The ‘other’ face of Mumbai is a multi-part series of all those places that though little spoken about, are (in)famous and form the integral part of Mumbai. The silence about these places to me seems like an attempt of the childish mind – that if not spoken they shall disappear. Sadly, the reality is different. Thus, when it exists I sought to explore it, in my own way. The other parts of the series can be read here and here.

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My heart was heavy after I left Kamathipura. I did not realize that such a short visit would leave such a huge impact on my mind.  I questioned a lot of things including my own life and whether all that I was doing was really enough. I questioned the attitude we display when we discuss our surroundings - conveniently ignoring the existence of such treachery and gruesome life. A silent prayer I offered, I recalled a book I read in recent times called Karma and realized that all that we really read in fiction and be touched has happened somewhere, sometime.

The sudden ruffle on my road caught my attention and I was told that I had entered “Mutton Street” in Muslim Mumbai or more popularly known as Chor Bazaar. I have heard about Chor Bazaar ever since I had stepped my foot here, however the people around me refused to me there citing “safety” reasons. An extremely popular flea market that sets up stalls from 3 AM at night and sells mostly pirated and smuggled goods, is one of the most popular ones in India. From old Bollywood posters, to expensive vintage items you can find it all here. However, just in case lady luck is not too pleased with you, so shall go home to realise that your “steal buy” is fake and when you come back the next day to complain, the seller will be no where to be seen.

The market is on all days of the week, but follows a special timing during Fridays – the day of special prayers in Islam. Housed just behind a mosque , when the chants of Azaan fill the air, you feel as if you are on the streets of a Arabian land. Yes, the smell of biryani filling the air and flaring your nostrils, making your stomach rumble does add to the feeling.

Yes, it is the same story of flea markets all across the world. So, what sets it apart? For me, the stories surrounding it holds the charm.

The timeline says that this market has been in existence since 1840 and then owing to the noisy sellers it was known as “Shor Bazaar”
(the Noisy Market) . However, it was colloquially re-christened  as Chor Bazaar courtesy the concocted British pronunciation of the original name and also the influx of stolen goods. Coming from a city which still houses the British influence to the core, this story seems very believable to me – however not exciting.

Is that all that that place holds, I asked Jitesh. He smiled at me. Already 2 hours into the tour, he had started to gauge my mind and habits when it came to discovering a nook and corner.

“There’s a legend here“, he said smiling, almost teasing me to beg him to tell me.

“And you are keeping that away from me?” I huffed, feigning anger.

Giving a child-like teasing smile he continued to tell me that the legend goes that if you ever lose anything in Mumbai (materialistic!) you can find it back in Chor Bazaar. Interesting concept right?  Jitesh also informed me, that it follows a story of the Victorian times. It was said that when Queen Victoria landed in Mumbai, her violin went missing. She was very upset and thus the King set out his soldiers to recover it. The soldiers found the violin in this very market – thus the name Chor Bazaar stuck to it.

Seeing me smile at the recount of this episode Jitesh asked me to speak my mind. I told him that it reminded me of the lore that makes round about the “Queen’s Necklace” – the popular name to given to the Marine Drive stretch of Mumbai. It is said that while taking a walk down the Marine Drive Queen Victoria was pleasantly surprised and the fluttering lights across the bay left her speechless. That night it is believed that she asked the King for a necklace that would glitter just like the Marine Drive. The word spread and people started referring to the stretch as Queen’s Necklace.

I would have happily believed the two lore(s) and lived in glee if Jitesh did not point out the fact that Queen Victoria never visited Mumbai. I was shocked and taken aback, but when the library at the Asiatic society confirmed this fact, I realized the power of hearsay and that “Chinese Whispers” do make up good stories.

 It was as if the heaven’s cracked up seeing my shocked face, as midst rain we moved towards Dhobi Ghat.

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Mumbai Mondays is all about seeing Mumbai and its surroundings through my eyes. It’s my take to introduce you to a city and its surroundings which I love, as I see it – alone and often with friends (we call ourselves the Mumbai Mad Caps). It’s a thread that goes live every Monday. I cover places randomly and welcome suggestions too. You can find more posts about Mumbai Mondays here.

The ‘other’ face of Mumbai is a multi-part series of all those places that though little spoken about, are (in)famous and form the integral part of Mumbai. The silence about these places to me seems like an attempt of the childish mind – that if not spoken they shall disappear. Sadly, the reality is different. Thus, when it exists I sought to explore it, in my own way. The first part of the series can be read here.

