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.