#shadow cities

Asia’s largest slum, Dharavi, is home to nearly one million people in just .81 square miles within Mumbai. That is every citizen of both Denver and Fort Collins living on just three of Denver’s biggest parks (City Park, Cheeseman Park and Wash Park).

It may be easy to picture Dharavi as a wasteland - pity its inhabitants, and think the solution is to bulldoze the entire slum and relocate its inhabitants. However, despite its horrors and the aspects that had me holding back tears it is important to recognize that... well... these are homes.  Not just that, but living around these homes are families, and communities that have learned not to just survive - but to build. They have built their homes, they have built their communities, and they have built an economy worth nearly one billion dollars. 

In an attempt to better understand Dharavi, I decided to go on a guided walk with Reality Tours. They are an NGO which charges 12 US Dollards (a lot of money in India!) in exchange for an “authentic and thought-provoking local experience... and use the profits to create change in their community”. While sure, they claim to send 80% of proceeds to its partner NGO, Reality Gives, to sponsor and empower Dharavi’s youth - but I was hesitant. I couldn’t help but wonder, “Is this slum tourism? Is this messed up?” Having gone on the walk, I can say that it may be “"slum tourism” but its benefits far outweigh the bad. First off, the NGO is sensitive to its presence and has a strict no photo policy. So all these photos i’ll be using come from them or the public domain. They also chose to highlight Dharavi’s economic back bone and the stronger residential communities that have developed... Leaving tour goers with a bit of hope, realism, and the optimism that things can get better for these people.  

My guide’s name was Hitesh. He was what you would picture a typical Indian male to look like: brown skin, dark hair, wearing a long sleeve shirt and pants.  Only his shirt was light blue and had “Reality Tours” printed on it. He was very excited to meet us and did the Indian head thing as he started our tour with a bit of history. Apparently Dharavi was settled in the 1860′s. “Older than Canada!”, Hitesh proudly proclaimed. Originally, all its buildings were made from discarded building materials that were being dumped on the site by lazy British contractors. Back then the British were busy redeveloping their quarters as they filled the land that once split Mumbai into 7 different islands. Yet while the British went on to plan their quarters of Bombay they left the areas designated for the ‘native’ as a free for all - and Dharavi was born.

Chickens clucked, mopeds were dodged and stray dogs avoided as Hitesh brought us onto a main street within Dharai. He pointed out every business you could imagine - banks, schools, food stands, gyms and even movie theaters! The theater lacked chairs but are an affordable way for one to catch a semi recent Bollywood Film.

We were then shown the industrial heart of Dharavi - learning how a slum could generate nearly one billion dollars.  Hitesh started with the plastic recycling yards. Here old dashboards, children's toys, and appliances (any discarded hard plastic really) are gathered by some of Dharavi’s poorest. These piles are then sorted by women into more piles. These sorted piles are then chopped down by a special machine made within Dhavari (an industry within itself), cleaned in a soapy water solution, dried on the roofs and melted/extruded into grain sized plastic pellets that are sold to manufacturers of plastic products.  

After the plastic yards Hitesh showed us the shops that clean and process old paint cans. In these shops paint cans are set ablaze in furnaces to destroy their contents. Their charred carcasses are then scrubbed clean, and marked. If this is the can’s third mark it is cut down. They bang it flat into a sheet so it could be sold as building material. Next to nothing is wasted in Dharavi.

Numerous other factories were then shown to us. All of which were not allowed in the residential areas because of their toxicity. We saw furnaces melting old aluminum into “grey gold”, shops manufacturing equipment like the plastic crushers, and areas where the plastic is crushed into finer particulate (see the above photo). Sadly because of the toxicity in all of these factories the life expectancy of employees decreases dramatically - to just 45 years old.  However, many men line up to do these jobs. Mostly because they require little training and they can send much more money back home. Not only do they pay better but factory owners let them sleep inside the factories in exchange for  guarding the shops equipment.

Amongst the tanneries (where leather was prepped, tanned, colored, pressed into faux textures and cut) we were actually taken into the ‘coolest place in Dharavi’. Sure, Hitesh said this literally as the store was blasting AC, but amongst the typical knock off hand bags I found myself surrounded by something quite different and beautiful -  their own brand! Flashing on the wallets, purses and handbags was their logo: Dharavi. The shop owner informed us they were proud of their work, had always dreamed of really “owning” it and now could because of the tour I was on. They no longer had to be ashamed of their location and hide behind other labels. While sure, I was totally suckered into buying something I didn’t really need, I was excited and optimistic - because even within Dharavi people are dreaming and working hard for a better life. 

Then a deeper dose of reality. We were led into the residential areas where the quality of housing varies drastically. The nicer ones doubled as live/work spaces... Allowing for non toxic business like tailoring, suitcase construction, baking, woodworking, pottery and more. However, in the bleaker areas the situation is much more dire. Monsoon water floods, disease is rampant, and families are squeezed into the tightest of quarters. Many homes also rely solely on the community toilets - where the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) says there is only one toilet for every 1,440 people. Not only that, but water taps within Dharavi only run for two hours a day. As many as 15 families will share one tap. Yet despite all these conditions, these communities survive, and residents are able to live their lives.

The tour then showed us how they are helping the youth of Dharavi. Reality Gives wants them to know their dreams living outside of the slum are obtainable. In their classrooms they teach 400 kids computer literacy, English (speaking english fluently leads a huge range of job opportunities), and soft skills (communication skills and interview training). They also provide a support network and pay a portion of the fees for 130 children to participate in sports programs. While they could pay the entire fee, they’ve found that asking students to pay a portion gives the students a sense of ownership and raises their commitment to the programs.

One program in particular is having a huge impact: their girls football club. Sadly, sexism is rampant throughout the slum. Most husbands want their wives and daughters to stay home and do the cooking and household chores. So perhaps the biggest impact of this club is the breaking of the social stigma regarding girls and sports. In fact, as Hitesh said, “The girls were once shy, not wanting to be seen running and playing sport -  but now they stand tall!” It was a very optimistic and empowering end to the tour. 

Because Niantic used to be part of Google, and they were responsible for a little augmented reality game known as Ingress. Now, when Ingress was first released, there was a bit of controversy over the striking similarities between Ingress and a now-defunct ARG for iOS called Shadow Cities, which was developed by a small, independent studio. Both games were mobile location-based augmented reality games with a premise of two warring factions fighting for control of portals to gather energy seeping through from another world. In each game, portals were at locations in the real world and the whole idea of the game was that you physically go to a location to access the portal there. The games had strikingly similar aesthetics as well.

Now, Shadow Cities was shut down about two years ago. Ingress wasn’t the only cause of its demise (for a while, it had failed to provide new content for longtime players), but the fact stands that there was this new game with the exact same premise and a marketing budget no indie studio could match. While Ingress was only for Android and Shadow Cities was only for iOS, Ingress captured the attention of anyone who would’ve otherwise found Shadow Cities. 

The favela cable car has wifi so you can tweet poverty tourism pics direct... pic.twitter.com/Ax4nfbdDWh