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As I started my journey with Realty Tours, all that played on my mind were the images of the slums that I had ‘Google’d’ or those glimpses which I had seen during my daily commutation to various parts of the city. However, I was surprised when my guide told me that we weren’t heading straight to Dharavi and instead I was in for some pleasant surprise.

This is how I was led to the city’s (in)famous red light area of Kamathipura, that houses the world’s oldest profession. According to the 1991 statistical figures of the Mumbai municipal corporation Kamathipura housed around 60,000 sex workers who did business everyday there, despite prostitution being clearly banned in the country as per laws. In 2001 the same body reported Kamathipura to have a sex worker population of around 8000. Smiles in the corner of the eyes are to be preserved, for a reduction in number no way meant that the sex workers had indeed diminished in numbers – research studies found just the opposite. There has been  a radical growth of the business of prostitution over the decade and earlier what was localized to only Kamathipura, now spread all across Mumbai thus reducing the localized number count.

When asked I was informed that majority of the women who take up the profession are unwillingly at the start. They are often brought into Mumbai being lured with dreams of good jobs – a fat sum being paid to their parents as a gesture of assured employment which later converts into debt which they are asked to pay off the moment they are introduced to this profession. The other categories are those who are introduced to this profession as a hands down – unable to protect their kids from the vices that surround them mothers give into the pressures and introduce daughters as descendants to their own regime. Reluctant at first, fate catches up soon with them and the acceptance of it too and thus soon after these girls counsel the other new ones in whom they see a glimpse of their past.

I quote out of my story from A Calendar Too Crowded (Gaining a body to gain a mind) - “A prostitute is doubly penalized - first by being forced into a position where she cannot make her own choices and then by hounded by the State for being a prostitute”.  I further wonder  there through the voice of the protagonist as to, “Why should a prostitute be ashamed of what she does all her life, but the society is never ashamed of what is has done to her?” 

I met up with one, who wondered out aloud why I was there. Whether I had goodies to offer her and whether I was looking for something (!) from her. She inquired about my salary without bashing an eyelid and despite me quoting a miniscule of my pay check, asked me what I did to earn so much? Taken aback I was, but then came to know that owing to the surge of prostitution the rates for a single encounter with flesh (passion doesn’t reside here) vary from as low as Rs. 50 to Rs. 3000. The figures vary depending on age, looks, ethnicity and yes the most obsessive of all criteria – young and virgin! If that disgusts you, let me tell you that young girls aged 9-10 years are the most coveted ones here and people are ready to shell out undisclosed figures to satisfy their pervert fantasies.

Law and regulatory protection did you ask? Ha, then let me tell you of a particular scene that I shall not forget, at least in this lifetime. A young girl barely 20 stood there breast-feeding her child, soliciting clients at a stone throw distance from the police station – all at 9 AM in the morning. The police there apparently are poised to protect the workers from atrocities in lieu of a commission fatter than the pimps. As for sticking to the laws, ah well they were never meant to be practical anyway. For in India ironically prostitution is not a crime, but soliciting clients is.

An anarchy we live I realized as I made my way to Dhobi Ghaat (the journey en route Chor Bazaar is for next week!)

From these windows a powdered face look down at me,
I searched for dreams and joy, but layers of masks are all I could see!

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Mumbai Mondays is all about seeing Mumbai and its surroundings through my eyes. It’s my take to introduce you to a city and its surroundings which I love, as I see it – alone and often with friends (we call ourselves the Mumbai Mad Caps). It’s a thread that goes live every Monday. I cover places randomly and welcome suggestions too. You can find more posts about Mumbai Mondays here.

Mumbai has always held fascinating memories for me. It has been the land of dreams, the land of strength and if I may say so the land where I feel I belong. The whiff of the sea from my old quaint little house in Worli, to the dance classes at Colaba, the karaoke nights at the Marine drive, the theatre evenings at NCPA, Mumbai teaches me how to live. However, is that all that makes up Mumbai? Not really, there’s Bollywood which doesn’t attract me, the page 3 parties where I don’t fit in, the certain kind of money-making snobbery which I can never catch up with and then there’s the dark side which we choose to be unaware of.

