When I first came here I had already booked my accommodation in advance. It was Just a bed in a room in a flat that I shared with four Indian young guys. I found this accommodation through a group on Facebook I was advised to check out by someone I hardly know. I said that I’ll take it for two month before I had even had a look at it. I was in Sri Lanka by the time and I had been there for a couple of months. I knew how hectic and confusing Bombay can be so I just wanted a safe place to go to straight away when I landed there. I was beat and tiered from traveling for months now and didn’t feel like getting an expensive hotel for a week or so just to run around looking out different apartments and places to stay, to find something that suit me. I had a feeling I probably wouldn’t find anything that I like to a hundred percent anyway. At least that is how it’s been previously when I’ve been in Mumbai. I am sure there is nice places to stay, of course. But I basically just needed a shelter. A roof over my head at night. So I would take anything. Well, not anything of course. I am still from Europe. The price differences are really big for accommodation in Mumbai and I had to take something pretty cheap according to my budget now, so I knew I wasn’t going to get anything impressive anyway.
I shared a taxi from the airport with some lady that I heard were asking for a taxi to the same area as I was going to. Oshiwara. I offered her to join the taxi I had just booked. It was evening by the time I got to the apartment and it looked like it could be a beautiful view from the 6th floor where the window by my bed was. All I could see in the dark was the lights through the smog from the tall buildings a few hundred meters further away. I encountered a slight problem as soon as I arrived. The guy who had the apartment wanted my rent to be payed cash, straight away. I said that it wasn’t any problem and that I just needed to get to the cash machine. After having tried 5 or 6 different cash machines in the area with him following along, I had to realize I wasn’t going to get any cash. I hade to call the bank in the morning. When I woke up the next morning and separated the curtains to enjoy the view in daylight I realized my view was over a slum area. Small two-floor buildings of bricks with steal plate roofs covered with rubbish and all of these little houses had each an old dish antenna for satellite TV. It was a disappointment to begin with. This looked like the most crappy view you could ever imagine. My credit card had been blocked for security reasons since the bank assumed that something was wrong when there were suddenly someone trying to take out money from my account in a different country. I had to pay an expensive call with lots of waiting time before I could finally unlock it. I had a view over a place I wouldn’t go in to. That was my first thought about it. I have been walking through slums in Mumbai before. Last year I walked through a big one on my own without knowing where I was going. It was interesting and beautiful. It was very colorful and for me a very different experience back then. But it was hard to find my way out, I remember and for a moment I had a couple of dodgy looking guys, covered with scars, following me and behaving desperately as they were trying to find a way to get me to walk with them. They were offering me all sorts of thing to buy. Well that happens all the time here, but this guys didn’t look like good people. Later I was told not to go in there again. That it can be dangerous in there and that not even the police ever goes in there. But that was a different slum. Not the one where I am staying now.
Now a few weeks later I have been walking through these slums opposite my building a few times anyway. Once for a meeting with a small group of young underground film makers. They make black and white horror short films with vampires and romances and other cool shit. Aspiring and motivated they would love to have a foreigner in their production. I was picked up and invited for a meeting by a guy I met at the gym.
Although, I must say that this slum area next to where I live now doesn’t feel like it is dangerous at all. Now I am actually quite sure it is a pretty safe area. I am not even sure if it is fair to call it a slum really. I don’t know what the people that lives in there would be thinking about that. Well, it definitely is a slum and one of my flat mates have once a little degrading called our neighbors “slum-people”. But the area seems to be quite well taken care of even though it is dirty. But most places in Mumbai is dirty. This is an area and a comunity all built up by its inhabitants. The whole society is built by the people. Something I find more markedly in India then in Europe. I find this slum having a very friendly and relaxed atmosphere with kids running around with their kites, laughing and playing with whatever they have.
Very basic things like home made badminton rackets out of waste wood and other improvised toys. You can see the most genuine smiles on peoples faces here. Not only smiling mouths but smiling eyes also. Smiles that that tells me that not knowing too much about the problems in the world can be an easy way of life. Genuinly grateful for what they have and not really asking for much. That’s the impression I get at least. But still all people have their problems no matter if you are rich or poor. I am sure the houses here are not that cheap after all, if you think of that the plots still are located in the middle of Mumbai, where all accommodation is relatively expensive generally and the lack of space makes the demand for living quarters very high and competitive. There is heaps of narrow walking streets in between these brick houses where people hang their colorful cloths to dry between the buildings. There is steep steal ladders on the outside walls up to some super tiny balconies on the upper floor. And you see people everywhere sitting around here and there and hanging out on these little balconies. Smoking their bidis or chewing their paan. Doing their tobacco thing and drinking their chai. These houses are probably staying in the family for generations. It is definitely a separate society. It is a town in town. Or like a little village in the big city, I should say. All built by the people. If there is a drainage or some sewer for example that needs to be built, they all help out doing it without any pre-installed organisation. People just work and they all find there natural role in the project. And it seems like nobody knows who knows what. But there is probably still a lot of politics constantly going on. There are many slum areas like this one in this city. And they often appear right next to some really big and exclusive apartment complex or other quite new tall building. Sure it is poor people living here in these slums. It is a class divider with a very clear border. But it seems to be good people and they seem to work pretty hard with whatever there is to do. They have all you need for your everyday needs in this area. All you can possibly ever imagine almost. You wouldn’t even need to leave this area during an entire life time if you liked. There is anything you need to survive. There are plenty of shops, pharmacies, workshops, bakeries etc. There is even a huge mosque. They even have their own open market where you can buy vegetables and chicken for example. A market I am sure people from surrounding areas also come to visit sometimes. Buying chicken here basically means that you get to see the whole process. Which is not really a nice show and I’ll rather stick to the vegetables and rice. I guess you can basically point out one of these living white hens from their tiny cages, which then is getting her feathers pulled off before being chopped up in like seven or eight pieces straight as it is. Chicken dishes here often have pieces of bone in the chopped meat pieces. Even when served on restaurants. That’s why it makes me think that this must be the way it is being done. I never really been a big fan of Indian food but I have learned to eat it now. I don’t eat as much meat down here as I would do in other parts of the world. They don’t eat beef in this country and pork isn’t either that common. The food here is divided into what they call Veg or Non-veg. Where Non-veg means dishes with meat, most commonly chicken. They have fish. I have seen it being sold on the sidewalk but it smells horrible in this heat and there is lots of flies where there is fish on the street. Probably excellent cat food in my opinion.
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