Reflections on Visiting an Indian Slum

In contrast to the periphery of the neighborhood, the area where people actually live is strikingly neat and well-kept.  The homes are tiny (floor space of perhaps 10 feet by 10 feet), wedged side by side with a narrow labyrinth of paths providing access to them.  The homes are made of some sort of homemade brick-like substance that has been painted over.  The roofs are made of metal.  Some homes have doors with locks, others just have curtains at the entrance.  There is an unexpected sense of quiet dignity and pride in the homes.

The flies, however, show no respect.  Flies are everywhere.  Every piece of food for sale in the nearby market is covered in flies.  Nobody seems to care.

Despite the fact that these are squatters with no legal property rights, the neighborhood has been here for many decades, and there is an active property market.  Some people pay rent.  One woman tells us excitedly that her family recently went from renting to owning.  She paid $800 for her house, which seems like an impossibly high price for a household I’m told has an income of $2-3 a day.   One lady sits amidst a pile of rocks.  She spends her day crushing these rocks with a hammer, separating out iron ore with a magnet, as far as I can tell.  She says she earns about 12 cents an hour, or a dollar a day.  Some of the people we talk to work at a nearby metal factory; I suspect they make more than the lady with the hammer and the magnet.  Just outside the neighborhood an old man sits on the edge of the road with a well-polished bathroom scale, charging one rupee (2 cents) per weighing.  He no doubt makes much less than $1 a day.   There are also government benefits, although I’m sure these are not very generous. 

I wonder how, from a purely practical view, they keep their savings.  Some sort of cookie jar in the home? Kept in a pocket all the time?  The risk of theft would seem to be a pretty strong disincentive to save.  I ask about crime.  Like people everywhere in the world, they say crime is not a big problem in their neighborhood, but if you go to some other nearby area, the crime is terrible.  If indeed crime is low, it may be because of the stability of the residents.  The people we talk to have been here for years or even decades.  Or perhaps it is just that there are so many eyes watching all the time.  For what it is worth, I feel safer here than I do walking in my own Hyde Park neighborhood back in Chicago.