Mr. MUKESH MEHTA

Tergiversated intentions, calculated speeches

Mr. Mukesh Mehta is the architect in charge of the redevelopment in Dharavi.

“My aim is to make the Mumbai airport slum free.”

After his power point presentation we all felt frustrated, confused and impotent.

STOP, LOOK AND LISTEN

Remarks, sensations and perspectives that were noted, located and shared by all the class.
Divided in six different groups, we started from the corners and followed opposite directions walking around Dharavi and the next day we entered the limit and moving across trying to find our way through unpredictable alleys.
Sometimes unconsciously, we searched for the emptiness of the space. The visual, sonorous, odorous and touch compositions are so extremely dense and multilayered that the activity turns tiring, distracting and difficult to comprehend. We all needed spatial silence to rest our intoxicated of information senses.

• SMELLS
  It gets intensified by the heat, and influenced by the effects of sun or shadow.
  The people’s occupations can be smelt.
  It increases in narrow streets.
  The water smelt bad.
  The breeze and the wind helped to give a rest to or overwhelmed noses.
  The fish markets, public toilets, sewage conducts, kilns for pottery and the kitchens were easy to recognize by their smell.
  The stench could be so bad that it even hurted.
• SOUNDS
  The traffic sound dominated all the contour of Dharavi. Inside, the sounds turned human, musical and concrete; the tumult of the cars was relegated to a second level, it became a background, not a totality anymore.
  The few silent places found, usually located in more peaceful residential areas, where interrupted by the sudden noise of the train or the constant murmur of the factories.
  Sound would continuously distract our attention.
  We were surprised to hear so many televisions and radios.
  The feet of the people produced different rhythms and effects, and bare feet were silent.
  Dogs barking and birds singing, animals contributed to the surprising concert of Dharavi.
  Diverse religious prayers are sang everywhere, the diversity and freedom of beliefs are happily evident.
• TOUCH
  Walking sem to be a dance: the body movement, in order to adapt to the busy context, was continuous and undulating. Sometimes it became stressing and aggressive, as people would push and cars rub against us.
  It felt safer to move inside the area. In the narrow and solitary streets it was easier to march straight.
  Coolness usually meant privacy.
  Interruption was a constant.
  Our presence provoked the movement of the people, some came to us and some hidded in their houses. We interfered in the surroundings.
• SIGHT
  Visual continuity and rhythm distinguished the border and the interior.
  Light and darkness were consequences of the different urban typologies.
  Flags and symbols expressed people’s identities.
  The nature was much more predominant in the inside than in the limit of Dharavi.
  Opened doors confirmed the communing and welcoming attitude of people.
  The panoramic silhouette of Dharavi was in huge contrast with its city background.
  The poor infrastructure, the lack of sanitation and the immediateness of solutions was visually recognizable.
  Care and cleanness are promptly found when observing individual behaviours and contexts. When observing around without concreting the point of view disorder and dirtiness govern the scene.

Mr. BHAU KORDE

He considers himself as a person who knows the streets, the streets of Dharavi. He helps the people yheir, aiming the people for dialogue and for an organization from within, influencing for the peace and unity of this multicultural society. He is not a politician, nor either a social worker, and he is sceptical about them, and cosiders the media as an often bad influence for the people, as it creates insecuriries and confrontations.

About the redevelopment plan, he says it will detroy Dharavi. The goverment, he says, will redevelop the land, but not the human beings.

“High buildings, 'boxes', destroy the community. In multi storey buildings they can not do their businesses.”

“If they are moved poverty will start. They are not poor now, they are not hanging around; they are busy.”
About their meeting place, where they talk and try to solve problems:

“When we started there were no chairs, but we just wanted to meet.”

“People in Dharavi are honest, but most of them are uneducated...”

This man gave me hopes... he thinks that we should help to solve the problems we observe, he is very sincere and has good intentions.

WHAT I SAW AND INTERPRETATED

Here we started our walk around Dharavi, it was promising...

People is recolecting rubish that will be recicled near by.

There was no water in this river, only garbage and rats in a puddle...

Everything is usefull, energy and materials do not disapear, they get transformed.

Beautifull: the tree is integrated in the building, why to cut it. Informality gives good chances.He looked more angry that this drawing shows. I was impressed on how reality shows itself, transparent... activities and workare seen, doors opened.
Bare feet recycling shoes.

