My return to India brings me to Bombay, now known to the world as Mumbai.

Before coming here, I had a chance to watch the movie Slumdog Millionaire again. Many of the film's scenes and even some of the child actors came from the famous shantytown here called Dharavi. Dharavi is one of the largest slums in Asia with about 1,000,000 people calling it home. There are some local tour operators that offer ethical tours through the community and use the tourism profits toward community based programs like schools. The tours are respectful, safe, and contribute back to the people who live in what we in the west would consider a total dump. Which it is I suppose. Photography is not permitted so I ripped some photos from Google. So there's my copyright credit.

Dharavi Slum; let's go inside.
So what do you see when you step inside of a slum where a family of 10 lives in the space of a walk-in closet? First, the numbers. There is about 1 toilet for every 1500 people. Toilet facilities are provided by the government but clearly fall short of what one considers an acceptable toilet to person ratio. Running water is available from public taps for about 2 or 3 hours per day. Despite the poor living conditions, the local economy is booming and people are actually smiling. It is estimated that the value of goods manufactured in the slum is about US$650 million each year. Slum dwellers scour the city daily to recycle anything they can find. If you leave behind a sliver of soap at your hotel, it will find its way here where it's recycled into huge blocks for resale. Plastic water bottles are chopped up, washed, dried in the sun, and eventually turned into plastic pellets that are then manufactured into toys or other low grade plastic items. They say the guy that owns that business drives a BMW and doesn't live in the slum anymore. And the list goes on. Average salary is about 120 rupees per day which at today's exchange rate is US$2.45. Women are paid less for the same job. I came away with two thoughts after the tour. 1.) I don't want to live here. 2.) The people that live here help each other and have a real village-like lifestyle and appear to be genuinely happy, which is what impressed me the most.

The other thing I love about Mumbai is a perspective you can only get if you read the book SHANTARAM by Gregory David Roberts. You'll see this book in the hands of backpackers all over Nepal and India. Don't have time for the book? Warner Bros. and Johnny Depp bought the movie rights! Coming to a theater near you ?????