It is only two days since I last wrote and already I have so much to say, it would easily fill several pages - so I will have to be somewhat selective. I spent a really interesting and lovely day with staff at the College of Social Work on Monday; makes such a difference being with locals, who can tell you how it really is (and take you to places for lunch that you would never find yourself!). They have arranged for me to spend some time with the Family Service Centre on Friday, so I will probably write more about all that and social work in India after that, because what I really want to write about is the last twenty four hours.

Most major cities have the capapacity to expose you to absolute extremes. In Mumbai these extremes are ludicrous. So yesterday, I met up with Deepa Krishna, my main contact in MUmbai....

....a word about Deepa. She is a truly remarkable woman; an astonishing mix of hard headed (and it appears, very successful) business woman, social entrepreneur and philanthropist (she may not thank me for that despcription but it is the most apt I can think of!). She has her finger on the pulse of Mumbai and is a prodigious networker, collecting interesting and dynamic people wherever she goes. She has the first multi-generational Mumbai blog, in which she, her mother and daughter all write about city life. Deepa oozes a confident, no nonsense 'can do-ness' which, she explains to me, very much reflects the Indian psyche at the moment. I was put in touch with her via a sort of responsible tourism website (yoursafeplanet) and she has gone well out of her way, both before and during my stay, to help me and has very much taken me under her wing...

Anyway, yesterday I met her at the Taj Hotel (a very plush place), where she treated me to some delectable masala chai and snacks overlooking the Gateway to India (oh, I need to sort out this photo thing, dont I). Today she took me to Dharavi - Mumbai's largest slum. As I said, ludicrous extremes.

I have some reservations about writing about this experience for fear of glamorising or sentimentalising it somehow, but I can't help but want to get this down in words. There was also the inevitable discomfort about being a spectator, or toursist of abject poverty and suffering. However, Deepa's pragmatic attitude helped - she showed us around almost brazenly, she didnt hesitate to politely request entry into homes and businesses (where we were welcomed). I suppose her attitude is; they are here, we are here too, why ignore it, why pretend it is anything other than it is? And she has also put her money where her mouth is, and started ventures to help improve the lives of some of these individuals (see Mumbai Magic tours).

So, you will have read, heard, watched or been yourselves to slums and shanty towns, and it is everything you anticipated and more. It is pointless for me to write about the dirt, filfth and squalor; it is well documented and all I can say is my experience confirms these testaments. What hit me, and forgive my ignorance here, was that they were actual sort of towns in themselves; with shops, roads, businesses of all descriptions, schools, cafes etc. Apparently Dharavi is not the 'worst' kind of slum, it is in parts comparitively well off (if you can use that word in connection with slums). I was just struck by this huge atmosphere of industry; everyone busy doing something; cooking, grinding flour, carrrying, sorting, sweeping, sewing, scurrying from place to place, driving, selling.

What also struck me was that after a week of being hassled, and constantly urged to buy things or give money, there was none of that whatsoever here. Children looked at us curiously, many beamed smiles at me and a few tentatively approached to ask my name and tell me theirs. Women also greeted me with smiles, and men kept a respectful distance. That ccertainly busted a few stereotypes. In the houses we glimpsed the inside of (and yes, often just one room for way too many people) you could not make out much in the gloom other than, in a kind of bizarre anomaly, a brightly coloured and ostentatiously decorated shrine to the God Ganesha (see previous entry).

But I don't want to glamorise it; despite the sense of community, carnival and the welcome shown to us, I was shocked to the core. I have never seen anything like this. My imagination totally failed me in trying to put myself in the shoes of the people; it is simply outside my range of experience.

The slums (and the rest of Mumbai) face two major problems. Firstly lack of basic sanitation. The few slum homes that did have 'latrines' emptied directly into the river; everyone else just as to make do with whatever space they can find. As Deepa bluntly puts it, Mumbai's problem is too much s*** and what to do with it.

The other problem is sheer lack of space. The city has a population of over 19 million; it is the most densely populated city in the world. Ifit were a country it would rank 56th in the population stakes (see I have been doing my research Dad!) I have never thought about space as a basic human right before, so forgranted have I taken it. Here, space is at a premium and in the words of a Mumbai writer, "the greatest luxury is solitude". And this is so true; in the roads, on the buses, on the street, in the shops everywhere people are fighting to inhabit their space and as soon as you give it up, someone is waiting to swipe it from you immediately.

Yamina at the College of Social Work explained to me that in the slums, they have no concept of personal space, or of their entitlement to it. Several social re-housing projects have failed because they have not taken into account that people are used to and feel safe living closely to one another, and also that people need to be able to work and live in the same space. They need to be able to watch their children and each others', cook, take care of their families and grind flour, sew blankets, recyle plastic, or make potteryware at the same time.

Anyway, my day of contrasts ended with being chauffeur driven back to Deepa's airy apartment, where she and her cook show me how to make delicious onion bhajis. It is a lot to get my head around.