My current project office in Mumbai for SAP implementation is on Reay Road.
Reay Road Railway Station on harbour line is a landmark and a heritage railway station in Mumbai. But I doubt if one can get that sort of feeling on going there. Probably most of us who visit Mumbai, would not have heard of this place, forget about visiting it. But me visiting it the first time popped sever
What I saw there was another portrait of an underdeveloped Mumbai, where you see no signs of proper living conditions. So what seemed to be restricted to known areas, like Dharavi and Byculla, is definitely not the case.
Since the beginning of the city, slums have been a part of Mumbai’s landscape, posturing as festering wounds on a civic space. When you land or take off from the Mumbai airport, you get a good glimpse of the habitat.
Often we hear and read about plans to clear Mumbai, and provide housing to the slum-dwellers. But this looks like an intractable task to me. The reason being, that a place like Dharavi can be considered for redevelopment because it would be an striking proposition for the builders, but there are a whole lot of others which are along the roadsides, railway tracks or on footpaths. There is no money to be made there, so it would not attract the builder. The government also has been benign with their approach to the issue of slums and their proliferation.
With these pictures of Reay Road, which are still a lot “human” as compared to what I actually witnessed but could not gather the courage to photograph, you would see that the appalling sores on the cityscape speak volumes of the fortitude of people. They are also the rightful citizens of the city, but have been left abandoned with their fate.
It needs a conscience, a tremendous political will and the mindset of non-slum dwellers to get rid of this inhuman state of living, which is a blot on Indian civilisation.
Reay Road Railway Station on harbour line is a landmark and a heritage railway station in Mumbai. But I doubt if one can get that sort of feeling on going there. Probably most of us who visit Mumbai, would not have heard of this place, forget about visiting it. But me visiting it the first time popped sever
What I saw there was another portrait of an underdeveloped Mumbai, where you see no signs of proper living conditions. So what seemed to be restricted to known areas, like Dharavi and Byculla, is definitely not the case.
Since the beginning of the city, slums have been a part of Mumbai’s landscape, posturing as festering wounds on a civic space. When you land or take off from the Mumbai airport, you get a good glimpse of the habitat.
Often we hear and read about plans to clear Mumbai, and provide housing to the slum-dwellers. But this looks like an intractable task to me. The reason being, that a place like Dharavi can be considered for redevelopment because it would be an striking proposition for the builders, but there are a whole lot of others which are along the roadsides, railway tracks or on footpaths. There is no money to be made there, so it would not attract the builder. The government also has been benign with their approach to the issue of slums and their proliferation.
With these pictures of Reay Road, which are still a lot “human” as compared to what I actually witnessed but could not gather the courage to photograph, you would see that the appalling sores on the cityscape speak volumes of the fortitude of people. They are also the rightful citizens of the city, but have been left abandoned with their fate.
It needs a conscience, a tremendous political will and the mindset of non-slum dwellers to get rid of this inhuman state of living, which is a blot on Indian civilisation. 
Its a very sad picture of mumbai.. something should be done by social workers and non profit organisations.
ReplyDelete