Behind the Scenes With 'GMA' in Mumbai

MUMBAI, India, March 10, 2009 — -- After a few weeks of plotting, planning, wheeling and dealing, "Good Morning America's" Mumbai special has finally gone on the air.

As a proud onetime resident of Mumbai (born and raised there back when it was still called Bombay), I was very excited to get the chance to showcase my city in all its vibrancy. And I learned a lot about Mumbai along the way. It's impossible to sum up such a complex city in a few hundred words, so, keeping in mind the interest generated in Mumbai's slums after the Oscar success of "Slumdog Millionaire," I thought I would begin there.

The largest slum in Asia, Dharavi, is located in Mumbai, and it seems to be constantly buzzing with activity. These illegal settlements are home to a massive recycling industry, and those who don't work in that sector make clay pots by hand, pappads (an Indian crisp eaten with rice and curry), and sell a range of goods from flowers to clothing to DVDs.

The government calls the settlements illegal because many of those who live there don't pay for water or electricity, often filching it from existing power lines and water supply pipes.

Dharavi's economy generates nearly $700 million annually for the half-million residents who are crammed into one square mile of space.

Despite the fact that so many of Dharavi's residents work as chauffeurs, dishwashers and maids to the city's well-heeled, Mumbai's prohibitively expensive real estate makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the slum-dwellers to conceive of living outside Dharavi.

At one apartment building in Dharavi, the head of the building, S. Packiaraj, said that few people were willing or able to trade their shantytown housing for an apartment. It's not the rent alone but the cost of water, electricity and taxes that makes the prospect of a move from an illegal settlement to a legally accepted building so daunting.

But many of Dharavi's residents do want to move out. Take 50-year-old Pushpa Parlat Lokhande, widowed at 37, and mother to three sons. Lokhande washes dishes in two houses in nearby Mumbai suburbs but said she didn't get enough work to pay to have the roof of her one-room house repaired. During every monsoon, she says, water drips into the house from above, because the roof has too many holes. The more it rains, the more water comes into the house from under the front door, making it impossible for her family to sleep on the floor. "All night, we sit on chairs and try to sleep."

'Slumdog Millionaire' Can't Change Anything

As she offered her guests a Coke to drink, she said, "I don't want any handouts from anyone, not even God. I just want my children to be healthy, and for God to give me the strength to keep working hard. And I want more work."

That same fierce pride is apparent in 22-year-old Dev Tank's eyes. Tank lives in Khumbharwada, the potters' community in Dharavi with his parents and three sisters. He belongs to the third generation of Tanks raised in Khumbharwada. Unlike his ancestors, however, he decided not to become a potter. Tank works for a multinational company and has dreams of starting his own educational charity one day.

To many Indians, young people like Tank exemplify the changing India as they fight to grab opportunities denied to their parents. It wasn't always like this, though. Tank failed his ninth-grade exams. "It was a turning point," he says. "I began working much harder after that."

Despite his success, Tank still hasn't told all his co-workers that he lives in Dharavi. "People from the rest of Mumbai have many misconceptions about slums," he says, recalling that when he was a child, "every time a kid misbehaved in class or was lazy, people would say he must be from the slums."

Tank believes that not much has changed since then, as far as perceptions are concerned. And, although he hasn't seen "Slumdog Millionaire" yet, he doesn't believe "one movie can change anything."

Even now, after working for a multinational firm, Tank doesn't believe that any bank in Mumbai will grant him an educational loan to fund his MBA. "I spoke to a friend of mine who works at an international bank, and he said I wouldn't be considered for a loan there because Dharavi is regarded as a 'negative area' by banks."

Even though Tank, like Lokhande, wants to move out of Dharavi and give his sisters "a better life," he has no intention of giving up his one-room home there. "I will always keep this house," he says. "It"s where my ancestors lived."

Pointing out the tiny alcove where the family prays, he echoed Lokhande's words, saying, "I come here to pray for strength."

No Other Place Where He'd Rather Live

None of the people interviewed for this story have easy lives. And not everyone is as hopeful for the future as Tank, who's preparing for his MCOM (Masters in Commerce) exams at the moment. But they all exemplify Mumbai's much-lauded resilience and its relentless work ethic, which inspires so many of its residents, like Tank, who says there's no other place where he would rather live.