving trains as the need permits (most people aren’t this crazy, but check this out), and many fall asleep in apartment complexes lulled by the sounds of the coming trains less than half a mile away from them. Anyway, trains are important. And they’re pretty fun to ride on when it’s not peak hour. Unfortunately, when traveling around all day in the city, it’s to avoid riding the train during peak hour, which lasts from 7:30-10:30 in the morning, and 4:30-8 at night. There is a special compartment on every train reserved for women—to protect women from unwonted harassment—but Kirtana and I rode on the general compartment today since we were with Neil, and him and I are unfamiliar with the train system.

            In the morning, we did fine, traveling from Matunga to Grant Road, where Mani Bhavan was located. Mani Bhavan is a beautiful house surrounded by big leafy trees. It was the home of Gandhi’s political activities in Mumbai, where he stayed with his family friend at his house. It has today been converted into a political science office/memorial to Gandhiji. Side note: Barack Obama donated a “stone of hope,” or a piece from the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial in Washington DC, to Mani Bhavan. After wandering through the house for a bit, we met with Dr. Thakkar, a very friendly and eager-to-help friend of Professor Echeverri-Gent. Dr. Thakkar listened to our proposed project description patiently. She suggested the names of a few people and organizations who might be helpful to us. She offered to share the contact information of a lawyer who consistently works for the poor, referred us to the Nirmala Nikata College of Social Work, as well as other colleges that might have resources for us to take advantage of.

            Dr. Thakkar knew well about the Bombay Municipal Corporation, having written a paper about it in the 1980s, and explained a little about the BMC to us as well. The BMC is the civic body that governs the city of Mumbai, with a budget bigger than some small Indian states. The BMC is responsible for the civic infrastructure/administration of the city. There are many power dynamics that come into play when looking at governmental bodies, and it’s really like observing “different worlds,” Thakkar concluded.

            When talking to Dr. Thakkar, however, we realized it may not be feasible to conduct our research with this laser-point focus of NGOs helping women gain property rights. For one thing, there actually are not many NGOs in the city that have this focus; Majlis may be one of the only ones that could work. Additionally, India in general does not put a big emphasis on promoting property rights for political and social empowerment. This idea has in fact been proposed and looked at in scholarly circles relatively recently. Additionally, NGOs in Mumbai generally have very specific focuses, working with small populations of people concentrated in small, poorer areas to work on very specific issues (e.g. keeping libraries for poorer women to access, education to prevent violence against women, etc.). Speaking with Thakkar further reinforced the thought in the back of my head that we may have to modify the focus of our project a little bit in order to effectively carry through our experiment and the manner that we have envisioned. We are speaking with Dr. Meena Gopal from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences tomorrow, so we’ll see what she has to say. Until then.

Bringing the Rains

            I’ve been in Mumbai now since the 11^th night (really, the 12^th morning). And it seems as though the anticipation of my arrival—and my arrival itself—has spurred on the rains in Mumbai. Every year in India, from June through August, certain cities experience the “monsoon season,” or rainy season. During this time, residents don their water-resistant shoes, stuff their umbrellas in their bags, and walk around the city prepared for rain to come at any moment. The rain is celebrated in Mumbai and other cities because it is the one time of the year the region gets a consistent amount of year; it cools down the normally sweaty region, and farmers depend on this rain for their crops. Having a “rainy season” is so ingrained in residents’ minds that it is hard to imagine seasons otherwise; when my mother first arrived in Michigan to complete her post-doctoral degree, she asked when the rainy season was and was bewildered when she realized there wasn’t one!

            Anyway, the past couple of years, it seems that Mumbai did not get much rain in the summer. Every other summer that I have visited, however, the rains seem to have come in full force. Yesterday, Neil and I set out for our first NGO visit, to the Akshara women’s center (Akshara means “limitless” in Hindi). After some fruitless calls and emails to the organization from the U.S., we figured it was about time to just start going to NGOs in person. We initially planned to go by train with my cousin, Kirtana, who was going to show us the ropes with the Mumbai public transit system. She suddenly found out a little later that she got an interview with a company that very day, however, an interview that she had to go to. Using the public transit system might not give us enough time for her to make her interview. Our uncle loaned his car out to us, and we set out to drive to Dadar.