Shiny happy people. In search for clients?
Gathering in the pavement... is this their habitual commun space?, I guess the answer is yes. The women and the children were talking and eating, feeling safe because they were together. Looking to the street, building with panoramic view to the road.Drawing became imposible, the crowd was oppresive. I stoped when the touching went too far...

TRAVELING TO MUMBAI

The waiting room in the Milan airport was occupied by a multicultural international crowd; the people filled the space eating, juggling, reading or looking around. I felt living a hidden moment in a terminal, submerged in a concentration of reasons, paths and destinies. In a few hours we all would be reaching Mumbai.

TOURISTIC GUIDE TO KOLKATA

Reality tours, anxious and worried tourists that need to understand the real world: Go to Kolkata, see the way they live, talk to the people and feel the immeasurable differences and resemblances, see what disorder means and forget about accurate calculations… try then to come back.

When you look at yourself from a universal standpoint, something inside always reminds or informs you that there are bigger and better things to worry about. Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955),

SINK IN THE CITY

The air is humid and cold tonight.
Close your eyes and contain respiration, here comes another one...

Keep on moving arms and legs. Contracted your belly, your heavy head moves disoriented trying not to get lost from its body.
Exhausted and breadless beats your heart full of panic.
Follow the light, get impulse and stretch your neck to seek the surface.
Come on, breath.

You are alone and the wind blows furious, something has kidnapped you, keeps on playing, you are the yo-yo.
Tiny creature: what the hell can you do to escape, to get away from this schizophrenic gigantic that has absorbed you?
Better not losing faith, better think and be aware, react or you will die.
Gulp and take air, a good mouthful…


The remote whistle has decreased. Gods have calmed down.
It is time to start again, the moment to find a way to survive. Cruel is destiny and your last chance could this be.
Your wet feet slide the water, look around… It seems no perspective does exist in such an infinite horizontality.
Only a shadow is distinguished in the monochromatic uncertain distance. It’s a piece of wood! Take it.
You are a bit safer now you can float.
Inhale, exhale, deeply respire…

It is not easy to survive being a castaway and you are doing it well. Do not hesitate, never give up. Perhaps someday you will experience what equilibrium means, dwelling a piece of land.
Time has passed and you have become a genuine navigator.
For the moment you have a floor, a roof, a bucket to collect the water from the rain and some reserves.
The boat you have piece by piece constructed seems to be stable enough to combat water and wind.
But the horizon keeps still, quiet and monotonous. No land seems to appear.


So much wind, this might be a storm. The water is coming inside.
Hurry up, hold the reserves.
The boat is destroyed.
But remember not to cease fighting, otherwise hunger, thirst and sadness will kill you.
Breathe…


What a contradiction, stepping the ground and feeling the waves, becoming a prisoner of the undertow in a dry land that used to be fertile and generous but appears now scanty and selfish.
Social, political and economic are the new rivers that carry the slipping leftovers of the organized richness to end in uncontrollable oceans of poverty.
Here the paradox of the human egocentric order, where disorder, displaced and concentrated in the forgotten peripheries, keeps on flowing. Like a hidden natural force, clandestine immeasurable energy, chaos gets transformed and moved, is always there and never dies.

How hypocrite, world’s clean hands and red nails, covering dirty armpits and pestilent feet, diamond jewels that hide muddy ears, fake eyelashes mask squinting eyes; how incoherent, studying the ignorance, protecting what attacks and recycling its excesses.
Human civilization has dressed up in luxurious high rise glass perfume but sweats stinky garbage and misery.
Entropy, out in the cold, concentrated and distilled, powerful and pestilent, grows like a sea of essence that expensive cologne can not hide anymore.


Having only ten euros a day is not such a big deal when only for forty eight hours, but imagine just for a moment how would it actually feel to live in such conditions.
The train, the morning coffee and croissant, lunch and dinner; these already are too many expenses for a 10 euro.
Consider what would it happen if you where not so privileged, not enjoying a soft bed in a cosy room; no saved money, documented identity or a formally invested and patented live. How would it feel having no possessions? Are you free from your systematized routine? Food far away while you being hungry; creased feet unprotected reel searching for a firm soil where to stay and get dried, your mouth parched.
Anonymous between billions of creatures that struggle in their right to live, you must know that land has its owners and the air its rules. Ignoring the law will not exempt you from its often distorted execution. Forget about insecurities and uncertainties, feeling impotent will not help at all.


Choose, calculate, think; go and come, forget and affront; search the ways, find the tools; as much as you can, don’t forget what you want; be aware and retain; have courage, no complains; protest, praise, imagine, trust and love.