Check out the pictures that go along with this postThe trip to the slum started out with Jeff arguing with the rickshaw driver about the cost of the trip to where we were going for breakfast. He had scheduled a bit of breakfast with one of the men he had been working with for the past month, a man who still lived in the slum he had grown up in.
I don’t know shit about slums, but I was pretty skeptical about the place where we were dropped off. To me it looked like just another big developed street in Bangalore – storefronts and people milling about everywhere. When a man came up and started talking to me I assumed he was just another hustler trying to get something so I just started blowing him off in my generic “I don’t need what you are selling”
Manuhar greeted us warmly and asked us to come into his home. The stained walls and the stacks of old periodicals made it clear that this was the space he had been living in for years, first with his own family and now on his own. The house was 6 feet wide by 8 feet long. Manu said that there were entire families who lived in spaces the size of his. While he and Jeff talked over work related things that had nothing to do with me I decided to step outside and take some pictures. The small alley was actually filled with a number of different folks just hanging out. There was one beautiful girl in a yellow sari whose face was covered in yellow. She didn’t want me to take her picture, not because of any kind of superstition but because I think she was being modest. There were a few people at first who did not want their pictures taken. But at the end of the alley there was a shirtless man who looked to be in his 50s who seemed eager to talk. I was surprised when he turned out to be very well spoken, had excellent English and said he was a financial consultant. Later I found out from Manuhar this man had been one of the earlier organizers of the slum along with Manuhar to demand recognition from the local government and improve the conditions of the community.
Manuhar brought Jeff and I to the top of a 3 story building so that we could survey the slum. I found it very curious that there was a lot of development going on. People were building their plots of land straight up. It was interesting to see, because people only had a very small area to work with and so were building these concrete and cinderblock structures into the sky like some medieval towers. Manu said that construction workers were actually hired to do the building. Interestingly all the houses in the slum looked very solid and well built not at all like the shanty town I was expecting. Although slum dwellers clearly take pride in themselves they are also there because they have no other options. For many of them, when they have the opportunity to leave they do. Manu pointed proudly to a largish 2 story structure – the new public toilet to replace the open sewer which had been used for their business. This was a community intent on improving itself.
Manu explained that, since the population explosion in Bangalore, property values were increasing and that his squat had suddenly become prime real estate. Despite there being a law on the books saying that once people squat on a spot for 8 years they become legal owners of their property, government corruption had resulted in their case for ownership being held up in the courts. The original owner’s new found interest in the area was being left to the whim of local politicians.
After introducing us to his sister and showing us his parent’s home I jokingly asked Manu when we were going to have breakfast (I was actually quite hungry) we walked around the corner down an alley and there was a woman sitting in front of a beat up propane stove frying up some flat bread. This was a scene of the micro economy of the slum: people who for whatever reason could not cook in their own spaces would come to eat at the houses of people who could. Throughout our tour of the slum we would often see people walking about carrying full plates of food. There were a group of women grouped around the woman and her stove, apparently waiting to eat, but they graciously offered to feed Jeff and I. We were completely incapable of saying no. Of course there was a part of me that was concerned about eating food from this environment, but there was such a good feeling that was coming from all of the people there who seemed so happy to see us and so eager to share themselves with us that it seemed like there was no way something bad could come of it. Indeed, after they sat us down on some chairs that seemed to appear from nowhere, the food they gave us was an absolute delight and especially the flat bread was divine. The only glitch was when I was offered a glass of water by one of the women. This seemed to cause a few people some concern and Manu smartly cautioned me to use the water only to wash my hands. I was grateful for the guidance. As elated as I was over the scene I was taking part in I would no doubt have otherwise thrown caution to the wind and regretted it afterwards. Further on in our journey we came across a closet sized space in a person’s home where they were firing up a stove to cook small cakes of the same rice flour used to make the flat bread earlier. There were people sitting in a row waiting for the snacks to be finished. We were offered some but having just eaten offered to come back later.
