Abdul and Hussein.

Day 3 – Dharavi –

Today we were welcomed by Abdul and Hussain, two boys who live in Dharavi who happily shook our hands and welcomed our large group to their home. They are beneficiaries of The Dharavi Project. They played on recycled drums and sang to us in the Acorn office inside of Dharavi. It was so beautiful and so full of emotion.

Dharavi is the slum district that was highlighted in the award-winning film, Slumdog Millionaire. Except the real Dharavi wasn’t what we saw in the movies. Dharavi, a slum that spreads over Bandra, Sion, Kurla, and Kalina, is home to approximately 1.5 million people.

En route to Dharavi, we stopped in Bandra and picked up Vinod Shetty, Director of Acorn Foundation, a charitable organization that is the umbrella for the Dharavi Project. The Dharavi Project "is a multimedia project that utilizes artists and social-impact programs to change the living conditions" of the 'rag-pickers' who pick up waste in and around the landfills of Mumbai. Abdul and Hussein have had the opportunity to work with bands who are affiliated with the Dharavi Project.

Dharavi, one of the largest slums in Asia, was mind-blowing. The slum that houses these so called “rag-pickers” help Mumbai’s economy thrive. These 'rag-pickers' hunt all throughout Mumbai picking up any tiny little piece they can find to bring back to Dharavi that can potentially be recycled. These pieces are then organized or separated into larger categories and then re-cycled and sent back to into town.

In one instance, we saw a family put together cardboard boxes and in another put together car fenders to send to the car shops. The area was PACKED with recycled car seats, games, cardboard, drums, cans, bottles, material, globes, car fenders, and everything and anything else you can imagine that can be recycled. Places that were 300 sq feet, big enough to house five people and house your factory of either dying material, or making cardboard boxes, or fixing car fenders. You live, eat, sleep, and work all within 300 square feet (or less).

And occupational safety -- Who needs that when you just use your bare hands and feet? Men working with car pieces were not wearing gloves. Women using dye for clothes were not wearing masks. Children were running bare foot in the mud.

In the midst of all this recycling and mill work was everyday life - Barber shops, vegetable and fruit stands, temples, mosques, and people "guppshupping" (small talk). Yet, I cried. I was so full emotion that day to see so many people and so many children work so hard for a nearly $2 a day.

For the last two days I haven't stopped thinking about Abdul and Hussein and how their childhood is stripped by assiduously working all day in unhygienic and unsafe conditions. What seems mundane and normal in my life when I was 9 years old is something they will probably never know or see. It seems so incredibly unfair to me. It makes me somewhat at peace to know that NGOs and projects such as the Dharavi Project exist - that empower these individuals to better life through art, music, theatre and language. But then I take a step back and think, will life always be like this for them and for their children? We definitely do know that the Slumdog Millionaire will probably not be the reality for the remaining 1.5 million individuals.

Nitasha