Discovering Dharavi Walk 

It was a bright Sunday Morning in March and I was still debating with myself if I really should go for this walk for which I had committed as news about re-surgence of covid cases in Mumbai was being splashed all over and rising cases in Dharavi was also in the news. Though last year after being initially battered by Covid, Dharavi was able to manage the Covid situation very well and it was being held up as a world wide model on how to control the pandemic. So this was a worrying news but something inside me (gut feel) said Go-Ahead and since my friend had also agreed to join me, I was emboldened and felt that I should not miss this walk. I was secretly wondering how many would turn up for this walk as Dharavi is normally not on Mumbaikars "must see" list as it is Asia's largest slum and a very congested place consisting of shanties, recycling go-downs, leather curing units and heaps of stacked pots of all shapes and sizes. 

First Glimpse of a Temple
during our Dharavi walk

So we met up as a group of 7 people at the Mahim East station, which I thought, was a decent turnout and needed quorum given all the negative news doing the rounds. The leader who organized this walk had requested his household help to guide us through the walk and since he was a local, he took us through the streets like a local would, our local version of Google Maps, so to speak. So looking back I was happy I took the decision to go ahead with this walk as having some local to guide us through the walk is always a bonus. 

Newspaper vendor also selling what
looks like a South Indian Kaada

We started our walk passing through waste recyling godowns and went past a stream of stalls selling piping hot idlis tempting us along the way, the main thoroughfare being the 90 feet road. The crowd though was thankfully manageable for a Sunday Morning, not too crowded and definitely much less crowded than any of our Vegetable Sabji Mandis. We kept on walking through the narrow streets until we reached an almost hidden entrance to a well maintained garden right in the midst of the shantytown. 

Hidden Garden set
amidst the shantytown

After a small walk through the garden we walked past small roadside temples, slums and a cluster of what looked like government housing blocks. And as were walking we were greeted by a Burst of larger than life Murals taking over the concrete. And then it was like a movie, one art scene after another as we stood and admired with awe the larger than life murals on buildings, each mural an exquisite work of art, some done by International artists and others by local artists. It was a riot of colors that kept us spellbound for the next half hour or so.

Spellbound by the larger than life
mural of an Indian Woman towering over us

Profound Mural of a child rising
above the circumstances in Dharavi

Mural of a girl hanging upside down

After spending about 45 minutes admiring the murals and clicking our pics for memories we made our way to Kumbarwada with the sun now directly beaming its full energy onto our heads. Kumbarwada in Hindi means "Potters Town" and this part of Dharavi is around a century old and home to a community of Hindu Potters. Once in Kumbarwada your eyes are treated to a sea of earthenware of all shapes and sizes all stacked up in narrow shanties and lanes. You are transported to a different world altogether with clay pits, kilns, thousands of clay vessels left to dry in the sun and a host of locals (mostly from Gujarat) busy giving different shapes to the clay moulds. 

Stack of Moulded Kulhads ready for sale

As we kept walking past the maze of earthernware, it led us to an artisan's house where we saw an old wrinkled man busy at the clay wheel giving shape to pots with amazing finesse. It was amazing to watch a lifetime of experienced hands giving finishing touches to his wares. We had to make our way to his workshop by climbing almost two flights of wooden vertical stairs. He welcomed us and chatted about his childhood and how he has been involved in this family business for well over half a century. He was in an indulgent mood and seemed more busy than us for a lazy Sunday Morning taking in a line of calls from relatives and friends and at the same time welcoming us into his world, all the while not letting his eyes off the clay he was so dexterously moulding. 

