When wandering around and about Mumbai it is hard not to
notice one thing, its vast slum areas. It is currently estimated that about
half of the city’s swelling 12 million people live in what is referred to as “informal”
housing. The largest slum in Mumbai is Dharvi. It was originally inhabited by fisher
folk when the area was still creeks and swamps, but it then became attractive
to the migrant workers of the South and beyond, when the swamps began to fill
in through a combination of natural and artificial causes. The slum is
estimated to home over one million people.
The wrong approach
Apart from coming to
Mumbai as a tourist, this was just the type of environment I wanted to access
and experience, namely for personal reasons but also as a powerful resource to
use in my teaching. As someone who has been lucky enough to travel I have
always tried to collect resources and interesting stories to bring home to the
classroom and this was exactly what I planned to do in Mumbai... I had visions
of bringing home hard hitting, powerful images that would definitely evoke to
students just what slum life was like. How wrong my approach was!
Surreal feelings
My first experience of a slum in Mumbai was a day in Colabo.
We walked along a street and really just came across it by accident. As we
walked past I managed to get a few photos which provided a window into the way
of life and the living conditions there. However, what struck me the most (without
trying to sound like a complete fool) was how the real life pictures I was now
seeing, were the exact imagery that is shown on many TV programmes and films. I
felt almost accustomed to it, like I had been there before. The scenes at times
shocked and appalled me and of course tugged on my heart, several tears were
also shed, but in some strange way that I
cannot describe I felt like I had seen this before and it did not upset me as much as I expected.
When I came back home and thought about this I think I
realised why. When looking at just a scene or a photo is becomes hard at times
to really empathise with what life for the person really is like and how they
feel and experience it. As a result, the next day, instead of going back and
getting more photos I decided to just sit and watch for a short period of time.
This time things were different. I became quickly fascinated by their way of
life – several new things things came to the forefront of my mind, aside from
the heart wrenching images you expect to see.
There was electricity
and water supplies in places; in the most basic forms of course but that was something
I had not expected to see. Then the people themselves they didn’t look sad and
broken - they were getting on with life, they smiled and shouted to us. Then at
the sides of the roads people sat making things to sell out of what looked like
most of the time as rubbish. They were genius and they were positive. This is
what overwhelmed me the most. They did not sit in squalor feeling sorry for
themselves. They got on with life and faced it. Some inhabitants even chose to
stay there as it is what they call home, and for generations their family have lived there.
Teaching Resources
with a twist
Having accepted that I had gone about “experiencing” a slum
in all the wrong ways, I thought about how else I could introduce the topic to
students. Here is what I came up with. The first resource was almost by
accident. I was looking for an Indian children’s book to buy for a family member
when I came across the book, ‘His Share of Sky’ by Rashmi Nazaray. It includes a
selection of well written short stories that describe life for ten year old
Barsau who lives “in poverty but is far from being poor” as he “learns the best
from nature” and “revels in his own adventures”. The book is inspiring, positive and thought
provoking but also includes enough descriptive detail to still introduce to you how
different the living condition of this boy’s slum are compared to anything we experience
at home. It was perfect and it was sure to help students comprehend life in a
slum in a much more expressive way than a still life photo.
The second activity I came up with struck me after reading a
few stories in the book. Again I had been overwhelmed by the ingenuity of slum
dwellers ability to make and produce something out of nothing. What better way
to get students thinking in that mind set than provide them with random
materials and rubbish and within a set amount of time produce something
creative they could sell for small money. Other similar activities could be
coming up with a basic shelter/house or putting together a meal from scraps.
Overall I learnt a valuable lesson here which is to think
outside the box (or photo as it were!).
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