working as a maid at the time. Finally, I’d been introduced to the fishing colony where the Mumbai terrorists had landed in 2008 before unleashing their infamous bloodbath on the city.
Now, standing on the doorstep of the slum, his focus is more immediate. Back up the road stands a public park, a precious smudge of green on a bulwark of seaweed grey. A well-worn path runs around the fenced edge. It measures half a kilometre. Babu knows the distance well. He runs the full circuit twenty times every morning, usually before six o’clock. He wears the same sole-worn RB running sneakers to work. The fabric is fraying along the seams. His knees must be shot. Or soon will be.
Across the way is the Spastics Society of India School. Nabiused to study there, although – as Babu is quick to inform me – ‘he is not a spastic actually’. Further down sits the Gothic church of St John the Evangelist. In years gone by, its pyramidal spire is said to have beckoned ships into port. Today, its view to the coast is blocked by the drab apartment blocks of a Navy compound.
We walk past the Backbay Bus Depot, a subdued rectangle of diesel puddles and idling motors. The access road to Babu’s slum falls under the jurisdiction of the Navy. For decades, the men in uniform refused to widen it, effectively depriving thousands of residents of public transport. Three years ago, they got their bus. No longer do they need lose hours every day trudging on foot to work or the market.
The bus station is hedged in by an expansive empty lot on one side and a half-built skyscraper on the other. Both are incongruous in an area where people live bunched, horizontal lives. I ask Babu about the discrepancies. There used to be houses on the abandoned lot, he explains, but government bulldozers recently came and levelled them.
Demolition is a constant threat for Mumbai’s slum dwellers. (That and diarrhoea, which kills nearly one thousand children every day in India.) Many have lived for years on the same plot, although often without legal title. This severely weakens their immunity against the onslaught of parasitic real-estate developers. Babu heard that Reliance Industries, India’s largest conglomerate, has acquired the site as a helipad.
If the slum rumour mill is true, developers have their eye on the rest of Ganesh Murty Nagar too. In exchange for selling up, Babu and his neighbours are promised homes in soon-to-be-built tower blocks on the edge of the city. He’s not sure whether to believe the pledge or not. The slum’s official neighbourhood committee, which negotiates such matters, is backing the resettlement plan to the hilt. They would, Babu observes wryly. ‘They receive bribes from the builders, so we never believe anything they say.’ For the moment, he and everyone else is staying put.
As for the whir of rotor blades, they have yet to add their particular rhythm to the hubbub of the slum. In the interim, theempty space is fast turning into a public rubbish dump. A topsoil of plastic and garbage covers large portions, creating a living patchwork of decaying mulch. Young boys still play cricket on the less sullied squares, but their wickets are gradually shrinking. Soon their pitch will be smaller than a long-jump pit, and only pigs, rats and half-famished dogs will occupy the space.
As for the skyscraper, Babu’s understanding is that it will act as a retirement home for the Navy’s top brass. It is built on top of what used to be the slum’s only play park. Babu has no idea how they plan to provide water for such a large construction.
Access to water represents another constant preoccupation for the residents of Ganesh Murty Nagar slum. Babu is keen to brief me on the subject. But first he must ‘go do piss’. With his giraffe legs, he lopes off to the public latrines by the slum’s entrance. ‘Two rupees to go for loo,’ he says on his return. ‘But piss is free.’ He appears content with the economy afforded by his
Now, standing on the doorstep of the slum, his focus is more immediate. Back up the road stands a public park, a precious smudge of green on a bulwark of seaweed grey. A well-worn path runs around the fenced edge. It measures half a kilometre. Babu knows the distance well. He runs the full circuit twenty times every morning, usually before six o’clock. He wears the same sole-worn RB running sneakers to work. The fabric is fraying along the seams. His knees must be shot. Or soon will be.
Across the way is the Spastics Society of India School. Nabiused to study there, although – as Babu is quick to inform me – ‘he is not a spastic actually’. Further down sits the Gothic church of St John the Evangelist. In years gone by, its pyramidal spire is said to have beckoned ships into port. Today, its view to the coast is blocked by the drab apartment blocks of a Navy compound.
We walk past the Backbay Bus Depot, a subdued rectangle of diesel puddles and idling motors. The access road to Babu’s slum falls under the jurisdiction of the Navy. For decades, the men in uniform refused to widen it, effectively depriving thousands of residents of public transport. Three years ago, they got their bus. No longer do they need lose hours every day trudging on foot to work or the market.
The bus station is hedged in by an expansive empty lot on one side and a half-built skyscraper on the other. Both are incongruous in an area where people live bunched, horizontal lives. I ask Babu about the discrepancies. There used to be houses on the abandoned lot, he explains, but government bulldozers recently came and levelled them.
Demolition is a constant threat for Mumbai’s slum dwellers. (That and diarrhoea, which kills nearly one thousand children every day in India.) Many have lived for years on the same plot, although often without legal title. This severely weakens their immunity against the onslaught of parasitic real-estate developers. Babu heard that Reliance Industries, India’s largest conglomerate, has acquired the site as a helipad.
If the slum rumour mill is true, developers have their eye on the rest of Ganesh Murty Nagar too. In exchange for selling up, Babu and his neighbours are promised homes in soon-to-be-built tower blocks on the edge of the city. He’s not sure whether to believe the pledge or not. The slum’s official neighbourhood committee, which negotiates such matters, is backing the resettlement plan to the hilt. They would, Babu observes wryly. ‘They receive bribes from the builders, so we never believe anything they say.’ For the moment, he and everyone else is staying put.
As for the whir of rotor blades, they have yet to add their particular rhythm to the hubbub of the slum. In the interim, theempty space is fast turning into a public rubbish dump. A topsoil of plastic and garbage covers large portions, creating a living patchwork of decaying mulch. Young boys still play cricket on the less sullied squares, but their wickets are gradually shrinking. Soon their pitch will be smaller than a long-jump pit, and only pigs, rats and half-famished dogs will occupy the space.
As for the skyscraper, Babu’s understanding is that it will act as a retirement home for the Navy’s top brass. It is built on top of what used to be the slum’s only play park. Babu has no idea how they plan to provide water for such a large construction.
Access to water represents another constant preoccupation for the residents of Ganesh Murty Nagar slum. Babu is keen to brief me on the subject. But first he must ‘go do piss’. With his giraffe legs, he lopes off to the public latrines by the slum’s entrance. ‘Two rupees to go for loo,’ he says on his return. ‘But piss is free.’ He appears content with the economy afforded by his
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