Stuart makes his first visit to Dharavi and writes about his experience. I always thought, the Middle class in India referred to the consumer class who shop and window shop at Malls,spends 350 bucks for a movie in a multiplex and drives a Getz or a Swift. He thinks on a different route.
I grew up with the stereotype of two cars in the suburbs and a color TV. This isn’t what middle class means in India, even though they now talk about a middle class approaching 250 million. It isn’t the middle class we know and yet this group is changing everything and on the cusp of India’s change and boom.
Comments
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Jennifer
Jun 6th, 2008 at 4:55 am | #
Great find, Nikhil. Dharavi seems to have improved with the times.Back in 99-01, my seniors in Madras Christian College visited Dharavi and the stories were very different. In fact even in the slums of Chennai, where I did most of my field work, no residents had such modern and well-stocked kitchen as the one in the photo in the post!!!
Nikhil
Jun 9th, 2008 at 5:13 am | #
@Jennifer
Welcome back to DP.
Thanks.
Thats a welcome change for this large a slum.