I said: Dharavi

If the newly manufactured heritage tourism and the exhibitions of new antiques weren’t enough, Mumbaikars have yet another brainwave to cash on! The slum tourism....

And Honest that i have vowed to be, I have attempted to be that voracious modernizer too who almost crossed the line of wannabe urban doctrine. My friend Gabriel Venot from the all-so-fashionable France was in India for a 12 weeks long India Darshan.

He’s been a great help and moral support during my sojourn in Paris; and I definitely owed him a good hospitality the Indian way. While my mum made all the colourful Indian dishes for his bland and delicate palate, along with her lessons in Indian yoga; I toiled with map of Mumbai to set the best route for his sightseeing, so as to be able to excite his tourist senses more than what his tattered lonely planet could do.

I skilfully managed the Mumbai tour and took pride at end of the day for having shown him the Mumbai unscripted !

The filmi Mumbai, the poor Mumbai, the Mumbai on streets, the streets of Mumbai. The garbage scattered all over, and the landfills of garbage. The sophisticated bribing, the skilful lobbying.
The political Bombay, the queens necklace over Mumbai, the chowpatty, the balloon man. The rickshaw race and pedestrian traffic. Overloaded trains and unutilised subways. The phool gali, the khaaoo gali. The kebabs, the bhels, the vada pavs, and cutting chais.

I felt like a contemporary artist, making collages of film posters for him as I sat in the Cafe Sarovar of Jehangir art gallery. It makes one symbolically the erudite , sipping chai with a gora at sarovar. Its then, that as if by the air of being the contemporary urban : I popped the final destination on route.

I said : The Dharavi. I took pride in introducing this well-negotiated, enclave within Mumbai. I poured out all the scholarly articles, all the ghastly yet beautiful images that i have seen in the exhibitions. I discussed all the controversies and debates I have been participative in at the sip-the-machine coffee conversations that ive been in with the self proclaimed designer elite groups. At some point, I even started to throw in my personal opinions. But I was still behaving programmed.

Most Mumbaikars are. Dharavi still stays a myth for most Mumbaikars even after the slumdog success. We speak both ways and we even opine both ways. “slums should be eradicated” ....hey but...then, we also do say ... “Slums are a part of our fabric !”.

The fact is, no one really knows what to do with them. I know of people being invited from Italy to Israel to solve the “PROBLEM”. Designers like the HOK , Urban researchers and even Phd students from all over the world....have all come and gone. Made money on the proposal presentations, later dinners at the chic olive in Bandra, discussed how the root of all problems lie in Indian politics, and washed their asses off (incidently toilet rolls manufacturing is one of the commercial activities in Dharavi).

It isn’t really Dharavi thats the problem. The problem lies in the fact that its identity remains undefined. And while the landuse is being termed the SLUMS.
Adding with all our pride : THE LARGEST SLUMS. We know what to do the best. Put in on the tourism map !...Like I did.

Its a shameful act that i did. But then Mumbai lives by its Intestines that constantly need something to digest, absorb and later throw as a waste. Dharavi as a slum tourism is the new food for thought.

Untill now, it only saw the architecture students, “Expert panels”, journalists, nose covered “Social WORKERS”, Phoreners, and photographers. But it is now also seeing tourist groups, school trips, exotic travel companies, corporate training trips, small scale industry HR initiative tours, and ofcourse slumdog millionaire site seeing tours !

This is for all those who may have been on these tours. Please mail in your experiences.
Every PROBLEM has a solution THEY say. But then its the same THEY who call it a PROBLEM in the first place !!!