One Mumbai Slum

Located a stone’s
throw from Dhobi Ghat, the world’s largest laundry, and right next to a garbage
dump is an unsuspecting half demolished area of land with a handful of families
occupying what’s left of their homes. Standing amongst the rubble, the homeowners
are extremely eager to show us, two foreigners that just happened to be
wandering past, their certificates declaring that they own the house and land
on which they live. One of the residents, Aktar, became our translator as I was
passed from one family to the next purely for the fact I was carrying a camera.
It became my job, it seemed, to document these families in their homes and next
to their certificates as though the images appearing on one Australian man’s
camera gave validity to their fight to keep the land.

It did appear to be
a losing battle unfortunately as numerous high rise buildings were starting to
spring up surrounding Aktar and his makeshift village. I couldn’t help but
think that it would be sooner rather than later that the few families left
would be given marching orders and forced into another slum or perhaps even
onto the street to make way for another apartment building for Mumbai’s mega
rich.


Copyright © All rights reserved.
Using Format