Dharavi, known to most Mumbaikars or people living in Mumbai but just by face value as the largest slum in the city. Us like many who live here have only passed by Dharavi on our way to Sion, while exiting the city, or passing by it while your in a train. We have never cared to know what happens in those slums, the only other reason Dharavi exists in our minds is due to the leather trade that takes place around the area.
Thanks to the shooting of Slumdog Millionaire that we have not yet watched the world opened its eyes to Dharavi and some recent surfing have brought out a massive insight into what happens in Dharavi that we would like to share with you.
Dharavi is just not a slum, its the recycling super-hub of Mumbai, believed to be host to at least 15,000 single room factories dealing with at least 80 percent of Mumbai's plastic recycling as well as other recyclables. The approximate size of the entire slum is 530 Acres, making it the largest in Asia apart from that its also a massive economic zone that grossed over $600 million annually.
Apart from that, the government had planned a massive redevelopment program, but it has not been successful due to many reasons, namely the economic meltdown, and basically the government was trying to grab some of the land by treating the area as a residential redevelopment project leading to wide spread protests. Watch this video below to get a grasp of the situation,
Lets take a slight stroll into Dharavi's history from wiki, Dharavi was predominantly a mangrove swamp prior to the late 19th century that was inhabited by Koli's.
But as the swamps got filled in, how they still do nowadays in many parts of Mumbai, the fishing industry disappeared. A dam at Sion, that I never knew existed until know, adjacent to Dharavi, helped in speeding up the process of joining the separate islands into one long tapered mass.
And as Bombay was being formed, the creek dried up, Dharavi's fishing town was deprived of its traditional sustenance, but the newly drained marshes provided space for new communities to move in. Migrants from Gujarat established a potters' colony, and Muslim tanners from Tamil Nadu migrated to Dharavi and set up the leather tanning industry. Other artisans, like the embroidery workers from Uttar Pradesh, started the ready-made garments trade.
And today we still have a very diverse range of people from all around the country who still make their living there.
We talk about recycling, some people take advantage of this recycling chain to make their living, in Mumbai we have the raddi wallas who we sell our old newspapers, bottles of beer etc. The seller earns some money while the material is most likely going to end up at Dharavi that recycles 80% of Mumbais waste. But there are innovators in every field, would you pay Rs. 25,000 for a couple of used beer bottles, you may end up doing so if you appreciate art.
We visited Ralli Jacob's exhibition at the Ronak art gallery in Juhu, where he displayed his creation with used bottles.
Ralli uses his own Klin to heat bottles and then play with them by stretching and compressing parts to make his living selling these old bottles that are transformed into pieces of art that are colored to give them life.
We spent a good amount of time at this exhibition that was rather small but Ralli was quite interesting, not just talking about the process the bottles undergo but his thoughts on life and God. Its surprising, even with the current market scenario, recession Ralli found a 10% increase in his sales as compared to his show held the previous year.
That's a good growth in the market, considering each glass sculpture starts from around Rs. 5000 and can go all the way beyond Rs. 25,000. Ralli din't want to give away all his secrets of his art, though he let us know that the bottles are stained with color before they are added to the fire.
His success rate is quite high as well, in a batch of 10 to 15 the bottles one bottle goes to waste. The artist usually has a concept that he has embedded in his thoughts prior to starting off with a bottle.
But one of his masterpieces that costs the most, is where he went with the flow of the bottle the shape it took rather than a preconceived design, this ended up being a very twisted sculpture.
Lets hear what the glass sculptor has to say,
Jacob finds it interesting to receive bottles from around the world that come with different base colours as it becomes fun to work with and you get some interesting finished products. We hope to visit Ralli Jacob in Alibaug one day perhaps and record a video of him in action.