We continued on, walking through the slums narrow streets. Greeting smiling faces and taking pictures of happy children who were thrilled to see themselves reproduced in my digital camera’s view screen. We walked by shrines to the Virgin Mary done up with a Hindu’s sensibility with colors and flowers, similar, I am told to those in the Philippines. And found out that on Fridays Celtic knot type chalk designs were traditionally drawn in front of people’s doorways.
While our reception was a mixed one, no one expressed the slightest bit of ill will to us. People had different reactions to our cameras as well. While there were a few who seemed to not want to be photographed because of vanity and others who simply couldn’t be bothered, there was one group of women who were eager to have me take a picture of them in front of a large mural of the Madonna and child. Another beautiful young girl practically beat me about the head and shoulders to get me to take a picture of her and a little baby in her care as she carried a plate of food through the alleyways. A few different boys were also very excited to have their picture taken. It felt like they were pretending to be movie stars.
People were incredibly gracious to us. One man who ran one of many vegetable shops in the slum refused to take any money from us after he sliced up an unripe mango for us and then covered it in lime and chili powder for us to have. That I must say was a taste sensation unlike any I have tasted before, tart and hot and oddly refreshing all at the same time. I was literally unsure how to react to it! At one of the snack shops on the outskirts of the village I had the good fortune of tasting the best pakora I have ever had. It was crispy and flavorful and not too greasy. We were also served a delicious cup of Chai tea as a compliment.
A couple of times during our walk we were brought in to peoples houses to see how they live. While there are some spaces that are somewhat sizable there were also a few that were tragically small. Manu insisted we come with him into the home of one woman who was in the middle of cooking some breakfast up on her small propane stove. To get into her house we had to squeeze ourselves down a hallway that must have been no more than a foot and a half wide. Once inside we saw a 6 by 6 space that had to contain a family of five. Another little girl who must have been about 13 insisted we come and check out her place. It had collapsed and the walls were made out of corrugated tin. They couldn’t afford repairs.
Manuhar brought us to the road separating the slum with the rest of the city and introduced us to his aunt who was very sweet. We climbed the stairs to the roof to get a different perspective on the area we had just explored. As we looked over its expanse Manu talked about how he knew every one of the 1200 families who lived there. If a child were to end up somewhere away from their family someone would know who they were and return them to where they belonged. I reflected aloud on the regret I felt at not knowing who my own neighbors are and Manu gave me an encouraging hug. It was a generous gesture which alleviated some of my remorse at being such an apathetic big city kid.
I asked him about the Christian icons I had seen in the slum as we had walked through. Christian missionaries had been converting some of the Hindus which would not be a problem, but apparently they are insisting that the Hindus are “idol worshippers” causing some degree of alienation. Manu seemed sad to relate that people who once would come to visit him would no longer now that they had converted. Interestingly, there were also 4 or 5 Muslim families who lived there who got along well with everyone else.
As we leave the roof at the bottom of the stairs there is Manuhar’s aunt. She intercepts us and insists that we sit down and have some breakfast with her. She is so kind neither Jeff nor I could imagine saying no, despite the meetings and work Jeff has been hinting at all morning. We sit down in one of the two rooms of the apartment and are presented with a delicious meal of rice and veggie gravy topped off with a very sweet and short plantain. The plantains I’m used to are larger than regular bananas.
We finish up and thank Auntie.
Taking an auto-rickshaw to Jeff and Manuhar’s work was as harrowing as is any time one takes to the streets in India. There was one intersection in particular however that I found to be particularly dangerous where there was a single speed bump to regulate the convergence of 6 different two lane roads with every vehicle traveling at speed.
Once we arrived we met with Jeff’s boss and the rest of his co-workers. This was his last day at work and so everyone got together to send him off. It was a very generous moment and I was really impressed with the admiration everyone shared with him and the appreciation he showed to his co-workers. Afterwards the four of us Rachel, Jeff, Veritie, and I were going to go to lunch, but instead one of Jeff’s co-workers, Mercy, offered to make us lunch at her house. She lived nearby and we were shortly at the house she shared with her mother. We were served a meal of Chicken Bryani. While the four of us ate in the main room, for some unknown reason, Mercy and her family ate standing up in the kitchen.
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