#dharavi

At the core of the issue in the protests is that the decision to improve the lives of Dharavi’s million-strong residents doesn’t take their agency into account.

: Dharavi, in Mumbai, one of the biggest slums of Asia, with one million people living permanently and unknown floating number of migrant workers. Divided in two parts, residential and business, it has developed a complete industry around plastic recycling, ceramics and leather making. You should visit it with an open mind and admire the hard work and organisation of their neighbours…We visited it with the help and explanation of @realitytoursandtravel …There is even an #artdistrict with beautiful paintings on the walls…. Here one of them!!

Ayyub and Arif were headed to pick up Alphonso mangoes from a farmer who was selling directly to housing societies. Near the Kopar Khairane slum (in New Mumbai), they saw a child playing alone in the middle of the road. Ayyub got out of the car to investigate. “His mother said he’s happy, let him be. We have nothing to eat. If he sits at home he will only bother me." The woman’s husband was a municipal sewage cleaner who had lost his job and her last meal was a banana she had eaten the previous day. One thing led to another and, in seven days, Ayyub raised ₹1.25 crore on Ketto. She put out a call for relief workers on Twitter; one gent showed up with his white Mercedes and volunteered to chauffeur the team; a computer shop in Dharavi doubled up as a place to store food supplies. When the money ran out, they raised another ₹50 lakh. They used the money to send migrant workers back home, to fund emergency medical procedures, buy oxygen cylinders and tarpaulin for flood-prone regions. They distributed 13kg packets of ration to 60,000 families across five states, she says. “The relief work kept me sane," she says. “I was out every day."