Nala Sopara

04 Unsettling the idea of the ‘periphery’

Santosh
Bhuvan

Santosh Bhuvan was built by poor and working class populations forced to leave Mumbai. Field interviews have shown that after being displaced, people arrived here to buy land or take chawls on rent with little or no deposit. Here, many have been able to remake their homes and lives.

TUNKU

Tunku first came to Mumbai from his village in Uttar Pradesh when he was 17. He had no ambitions, no dreams. All he wanted was to earn money, buy food and find a bed to sleep on at night. He drove a rickshaw in the western suburbs of Malad and Goregaon before he started a business of getting licenses for pistols. He says he still has a bandook (pistol) with him. Then a well-known don asked him to be his bodyguard and he worked with him for six years. Then his cousin, Bunty, who’s a builder in Santosh Bhuvan, asked him to join him because his construction business was growing and he needed people he could trust. In 2008, he joined the building construction business full time.

“Everything in Santosh Bhuvan is illegal but this doesn’t mean it is not development.”

In 2009, the City Corporation started developing the area – they built roads and gutters but before that, when there was nothing here, people like him were the ones who built gutter lines and water pipelines. When the government demolished slums in Daamu Nagar in Borivali, all those who were left with no homes came to Nala Sopara. Tunku says, “We are not builders, we have done the job of settling people here. People had nowhere to go; we helped them buy land and built their homes for a low price.”

Santosh Bhuvan covers the farm lands of several villages in the area. Here, 85% of the builders are taxi and autorickshaw drivers from Mumbai. And it is because of these people that there is “development” here, says Tunku. “Public aayi, toh development hui. Warna saare khet the. (People came and the area developed. Or else there were only farms.) The ‘Uttar Bhartiya’ (North Indians) have progressed here, and the place has progressed because of the Uttar Bhartiya. There are at least 80 schools here now and only 40% must be government approved. But just because the government has not approved the schools does not mean children don’t need them. “Everything in Santosh Bhuvan is illegal but this doesn’t mean it is not development.”

RAM ANUP

Ram Anup was 12 when he first came to Mumbai in 1991. He fell from a mango tree in his village in Jaunpur, and his bade pitaji (father’s elder brother) brought him to Mumbai for treatment. To pay for his treatment, Ram Anup started working in a metal-craft factory in Jogeshwari for Rs 17/day. He had six younger siblings back home, says Ram Anup, making his income crucial to the family.

Ram Anup’s family history is integrally connected to Mumbai’s mills. His father and 3 uncles migrated to Mumbai in the early ‘70s and found work in the mills. When the mills closed, it shattered his father, who, he said, never fully recovered — he wasn’t able to return to full-time work. Ram Anup speculates that 8-10 villages in Jaunpur were hurt by the mill closures and till now their descendants are struggling to recover the same level of stability and prosperity they once felt.

Ram Anup got married in 1998 but since he didn’t have his own home, he left his wife back in the village. This was the first time he started composing his own songs about sexual longing.

Ram Anup was always interested in music and says he soon started performing with a Thakur saab, who lived a few rooms away from him, at jagrans in slums across Mumbai. Once he was 18, he started driving a taxi in Mumbai. He even found a community of taxi drivers who wrote songs, played instruments and recorded them. That’s how he met the panditji who writes songs for him now. Ram Anup got married in 1998 but since he didn’t have his own home, he left his wife back in the village. This was the first time he started composing his own songs about sexual longing. These spoke about a woman’s sexual longing for her migrant husband settled in Mumbai.
“Aap din bhar toh kaam mein taleen hoti hongi, par raat mein aapko bechaini nahi hoti? Aapko mard ki zaroorat nahi mehsus hoti?” (In the day you will be engrossed in work but don’t you feel restless at night? Dont you feel the need for a man?)

He came to Nala Sopara in 2000. His singing did so well that he got his own room in 2011 and took up music full-time. Most of his shows are held during bhoomi pujans or festivals and are usually sponsored by local builders. He mostly sings Bhojpuri songs because that is Santosh Bhuvan’s speciality.

“Santosh Bhuvan has done every one of us a lot of good,” says Ram Anup. “Rickshaw drivers, paanwalas and fruit sellers have become builders here and now drive nothing less than a SUV. … People say that when slums were demolished in Mumbai, Mumbai started settling here. Nobody here says we live in Nala Sopara. We live in Mumbai.”

Kamathipura

JVLR

Nala Sopara

Nala Sopara

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