Tiny nightmare heatglamorous health wide

2 voicesBritish and Indian accents

Indian musictraffic, shouts, conversation, babies, children

Mumbaiguided tour, conducts, groups of foreigners, customerstourist guide

in India (Dharavi slum in Mumbai)foreigners

hundreds of tiny lanespopulation 1 toilet for 1,500 people

guided tours, world’s least glamorous destinations, Mumbai’s Dharavi slum. Day, leads small groups, foreigners, maze, hundreds, tiny lanes, no wider, body width, twisting, turning, hutments. Slum, covers 445 acres, boggy marshland. Home, 1 million people. One toilet, 1,500 residents. Sewage runs, open drains. Monsoon rains, summer heat, health nightmare, show, customers, another side, slums.

1 million peoplemaze of tiny lanes alleyways twisting

turning amongst hutments 445 acres

boggy marshland

one toilet for 1,500 residentsSewage runs through open drains

In the monsoon rains and summer heat it’s a health nightmare

Area, mainly, commercial area of Dharavi, business area, Dharavi. When, came, Mumbai, lot, negative images about, slums. When, first came, Dharavi, plan, slum tours, found Dharavi, completely different. found everywhere people, working, dashing here, there, stuff, plastic, places where, making, recycling. Dharavi, village. Village, middle, city, because, everything.

a lot of negative images people are working dashing with some stuff

making recycling a village

completely different

village

Life in the neighbourhood is organized in small units where people know their neighbours and can rely on them.

This report is set in Mumbai’s famous slum called Dharavi. The British journalist has recorded a local guide who speaks with a strong Indian accent. The soundtrack is local musicand this works all the better for a genuine report set in India. In the background we can hear the hectic, buzzing life of the slum dwellers singing, shouting, driving in the busy traffic.

Mumbai’s Dharavi slum is a vast piece of land where one million inhabitants live cheek by jowl / in an overcrowded shanty town. They are cramped into a small area. There is no set pattern and organization; lanes twist around on a swampy terrain and open sewage prone to overflooding in the monsoon season. Needless to say the health issues are terrible and the poverty-stricken / destitute residents live in unhealthy and squalid shacks / are in dire straits. Their living conditions are tough because they live below the poverty line and have no access to proper sanitation.

Yet Krishna Poojari, the local guide, thinks it is a place worth visiting, a world of its own / a self-contained village where families are self-sufficient. Many can hardly make both ends meet / hold their heads above water. They recycle what they have found, sell home-made artifacts and curios to visitors attracted to the picturesque aspects of local culture. These sightseers want to get rid of their prejudices and have a less stereotyped vision of life in a slum. They will broaden their horizons, have a more true to life vision.

Tour guide, Krishna Poojari:Welcome to Dharavi, guys. How did you hear about us? Voice over (journalist):Krishna Poojari conducts guided tours of one of the world’s least glamorous destinations, Mumbai’s Dharavi slum. Each day he leads small groups of foreigners deep into a maze of hundreds of tiny lanes and alleyways, some no wider than a bodywidth, twisting and turning amongst the hutments. The Dharavi slum covers 445 acres of what was once boggy marshland. It’s home to an estimated one million people. There’s only one toilet for every 1,500 residents. Sewage runs through open drains. In the monsoon rains and summer heat it’s a health nightmare, but Krishna also tries to show his customers another side of the slums. Krishna:The area that you be in, that’s mainly a commercial area of Dharavi, business area of Dharavi. When I came to Mumbai there was a lot of negative images about the slums. When I first came to Dharavi with the plan of slum tours, I found Dharavi was completely dif-ferent. I found everywhere people are working, dashing here and there with some stuff, with plastic, there are places where they are making, you know, recycling. Dharavi is a village, you know. It’s a village in the middle of the city because there is everything.