Abode to 1 mn people and spread of a square area of 1.75 kilometers Mumbai houses the world’s largest slum at Dharavi. It also gives shelter to one of the biggest sex worker zones in the country at Kamathipura. The open air laundry at Dhobighat near Mahalaxmi is the biggest of its kind in the World, yet lesser known. And then there’s the rooftop view that will not show you the Arabian sea kissing the Queen’s necklace, instead from there no matter where you see, all that shall be visible are tin roofs, and garbage dumps – Welcome to the other side of Mumbai.

The year 2008 saw us showcase to the world Slumdog Millionaire and this resulted in another feather being added to our hats – from being the land of snake charmers to being the land of slums. If I say this to a slum resident he would refute me outright by saying that slum tourism existed from much before 2008, in fact it has now almost been a decade that their children have been taught to keep at bay from the prying eyes of the white skinned and a few colored ones like me.

Accompanied by two friends and a guide I set out on Sunday to discover this face of Mumbai, the one that had heightened my curiosity for a long time now. It would indeed also be the most dreaded tour of my life that I was sure of, for while there was excitement of discovering a lot of new things I was skeptical about whether these tours actually contributed to the never-ending slum cycle across the country.

I chose Realty Tours and Travels as my preferred guide and it was a decision indeed well taken. My guide Jitesh was helping people tour slums and educating them about the true lifestyle out there for about 3 years now. Having grown up in a slum environment himself, when asked these tours were the only opportunity where he could show the world that slums though dingy, dirty and dark are not places that you should abhor. The people living there are just like you and me, constrained definitely, but they still live, work, grow families and harbor dreams. For Jitesh, there was an urge to show the world that kids from the slums too can make a mark and are not all about being dirty rag pickers – thus he decided to tell the story of his own home to visitors and hopes that one day Mumbai is known to be the land of strong people who can survive any adversity instead of being referred to as the preferred slum tourism destination.

Realty Tours shocked me when they said that out of the 40-50 people who sign up with them for these tours everyday, only 1% are Indians. Rest, travel from all across the world and stop here to have a glimpse of the reality Danny Boyle made famous.

This is the introduction to the multi part series of the ‘other side’ of Mumbai that I discovered on a lazy Sunday over 6 hours of travel.

Next week I give you the first hand glimpse of the (in)famous red light area – Kamathipura. For now, a glimpse of the backdrop I set out to study…

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Mumbai Mondays is all about seeing Mumbai and its surroundings through my eyes. It’s my take to introduce you to a city and its surroundings which I love, as I see it – alone and often with friends (we call ourselves the Mumbai Mad Caps). It’s a thread that goes live every Monday. I cover places randomly and welcome suggestions too. You can find more posts about Mumbai Mondays here.

I am a droplet of sweet water in your salty terrain,

I am the one you craved for in the rains,

I am the pair of eyes when you are lost in a crowd,

I am the bout of energy that makes you shout out aloud,

I guard the dreams in your eyes as my own,

I am the sky where in the clouds you have your wishes sown…

I am the laughter in a child, the guts of the young girl,

I am the buzz of Bollywood and the touch of the Western swirl…

I am there on a gloomy day whispering the words that you hate you hear,

I know for very well that they are all that you need to overcome your fear…

I say, Let the heartbreak come. For, no heartbreak is ever strong to break you down – I teach,

I let you embrace life, like a gush of wind, thus practising what I preach…

I am the early morning walk where you shall find the mosque greeting the temple,

I am the posh car who stops by to suddenly pick up the kids who often on busy roads fumble…

I am the auto ride where the driver makes you feel that he belongs to a different age,

I am the mind which holds lessons of dignity for all professions – now a lost page…

I show you the mirror, I teach you to dream, I help you discover the smile behind each sigh,

I say – You can check out anytime baby, but once here you can never leave for I am Mumbai

I have been dying to put this series up! Mumbai called me back in this Act II Scene II phase of life and I am elated! Mumbai Mad Caps had to be back too right? So many places I have visited in the past few weeks, so many things to write on. A chapter from an upcoming book, which fits in here perfectly, should I test waters?

All I can say is that I am glad to be back and couldn’t ask for more, for Mumbai you are the only one that can make my spirits soar!

My ‘partner in madness’ here we go again!

I am back again to your shore – I haven’t had enough of you Mumbai, I want more

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Mumbai Mondays is all about seeing Mumbai and its surroundings through my eyes. It’s my take to introduce you to a city and its surroundings which I love, as I see it – alone and often with friends (we call ourselves the Mumbai Mad Caps). It’s a thread that goes live every Monday. I cover places randomly and welcome suggestions too. You can find more posts about Mumbai Mondays here.