14 million people live in Mumbai, the country's commercial capital. Half of them - migrants from other cities and towns -- in slums, clinging to dreams of making it big in this metropolis.
It isn't easy. At periodic intervals, the administration tries to relocate those living near railway lines, airports and other strategic locations. Once they are thrown out, these people return often to hostile conditions as they fight for any place that they can find to build a shelter. Some of them live in the huge water or sewage pipes left over from civic projects while others live in flimsy shanties on the pavements.
The situation is marginally better now for these people than it was in the 1970s or even the '80s. But today the situation is slightly different because the government has started accepting the fact that it alone cannot solve the problems of these people...
Mumbai, or Bombay to call it by the name its better known by, was a swampy, mosquito infested, marshy island off the west coast of India with little or no potential, or so thought the Portuguese when they gave it to Charles II of England as part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza. How very stupid of them! The British East India Company leased it from the Crown, and developed the small fishing villages and natural harbours into Bombay, the subcontinent’s busiest port and the region’s centre for trade, finance and industry.
Also, Mumbai center of Bollywood is Film City, at Goregoan where the majority of the film studios are located. The bulk of films made in Bollywood are sugary love stories or action dramas; the aim of the industry is to produce the entertainment and escapism that its audiences demand.
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