Yes I was wearing my checkered Wrangler shirt that day. But that is not the point. I lowered the camera
just a little bit to show you yet another contrast: the adjacent slum that is.
Below you see the road where a minute ago the 4 women were showing their Sunday
outfits. And just opposite the India Turf Club a very heavily populated slum
village. I am saying village, because many of those settlements seem to offer
all kinds of shops and services to their inhabitants.
Just while we here in Bombay, another news broke, the Maharashtra (that is the
name of our guest state with the capital Bombay) Government had finally decided
to relocate the slums around the Bombay International airport. Many pilots had
in the past protested that they had to land their planes in the middle of most
heavily populated Favelas and also stressed that this risk was just too high.
But I am convinced that India will experience the same problems with its
settlements like Southern America once it is trying to relocate or centralize
all those slums. After having been living in Asia for 8 years now, I believe to
understand that the religions with the convenient feature of re-incarnation
(Hinduism and Buddhism alike) and the fact that most slums are scattered
throughout the biggest cities are the guarantors of the social peace. And if you
have seen those contrasts, it is quite hard to believe that the richest and
poorest live together without being separated by hordes of bodyguards.
Please click on the picture to continue>>>