Dharavi Slum Rave

Before arriving in Mumbai, I had been told by a few friends that no matter how well-traveled you are, you will still feel a bit of culture shock exploring the city. Mumbai has a startling division of wealth, with the world's most expensive home being built within a few kilometers of slums and shantytowns that house nearly 10 million people. There are cosmopolitan restaurants and gaudy clubs where the Bollywood stars play juxtaposed with the streets and alleys where the majority of the population does what it takes to survive in this mind-blowing metropolis.

After successfully making my acting debut, on Tuesday I met up with Aakif, a friend from GW who is starting a job in Mumbai, and his friend Steffi. After hanging out in Colaba for a while, we took a cab to Marine Drive, a long stretch of waterfront road that forms what is known as the 'Queen's Necklace' around Back Bay in the Arabian Sea. This was my first glance at true street life in Mumbai. A few beggars came by asking for some change, some young kids were selling flowers, while others were just wandering around high out of their minds. I have seen the documentary The Street Kids of Mumbai, so I knew about kids sniffing glue and white-out and all sorts of messed up stuff like that. But it's another thing entirely to sit a foot away from one of these children and stare into their dazed, unblinking eyes. This was the culture shock that I had heard about. A few beggars took a particular liking to Aakif, and one beggar even sort of chased us down Marine Drive before Aakif (rather diplomatically) appealed to the beggar's better nature.

With this brief introduction to street life, I really had no idea to expect yesterday when the three of us, along with Aakif's friend Akshay, paid a visit to the Dharavi Slum. The slum is one of the largest in the world, boasting a population well over one million people and exporting nearly one billion dollars worth of goods each year. It's really a sort of extremely overpopulated city-within-a-city. The entire slum, which was once mostly swampland, sits on under 2 square kilometers of land wedged between two railway lines. Things are certainly crowded, with apartments tucked into nooks and crannies down a labyrinth of narrow alleyways.

Aside from this, the residents of the slum lead relatively normal lives. When we arrived, we walked around for a few minutes and quickly realized that this was a very welcoming place with friendly residents. But there's still no way I could have predicted what happened next. Aakif heard some house music playing off in the distance, and we decided to follow our ears in search of whatever party was unfolding deeper into the slum.

All of a sudden, we found ourselves at a rave. A man from Dharavi was throwing a party to celebrate his wedding, and there was a full DJ booth set up with speakers and strobe lights. All of the kids were having the time of their lives, wildly dancing to the trance beats and laughing as they jumped around. I have seen many happy children in some fairly poverty-stricken places recently, and these slum kids have to rank pretty highly.

When we joined the rave, the kids went even crazier. A crowd of something like 50 slum residents formed around the DJ booth and our alleyway dance floor to get a closer look. The groom brought us some drinks and we began dancing. The kids excitedly posed for pictures and were fascinated to snap photos themselves.

Surreal doesn't do the scene justice. There we were, in the heart of the Dharavi slum, raving with a bunch of five-year-olds as we inadvertently crashed a wedding. Maybe a better word is simply unreal.

It just goes to show you that you have to keep an open mind at all times and ignore any preconceived notions you may have of a place or its people. Yes, there was blatant poverty in the slum, and it would be fair to say that the place is abhorrently filthy. But these things do not prevent the residents from leading perfectly content lives. It was rather fitting when later on in the night, while going for a walk nearby the Gateway of India back in Colaba, I passed this sign. True words.