Rediscovering Dharavi by Kalpana Sharma

Author:Kalpana Sharma [Sharma, Kalpana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789351181033
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2013-04-13T00:00:00+00:00

Shirt off your back

Off Dharavi Cross Road, a slushy lane opens out into Kuttiwadi. On one side are the oldest bakeries of Dharavi. On the other are a row of godowns. The first is one of the primitive leather processing units that can be found in many lanes of Dharavi, identifiable by the stench that escapes through their open doors.

The next godown, by contrast, is a garments factory. There are three long tables ready for the master cutters, the paper patterns pinned to the walls, the bales of cloth on one side. Mustaqeem, a bespectacled young man in kurta-pyjama and white sandals, sits in a small air-conditioned cabin at one end. The cabin next to him has a computer which connects him to markets in distant US. On his desk are phones, a fax, and on the side is a rack with samples of ready-made garments. Mustaqeem exports garments to the US where they are ultimately sold through Wal-Mart and Kmart.

But in 1970, when Mustaqeem came to Bombay as a lad of thirteen from UP, he did not dream that one day he would own a garments factory and export directly to the US. His family members were landowners in UP’s Rae Bareli district, better known as the constituency of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. Over time, with the division of land, the family was reduced to penury. This forced Mustaqeem to venture out, looking for work in Bombay, even though he had not completed his school education.

His first home in the big city was in the disreputable Kamathipura area, better known as Bombay’s red-light district. A relative who lived there allowed him to stay with him. Mustaqeem started work in a ready-made garments factory where he was not paid but given the chance to learn the trade. Every morning he would go there at 7.30, clean the place, wash the machines, serve tea to the workers and then hang around till everyone left. Only after that could he try the machines and learn how to sew. All the workers were from UP and as they had no place to live, they usually slept on the road outside the factory. Within four months, he had learned how to stitch on the pedal machines and become a good tailor. ‘My motto was that if I work hard, God will honour me. I would tell the workers that one day I too would own a factory.’

In 1974, Mustaqeem managed to persuade a relative who lived in Dharavi to let him put two sewing machines in his home. Mustaqeem operated one machine and hired a man to run the other. They worked all day and would somehow manage to find jobwork. But expenses were often higher than what they earned. So, while in the past he could send some money home as he earned a regular salary in a garments factory, he could not do this once he began his own business.

But slowly, he says, he was able to expand and eventually had ten machines placed in additional rooms that he managed to rent.

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