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!
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