About our rating systemMore than half of Mumbai's population are slum-dwellers, most of them -- and they include hotel workers, engineers, waiters, taxi drivers, most of the city's police force, teachers, tour guides, you name it -- existing with their entire (sometimes extended) families in tiny tenements smaller than a typical hotel bedroom. Although it's not an attraction in the traditional sense of the word, interest in Dharavi, Asia's largest shantytown, has grown exponentially in the wake of the Shantaram phenomenon and Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire, in which life in Mumbai's poorest neighborhoods is given more than a cursory or condescending glance. Hemmed in by Sion in the east and Mahim in the west, this particular "slum" is spread over 175 hectares (482 acres) and is home to around one million people; 72% of these people are forced to use communal bathing facilities -- or worse still, face the stress of performing personal toilet functions in the open, often along the train tracks. Visit here on any given day, and you'll find it brimming with life and held together by an overwhelming industriousness; around $650 million is generated from goods exported from here each year -- among the major industries here, are leather, recycling, and heavy machinery. A visit to Dharavi (on an escorted guided tour, of course) will not only prove tremendously enlightening, but will also touch you deeply, pulling into perspective just about every experience you have anywhere in this city and for that matter, in India.
