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Dharavi Diaries

I was 16 when I joined an NGO that gave education to underprivileged students. My very first day was in Dharavi - Mumbai. As my taxi went through the road deeper and inside the lanes of Dharavi, I could feel the Mumbai which is shown in movies and which is written in books is gone far away. The place I was in was full of life. It looked like the scene where ants are working together in places everywhere. Every house had ladders and life built upon life, families lived upon families. I was directed to a room where I was supposed to teach the kids. I passed door after door. Doors that were open wide. Houses had women working on sewing machines, creaking table fans, swings made of saree for just born kids, piles of vessels filled with water and small photographs on the walls with garland on them. In the rooms of 10*10 square feet, people created homes.

The room I entered had no roof. Walls were broken. It had a black board and a chair. One hour went by, nobody showed up. Just when I was about to leave, five kids entered the room. They were about 7-9 years old. They immediately started apologizing for being late. They said, “Don’t come during this hour, it’s the water time. Will you come a little early?”

I remember talking to Yusuf. He was 9 years old and the oldest from all. I asked him what he wanted to become. He smiled and said, “I want to become a police officer.” I couldn’t stop and I asked, “Why”. He hesitated initially but later said, “In my area or it can be my house also but usually, in my area here, women are beaten up by their fathers or husbands mostly. So I want to stop that.” That kid was so confident, had visions in his eyes and the will to fulfil them. I worked with those kids for 3 months. They became family. They would bring food from home, shared with me and told stories of gangsters who lived in their area a long time ago. I still don’t know if any of those stories were true but I still smile wide when I think about them.

-Pooja

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