In the heart of the slums (and there is indeed heart)

I am not sure how much I can adequately convey about today’s experience. In short, we penetrated deep into Mumbai’s Nehru Nagar slum district with the Friends of the Humanist Slum Self-Improvers, met with a group of children taking extra teaching in English and then were led to their homes – 5 pairs of us to 5 different homes each. Our mission was given to us by Prof. Parimal Merchant, a professor of business at a local university, who first lectured us this morning on the roots of the slum problems and the psycho-social realities of such an existence. The Brooks kids acquitted themselves well after some prompting in the university setting! Prof. Merchant used clips from the first film in India to take on the theme of the difficult life in the slums to illustrate the many challenges the life presents. He was accompanied by his wife and young daughter, as well as another volunteer for his NGO organization, Mr. Nailesh Dalal.

After our discussion, Prof. Merchant told us we would first have lunch at Mr. Dalal’s home (a gorgeous high-rise), and mentioned that we’d have Domino’s pizza. I’ve never seen such happy faces on a group of kids!

After a lovely lunch during which the Dalal family shared such intimate details of everyday life as their son’s recent wedding album and their private temple (they are Jains), we piled into the bus and headed to our much-anticipated destination – the Nehru Nagar slums.

Prof. Merchant and Mr. Dalal are both intimately involved with Friends of the Humanist Slum Self-Improvers, a movement dedicated to helping those in the slums improve their standard of living through education and through building self-respect and independence. The group does tremendous work, and we began in a small room in the second “floor” of a structure that required a ladder to access it. There some 25 children were taking voluntary lessons (it was Sunday), and after we had chatted with them for a bit we broke up into groups. The kids – with one Humanist adults volunteer to guide the process and translate – took us to their homes. Each pair saw 5 homes, which were more like monastic cubicles and did not exceed 10’x10’ in measurement. The geometry that allowed a family of 6 to live, eat and sleep in these cubes was well beyond me, but the places were immaculate and the families were happy together. All had emigrated from outer states where there is apparently no chance to earn money and no options for education for the kids. Many said they had nice, larger homes in the villages, but sacrificed that for the time being to make some money and give their children opportunities.

Though we were in a place beyond anything any of us had ever seen (see the walking tour footage in the video journal), we never felt physically scared. The people were all welcoming and curious about us, and generally delightful to visit with. Eventually we got back on our air-conditioned bus, and for the rest of the day I found myself automatically thinking, “5 of those houses could fit in my hotel room,” etc.

There are far too many stories to relay here – one that sticks out is the 18-yr-old who lives in a 2-story cube with her 3 siblings and parents, and who is getting her degree in microbiology and has just completed her student pilot training, so s working toward her pilot’s license. When the students asked whether that was a hard situation, she noted first that she could not get funding (loans) for her education as the slum dwellers are technically squatters so have no documentation to show home ownership. She also mentioned that the electricity goes off a lot, so more often than not se studied for exams by candle light. She made a huge impression on all of us – and I hope inspired our students to think next time they felt like complaining about homework!!

I will post some video, but know it will not capture what it was really like to be there. Despite the aesthetic desperation of the place, we met proud people working hard to have constructive lives and better their childrens’ chances. It was in some ways inspiring, though certainly challenging.

PS Did I mention that we had a LOT of rain in a 36-hour span (325 ml, however much that is). It added an extra layer of challenge to the day, as you can see from the pix. As we complained about slogging through it, we looked around us and realized these people's homes were full of water. Always a lesson...