Bombay: "Another rubbish truck unloads its pile and men, women and children swoop" by Channel News Asia 11:20pm 18th Jan, 2004   18 January 2004    BOMBAY : Another truck unloads its pile and men, women and children swoop over to search with their bare hands for plastic, metal, glass and any other piece of filth that will earn them a living in Bombay, India's financial capital.    Billboards advertising Japanese televisions line the streets near Dewanar, a 113-hectare (279-acre) swamp in west Bombay, far from the flashy cars, Bollywood movie stars and rich diamond merchants that make the city of 18 million dynamic, if greatly unequal.    Asurba Gangubhai, 36, a red scarf tied over her head, chewed betel nuts as she sat among heaps of garbage. She earns about 80 rupees, or just under two dollars, each day by selling scraps of plastic and metal.    "If one is extremely lucky, then you will find used shoes, plastic bottles in good condition and sometimes even pieces of gold," said Gangubhai, sorting out plastic bags from a pile of rotten vegetables and rags.    The overpowering stench had no effect on Gangubhai who said she "got used to it."    "I have been doing this for 15 years," she said, red plastic bangles on her wrist and her saree tied up above her knees.    "I was forced to work to feed my two children and a daughter. My husband is a labourer and it always helps to earn a bit more to eat at least two meals a day," she said, as children and men near her competed in a hurried sift through the garbage.    Poverty of this extreme is a main focus of the World Social Forum, an assembly of anti-globalisation activists which closes Wednesday at an exhibition grounds off one of Bombay's main highways.    Coca-Cola and Pepsi, beverages which are anathema to the anti-globalisation movement, are on sale at most of the small shops in Dewanar, where more than 750 trucks dump rubbish each day.    The roads leading to the swamp are packed with vendors of oil, fruits and even sometimes foreign-made televisions and cell phones.    The tantalising gadgetry is testimony to the rags-to-riches story that keep Bombay's aspirations alive. One such success is late industralist Dhirubai Ambani, a former gas station attendant who built India's largest private sector firm, Reliance.    But for Bombay's approximately 135,000 scavengers, the product they most desperately desire is food.    One of them is Raja Subramanyam, 27, who said his family left the southern Indian city of Madras for Bombay three decades ago in search of jobs and a better life.    Subramanyam wears a makeshift plastic glove to probe the garbage. He said most of his friends began the day by drinking locally brewed alcohol to keep the stench of the rubbish at bay.    "When I grew up in Bombay I realised none of my dreams will materialise as my family was poor," said Subramanyam, bare-chested with filth covering his plastic boots.    "My parents could not afford to educate me. My dreams died very young as I started working as a waiter when I was 13 to support my family," he said.    At least half of Bombay is believed to live below the poverty line, most of them migrant labourers, even as high-rise buildings and massive apartment complexes crop up and evict them from their slums.    Ten kilometeres (six miles) ahead of Dewanar is Asia's largest slum Dharavi, where a small tannery industry thrived decades ago.    As one steps out of Dharavi, old taxis made by Italian carmaker Fiat share the streets with Fords, Suzukis, Hyundais and Mercedes-Benzes.    But inside, open drains run besides the shacks and narrow roads where garbage is strewn all around. Entire families live in single rooms made of tin sheets.    Some sleep outside on the streets and young slumdwellers play India's favourite game, cricket, on the alleys.    "Life does not stop here. No one goes hungry. Yes, we are the poorest of poor in a city where some have all the money," said S. Sunil, 34.    "I dreamt of being a pilot and ended up as an office boy living in a slum. I might be one of the many losers. But for my children there is hope as I am educating them."    - AFP Visit the related web page
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