            When we got to the building, it seemed pretty residential. Confusedly, we walked up to the fifth floor, and on the apartment door was painted a single word, “Akshara.” We knocked, and explained to the man at the door in our rusty Hindi that we were here to work on a project. We were ushered in, and a woman explained to us that this was actually the accounting office (!!), not the programs office of Akshara. The man in the tiny office was actually a chai-walla, or tea maker, and he brought us glasses of water as we sat.

            We made a pretty quick exit, and after a long, fifteen minute struggle of full cabs driving past us in the pouring rain, finally found a free cab who was willing to take us to Akshara’s programming office. We sat happily for fifteen minutes, but finally the cab driver stopped—in front of a flooded street where the water stood knee-high!! It was fun (for me at least) for a few minutes. After twenty minutes of wading through the rain, not so much. See image below. 

Flooded street in Dadar

When we made it to the Akshara programming office, wet and sweaty, we were told that the organization was centered around violence towards women and activism in that regard, not women’s property rights! Alas. Baby steps, baby steps.

Day 1: And off to Mumbai

            Well, here I am. Months of semi-planning and worrying later, I am sitting in Washington Dulles International Airport, waiting for a flight to Newark, then Mumbai. I am traveling to the city not simply to visit family, as I have done innumerous times in the past, but to conduct research on the effectiveness of NGOs in helping women gain property rights in Mumbai. Well, that’s what I’m hoping to do, at least.

            Thanks to an undergraduate research grant from my university, the University of Virginia, I have this opportunity to indulge myself in a summer of studying a topic that interests me in a country that interests me, all for free! I will be traveling with a partner, Neil Desai, who is a rising third-year at the University of Virginia. My advisor on this project has been Professor John Echeverri-Gent, an inspiring advisor without whom I wouldn’t be here.

            I have fought hard to be able to go on this trip, but when it comes down to it, on the day I’m leaving, I’m scared. I’m scared I’ll get lost on the streets of Mumbai, being keenly aware of my poor sense of direction and hampered by the torrential rains of monsoon season. I’m scared I’ll speak Hindi in the garbled tongue of a foreigner, losing respect from locals. But most of all, I’m scared I’ll settle into complacency, repeating the sedentary habits of my past trips to India, allowing my relatives to lead me around and unthinkingly consume the food they offer me (fine under normal circumstances, but not this trip). I’m terrified that I will not accomplish the goals of my research project, and that I will squander the money given to me in good faith and trust by the grant foundation at UVA.

            When it comes down to it, all I’ve prepared is the topic of my research and a list of NGO addresses I want to visit and beg to help me tackle this project. My preliminary work to this point has consisted of rudimentary research on the topic, applying for numerous grants, working through grant restrictions and UVA’s research requirements, trying (and failing) to contact multiple NGOs, and then, finally, interviewing and selecting another partner to join me on my research trip. I’ve been so focused on the steps leading to this trip that now, when it finally comes to leaving, I’m extraordinarily nervous. Excitement has come in waves, and will return again, but fear remains with me as I set to depart. But in order to stay true to myself and my goals, let me make some vows:

1. I vow to try my best to carry through the goals of my research project, but be flexible to change and modifications to my idea, as that is part of the research process.
2. I vow to speak in Hindi as often as possible, even if that means embarrassing myself in the process. It is really the only way to learn and develop my language skills.
3. I vow to ask for help whenever I have doubts. Whether that be asking about directions on the street or the focus of my project, I will not shrink from reaching out.
4. I vow to spend time with and cherish my moments with family in India, but not let family time become the primary function of my trip. I have been entrusted with this opportunity, and I will follow through with my research goals.
5. I will update this blog at least once a week. If not, you, friends and family, must keep me in line.

And with that, I’m off! Thank you to all my friends and family who have helped me prepare for this journey and wished me well before I leave today. Your support is appreciated more than you know. Goodbye America and Namaste, India!