It was amazing watching and interacting
with this potter having a lifetime of pottery experience

Workers busy working on the clay

Walking past a Brick Kiln spewing
smoke and fire

After spending around 15/20 minutes chatting with him, we said our goodbyes to him and his family and made our way back to the main thoroughfare and daylight again. At this point our guide bid us goodbye and returned home and we decided to venture out a little further to the Mahim Nature Park as we didn't want to miss out on this having come this far. We had been in the sun for almost 2 hours and it was getting too hot. As we reached the Mahim nature park most of the group disbanded while my friend and I decided to take a walk in the serene surroundings. Located on the Bandra-Sion Link road, a walk in this park is like a Green Heaven in the midst of the all the concrete and chaos of Mumbai city. There are various trails marked through the park and as you walk through them you can spot various brids and colorful butterflies. You can also avail of the paid services of a guide who will guide you through the flora and fauna. Since we had already spent enough time in the peak sun we just decided to take a silent walk in this hidden jungle. As you walk through the trail you can see the Mithi River flow by silently. There is also a small lake within the park which attracts species of water birds and a few reptiles too. As we kept walking through the various trails we could spot a rush of beautiful and colorful bougenvilas along the way amongst other varieties of flowers. 

We decided to call it off at this point and get back home with pleasant memories of our walk, which I was not sure if I wanted to do in the first place. Three different superlative experiences back to back and in the span of a single morning was hard to beat and it sure made my day. It taught me a lesson though to not judge a book by its cover and venture forth with an open mind. And I am sure after this enlightening walk none of us would view Dharavi with the same eyes ever again.

Small lake inside the Nature Park

THE RIGHT BRAIN

What is the meaning of the words, 'You are a brainy chap' that are usually used for a university topper? Does your scoring high marks in examinations mean you are really BRAINY. Scan the following lines, till you can sufficiently scan into yourself, to know about your brain. Yes, my probe in the next very many lines is into that little known thing - the right brain contrasted with the left.

Man has tried to split everything into the world, in his brain. No doubt then, that his study, simplified, split his brain too. His brain is divided into two hemispheres - left and right - connected together by fine wires called nerves. However, the latin names for these jumbles are too tongue-twisting and we would do well from peeping into this topic.

Why should man have two brains, when one seems too much of a problem? The answer is that, just as man has two eyes, two nostrils, two hands and two legs, he has two parts of the grey matter too. However, crooked as his mind is, his left hemisphere controls the right half of his body and the right one his left half. This fact has been proved in split brain patients (patients whose nerves connecting the two hemispheres were removed). Because of isolation of the two hemispheres, they could not co-ordinate the movements of the two halves of their body.

A typically interesting point concerns the functions of these two hemispheres. Whatever tasks we perform can be split into two parts - logical and non-logical. We shall refrain  from the term illogical because as we shall see very soon, what might seem to be a non logical process ends in a logical result. The left brain is concerned with logical methods of deduction whereas the right brain seems to give what seems as illogical or more specifically intiutory methods. The mathematical solutions that you get to some problems are due to those logical steps (just like computer steps through the instructions gradually in a program). The 'intuitive' answer with the explanation to its derivation as 'just-gut-feel' is due to your right brain. In short, your right brain deals with spatial solutions while your left brain deals with line-to-line solutions.

Your right brain is the author of creativity. Any of your artistic talents are credited to this little genius. Obviously, then, that since your right brain controls your left half of the body, your left eyes, hands and legs can contribute better to such talents. That does not discredit your right half because, thankfully, the information to your right half for such functions come from the right brain again, but through the left brain - seemingly a little less efficient process. Your argument that your right hand is more dexterous can be countered with the fact that your dexterity is accredited more to your muscles, which has been given constant practice, and relatively less to your brain. Thus if you had practised with your left hand right through childhood, you would be definitely more adroit with it.

What are the various capacities in which your right brain function? A person who runs on the ground and accurately succeeds in catching the ball in the air uses his right brain. He might not have studied the laws of physics and detailed mathematical analysis of the projectile of the body in free air and the angle of throw and time required for him to reach the ball, but he can more definitely and efficiently catch it than a Doctor in Physics or an expert mathematician. Almost always, these scholars, assuming they use their calculations in this respect, would miserably flop. In fact, a person who sings, writes poems or composes music uses his right brain.No doubt then that our education makes us use less of the right  (pun intended) brain. More interestingly go the facts that telepathy, extra sensory perceptions and other awe inspiring  mumbo-jumbos associate with this self.

