I worked for eight years as a construction worker in the Fort. Then I bought this plot of land from a local landowner. Land is cheap here. The sahibs are not interested in living here. I built a two storey house. I rent out five rooms and stay in one room with my family.

I arrived in Kamathipura looking for work. I found shelter in my uncle’s house in Kamathipura. I share the room with ten other boys. They are from my village. We cook together on the street outside the building. I work in the mills in Girgaum as a coolie. The work is tiring. I dream of becoming a big man some day like my uncle. I miss my family back home. Life in the city is hard, but it is also exciting and full of opportunities.

I have lived in Naya Manzil for many decades now. My uncle generously rented out one of the smaller rooms for me and my wife when I brought her back from the village. My wife began to cook for our household and she would provide food to the other tenants as well. She occupied the landing near the staircase to set up the kitchen

I am from Europe. I used to live in Cursetji Sukhlaji Street earlier. It is called Safed Gulli as many of my East European sisters took up residence there. But the local residents do not like us. They call us loose immoral and wanton women. They complain against us and the sailors and soldiers who visit us.

The BMC has promised to redevelop the neighbourhood. It is necessary. The building needs repair but after the Rent Control Act came into force, I don’t have the money for repairs. But the wooden staircase is rotting. BMC is calling Kamathipura a slum but we are a decent and hardworking neighborhood. We have our Samaj, our festivities. We have built temples and schools and a community hall for our people. We try to keep our buildings clean. We are not a slum. We are the respectable poor.

The building desperately needs repairs. It is almost 100 years old! My family has been living on rent in this building for almost 80 years. We are ten members in my family. We share a room that is barely 8 by 10 square feet. I often sleep on the street on my khatiya! There is no toilet facility for us within our apartment - this makes life difficult for our womenfolk. There is no privacy. The waste keeps piling up in the alleys and is a health hazard.

I see to it that the kotha is clean and that the girls are protected from the police raids. I collect a commission from the girls in the kotha in return of giving them a space to stay. Its important for the kothas to be at the street level in order to attract customers. Women are brought here from remote parts of India. Most of the women are destitute, landless labourers or abandoned.

My family has for generations occupied rooms in Naya Manzil. But after the mills closed down, I had no work. Neither did my son. So we decided to sub-lease one of the rooms and start a cloth business on the street in front of our house. My wife joined the other women from the community in making beedis which brought in some extra income for the family and helped us to survive the city.

AIDS has wiped out many of us. Clients stay away because they are afraid of catching it. Even the landlords are scared. Earlier there were many of us in Naya Manzil. But the landlord and the mausi have emptied the other room and turned it into a godown. The NGO didis and the police have been trying to stop trafficking and rehabilitating the younger girls. There are fewer new girls in this line now.

It has become dangerous to continue to live in Naya Manzil. It is an unsafe building. It cannot be repaired. It needs to be demolished and rebuilt. But this has been in my family for almost five generations and this neighbourhood is my community. Where will I go? I want the building to be redeveloped. I don’t want to go to a transit camp.

Naya Manzil is in a very poor condition. As an old building, it doesnt have basic minimum facilities such as private toilets or parking spots. We are hoping that the entire neighbourhood will undergo private redevelopment. But the landlords don’t want to agree to the terms and conditions. They want bigger flats and more compensation. It is a frustrating situation.

I was working and living in Naya Manzil till four years back. The landlord shut the brothel and threw us out. I now live in Nalla Sopara and commute to Kamathipura by train.

I am from UP. I have been working in the jeans recycling units in Kamathipura’s Stable Street since 1993. Recently one of the units shifted to the terrace of Naya Manzil. I have to climb two flights of stairs with heavy drums of water or bundles of jeans. On the terrace we usually dry the dyed jeans. I live on the terrace with five other migrants from my village.

Many of us have been trying to redevelop our buildings individually. But the builders kept saying our plots are too narrow, there are too many tenants and so it is not feasible for them. We were not getting a good deal either in terms of the size of our proposed flats. Finally, we realised we had to come together and form an association. Now we are deciding to develop Kamathipura collectively. We want a cluster redevelopment plan for Kamathipura.

This redevelopment will rid us of the “daag” forever. We will also have bigger and new flats with in built toilets and open spaces. The sex workers are all over the streets now making it harder for us to access our own neighbourhood. We feel unsafe in our own neighbourhood. The migrant men working in the factory units bathe in the open. It makes us uncomfortable.

It has become increasingly difficult to work in Kamathipura. Many of us prefer to work in the peripheral areas of the city - Vashi, Turbhe , Panvel, Nalla Sopara. The residents are against us now.