Pavement dwellers of Mumbai

Mumbai is the city where wealth and poverty live side by side. It is city where one family live in 27 storey building and it is also city where 62% of the population lives in the slums. It is inescapable even to the untrained eye if one gets to live in a area where RBI, Bombay Stock Exchange, Mantralaya, Vidhan Bhavan, Headquarters of all major... companies and banks, Nariman point, Bombay High-court, C.S.T and BMC are within a range of walking distance.

You can see affluence of Dalal street and Mint Road but to see that you must 'cross' the pavements on which live nearly 30,000 families in Mumbai.

Here in front of C.S.T pavement dwellers are mainly from backward districts of Maharashtra. Most of them speak Marathi. 'Paradhis' of Osmanabad live here because they want to secure themselves from wrath of police as they are stigmatized as criminals.

One of the person in his late 20's with whom I had a brief interaction was from 'Khatik' community in Solapur district in Maharashtra.

In 500m stretch from Azad Maidan to Metro Square where I go to dinner usually on sundays nearly 15 families live on footpath. They do not have any basic facilities. They own a stove, 2-3 utensils, mobile and clothes. They were watching a obscure movie of Sanjay Dutt on small laptop last sunday when I was going to dinner. They use public toilet which is at end of Azad Maidan. They do not have water facility as they are 'illegal'. They wash there clothes and put them on fence of 'Amar Jawan' for drying. Amar Jawan is important visiting site in front of CST which was descreated by rioters on 11 August 2012. Clothes are put on its iron fences while foreign tourists visit the place and photograph themselves with iconic CST building at there back. Children living on footpath keep begging for money to foreign tourists and they seem to be visibly annoyed at that. Adjacent to it are 5-6 Outdoor Broadcasting(OB) Vans of almost all major news channels waiting for some 'news' from protest centre Azad Maidan.

If you walk on footpath here you will notice small empty tinted bottles. These are used by pavement dwellers, they contain some intoxicating substance which make them forget their hunger and thereby ensure sleep during night as they go to sleep without or little to eat. Most of the pavement dwellers are drug addicts. If they don't get anything they search for any eatables in trash. Some cook on footpath. There generations have passed living on the pavement. Small children in shabby clothes usually stop at signal point. when cars stop at signal they keep knocking on window glasses. Sometimes they sell flowers and other petty things. On last 15 August they 'sold out' Indian flags. Ironically our PM on same day said from ramparts of Red Fort: "We have enacted the Right to Education Act to provide every child in the country the opportunity for education. Almost all our children are today being imparted education in Primary schools."

The area in front of CST to Times Of India office is frequented by prostitutes. You should walk with your eyes down in this area because if there is little bit of eye contact their eyes will ask you 'that' question. Mind this, if a female who is unaware of this is innocently waiting for something or someone here she is very likely to be approached by the 'customers'..!!

In this rainy season they protected themselves from rain with polythene tied over there pavement beds. That also provide them little privacy. Some fifteen days back two constables came to a vendor who sells boiled eggs here, they ate 2 eggs and then went 'without' paying money. Meanwhile we don't know when and where terror attack will happen. For CST, Cama Hospital, TOI building, Nariman point, BSE, Taj of this area have witnessed the terror attacks.

Amidst this life continues. People go to offices, Pavement dwellers smile, beautiful couples walk holding hands, Tourists photograph themselves, Children play at Azad maidan and Indian flag flies on CST..