Home UpMumbai 7, An Andheri Slum

The Bombay/Mumbai Airport is famously surrounded by immense slums. Here we walk through one part of a slum in Andheri East, just north of the airport.

The Andheri-Kurla or Mathuradas Vansanji Road: nothing to alert you to what lies off to the side.

Roadside vendors and, in the background, a new building housing the Axis Bank, Electrolux India, and Skoda.

A side road.

This is an industrial neighborhood, but one without segregated land uses: everything is right here, piled up.

Taxi repair shops.

A temple; water main in background.

A woman resting in the temple grounds.

A vacant lot-cum-playground.

Kids.

A bike repair shop-cum-martial arts studio.

Ready for Bollywood.

And, of course, residential space, rented by the month and with a steep initial deposit.

A room with a view.

Laundry.

Sweet shop.

A drainage ditch.

Doorstep pipeline.

Girl in white.

Two boys.

Mother and child.

Boy.

Mother and child.

Resting against the pipeline.

Young men watching a football match.

Father and son.

Playground.

Instantly ready for a picture.

Dr. Ambedkar, an Untouchable who famously rose against all odds, suggested that the people at the bottom of the caste pyramid convert to Buddhism.

The community latrine.

Adjoining drain.