Comments on: Is a Dharavi slum tour a good idea?

By: Marilyn Jones

Marilyn Jones — Sun, 10 Dec 2017 14:24:09 +0000

What a good question. I have never taken a slum tour but, especially in India, I saw a lot of them as I traveled through the country. What amazes me are the smiles and the determination of those living there. You gave your readers a lot to think about. An excellent, excellent article.

By: Rachel Heller

Rachel Heller — Fri, 08 Dec 2017 13:47:04 +0000

In reply to travelnwrite. Thank you! I'm still not sure it's a good idea, even without photos and for a non-profit. Yet how else are they going to raise money?

By: travelnwrite

travelnwrite — Fri, 08 Dec 2017 13:17:28 +0000

An interesting question indeed! And I sometimes wonder about taking photos of everyday people on everyday streets in any city we visit. . .how would I feel knowing I was being posted on FB or other media showing how ‘people live’. As for slums, we took a cruise that stopped in Mumbai and one of the tours offered was a slum tour – by a non-profit – the money came back to the slum, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to do it for all the reasons you mentioned. You’ve done a beautiful job on this post – you brought the experience to life and it made me do some thinking – a great combination!

By: Rachel Heller

Rachel Heller — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 19:58:08 +0000

In reply to Doreen Pendgracs. Thank you! Coming from you, that means a lot to me! Yes, even after walking through the slum, I found it hard to imagine what it would be like to live there.

By: Rachel Heller

Rachel Heller — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 19:56:12 +0000

In reply to jane. Definitely! Good words to describe this: voyeuristic and affluence guilt. I felt similarly when I saw a "demonstration" of Masai dancing in Tanzania.

By: Doreen Pendgracs

Doreen Pendgracs — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 18:14:47 +0000

Rachel, I think this may be the best post you have ever written. I really enjoyed it and learned a lot despite the difficulty of the topic. I was shocked to learn that India has so many slums. I knew there so some, but shocked to learn how many. Very interesting to learn about Dharavi and shocked to learn it has over a million inhabitants on only two square kilometers of land! Growing up in an under-populated region of Canada, that is unimaginable! Like Anita, I found Slumdog Millionaire to be fascinating, yet disturbing.

By: jane

jane — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 17:26:49 +0000

It’s hard not to feel voyeuristic when we are touring anything that feels third world or poor by our standards. Ditto when visiting tribes and other ethnic experiences offered by many tour companies. I think these types of visits are more palatable if the tours are doing some kind of good, and they are kept intimate enough so that busloads aren’t being shipped in to ‘observe’. Still, I think there’s a bit of affluence guilt that contributes to our own feelings of awkwardness here.

By: Rachel Heller

Rachel Heller — Mon, 04 Dec 2017 17:34:25 +0000

In reply to Anita and Richard @ No Particular Place To Go. Glad you liked it! Thanks!

By: Anita and Richard @ No Particular Place To Go

Anita and Richard @ No Particular Place To Go — Mon, 04 Dec 2017 17:05:15 +0000

You’ve posed an interesting question, Rachel and I have to admit I too, am intensely curious about the slums. (I thought the movie, “‘Slumdog Millionaire” was as fascinating as it was disturbing.) It seems that Reality Tours has done a good job of explaining and showing the slums of Mumbai in a way so as to educate tourists as well as preserve the dignity of the people who live there. It’s shocking to believe that any cleanliness can be achieved in a place where 1000 people share a toilet or the water runs for only an hour a day. And when you mention the recycling of plastics and hotel soaps, it’s yet another reminder of how wasteful people can be. Thanks for this fascinating and enlightening post! Anita