'Dharavi not a slum; it's Asia’s largest small-scale industry'

Did you know that the people of Dharavi generate income worth $1 billion per year?” Nawneet Ranjan tells me. I nod silently, taking this bit of information in. He tells me that a change in mindset is hard to bring in when Mumbaikars themselves are ignorant of the contributions made by this neighbourhood to the city’s industries. Nawneet Ranjan is the brain behind Dharavi Diary, a short documentary about the crushed hopes and dreams of Dharavi’s residents as they are evicted from their homes, due to the government’s redevelopment plans. We meet at a roadside makeshift workshop near Dharavi, where the only source of light is a half-filled bottle of water — it’s a solar bottle bulb — stuck in the tin ceiling. As we chat, two women, Fatima and Laxmi, sit near the entrance, making balls with mud and rubber that will be sold at Rs10 each.

Ranjan calls Dharavi Diary a ‘Slum Innovation Project’. This is essentially what differentiates the documentary from countless other films made on the slum, he says. While most filmmakers tell the story and move on, Ranjan hopes to raise the funds needed to help build a recycling design school in Dharavi.

Dharavi is home to nearly one million people, many of whom recycle waste that comes from all over the world. “The people here, though poor, don’t beg and work with dignity. They earn their living. The government does not recognise this work as it will have to start giving subsidies,” says Vidu Chandan, one of the producers of the film. “It’s not a slum, it’s Asia’s largest small scale industry,” she says.

Ranjan’s journey in the film world started several years ago. He was the assistant director of Ahista Ahista and Maharathi. Currently, a film student at the Academy of Art University, San Francisco, Ranjan says that idea to make Dharavi Diary stemmed out of his desire to do something for the people of Dharavi. “When I was working in Mumbai, every time I passed Dharavi, I always saw people working dedicatedly. Hope and smiles were the only things I saw,” he says.

In 2011, when Ranjan was in India during his summer break, he visited Dharavi again and saw how the lives of thousands of residents living in small dwellings were being destroyed by the government, which was looking at redeveloping the area. Shot in just 10 days in the monsoon of 2011, Dharavi Diary takes a look at the situation through the eyes of four residents, two of whom include Fatima and Laxmi.

The shooting faced several challenges, not the least of which was the monsoon rain. “A bigger challenge was to get people to open up and to make them feel like they’re not being used. They were not keen to talk as they feel that media attention is the reason for their homes being destroyed,” says Ranjan. Once he won their confidence, however, the people of Dharavi embraced the idea.

Need to give back
Now that the documentary has been shot, Ranjan’s work is not over. He is now planning to develop a feature documentary by the end of 2014 on the same subject as well as raise the funds for the recycling design school. This, he hopes, will help the community channelise its talent better. “It’s amazing how these people use their jugaad skills to get their work done. They have all the skills and these just need to be upscaled. We are trying to push that confidence, so that they can come out of the cycle of poverty,” he says.

Ranjan has also been actively organising workshops that will help in empowering the community. Fatima shows me the colourful laptop bags, purses and wallets that they have made in the last two days. The workshop was helmed by two female designers from Finland who taught the women from the slums how to make recycled bags from old clothes, particularly jeans and pants. There was no selection criteria and anybody with knowledge of stitching or an enthusiasm to learn was welcome.

Similarly, there have been interactive storytelling workshops for children and another one that showed the participants how to make a pushcart out of recyclable material. All the workshops are conducted by volunteers — specialists in their respective fields, while the participants are interested slum residents. Ranjan says that he will include videos shot during these workshops in the feature film he’s planning so they could also serve as a model for development projects elsewhere.

Cinema for change
Ranjan says that he would always want to be behind ‘Cinema for change’. “As a storyteller, it is good to get inspiration but it’s also important to give back to the community. I want to engage the audience and start a discourse,” he says. Like Dharavi Diary, he says that he would always want to tell compelling stories, that urge people to think. His next script, though fun and easygoing, tells the story of a dysfunctional family who are under a pressure to succumb to modernity.

Ranjan calls Dharavi the “green lung” of Mumbai, as they recycle the waste from the city’s dump, contributing to its well-functioning. “With Dharavi Diary, I want to question the whole idea of development and start a dialogue with the public. If development isn’t made inclusive, there is no point to it,” he says.