On the other hand your left brain is more concerned with tedious tasks as logical derivations and step-by-step solutions to mathematical problems and more specifically with speech and words (in fact persons with distorted speech are found to utilize their brain to a lesser extent). Your left brain consists of dictionary of words and you refer to it whenever you speak of something. Secondly, it also applies various methods to problems, more usually based on past experiences (again the storage function props in), till the right solution props up. Stated simply, another nomenclature for your left hemisphere is 'Mr. Tediousness' for it is the epitome of all tedious functions.

Unfortunately, our present educational system works the left brain more because we are not required to put all our knowledge into words. Scope must be given in examinations to test the right brain using spatial comprehension tests etc. Else, the learned graduate will earn his degree at the cost of the right brain. True, because, leave alone your right brain, anything in nature that is not used or used rarely wanes into oblivion. This is a well tried and tested law of nature. Truly, all the knowledge cannot be put into words. As an illustrative example, what will you reply to the blind man's question : "What is the sky?". Even when you put all the words into his ear, he will just helplessly wander away from the fact, not near it. For, whatever pictures and objects you observe are stored and processed in your right brain and he hasn't seen any of it. That's also why even when you seem to have forgotten a person, his personal picture works up memories of past experiences, because pictorial messages are made available from the right brain. A university topper flops in disco dancing because he uses his left brain most, rarely using his right one.

So, if you are a book worm, here is an earnest request to you to jump up from those mass of papers and drink deep the beauty of this world by switching on more often to your right brain. Don't just idle your time in useless jumbles of words that you do without moving a bone. Go ahead and move your bones on the dance floor and take that painting brush and splash some colors on the canvas. 

See the beauty of using the brain, Aha - the right one..!

 

KNOW THYSELF

When Human Beings inquire into the insurmountable distances and peep into space and into galaxies that are hidden beyond the best of our telescopes, we gaze in admiration. When scientists scrutinize the tiniest of particles and what lies underneath it with their immaculate theories, we admire them. Yet, we are made to gulp in extreme surprise when we see the same humans totally disillusioned and unable to deal with simple social problems in life. How is it that the same humans who seem to know everything from the Black Hole to the White Nucleus, knows not what to do when about to be swallowed by the wide open jaws of death? What makes us human beings, who know concretely about everything material in this world become helplessly mute before a seemingly abstract thing called death?

True, then that our Quest into nature has made matter deliver to us luxuries unimaginable by us a few years ago. We seem to know about everything objective in this world. Yet, it is ironic that, we do not know much about ourselves. One might ask, what does one mean by “Know Thyself’?” It-just-means-to-know-the-negative-traits-in-one’s-personality-and-replace-it-with-positive-ones’. When we have a quarrel with someone at home, we fumble in our work at the office. Can’t we deal better with these situations in life? We as humans have such an untiring quest for goals, but when they are not met, we become disillusioned. We are overcome by tension, fear and anger and become enslaved by them. The same human being who boasts of making things act at his command is helplessly commanded by these qualities.

Does it not then seem feasible and plausible that our search for knowledge must begin from within and not from without. Knowing oneself thus, we can safely sail through the boisterous sea of life. Similar to the proverb, ‘Charity begins at home’, we can say that ‘Knowledge should begin at home’.

We try to beautify our bodies by wearing the best of clothes and other cosmetic aids. If we even spend a fraction of this time and money in beautifying the mind, won’t we be developing a happy and fulfilling life? After all physical beauty is just like a flower that blooms during youth and withers with the approaching wrinkles. But a happy and joyful mind is a lifelong asset. Shouldn’t we then try to develop it and die a happy soul rather than just another perishable body?