Notes on the Geography of Peninsular India: Mumbai: 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.
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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.