Where is dongri located in mumbai

Much of the commerce around Dongri is that of teashops and watch-vendors. Just west of Dongri is Chor Bazaar "thieves' bazaar" , a seemingly endless array of antique and curio shops. Here can be found an entire, fully assembled Rolls Royce; and gramophones and toy jet planes from early 20th-century America. Literally every corner of Chor Bazaar holds some saleable item, or its seller. The bazaar spills over into Dongri. Shops sell bangles, backpacks, arrangements of plastic flowers, hand-made kites.

Cloths are spread out on the sidewalk to showcase neatly aligned, polished trash. Entrepreneurs busily clean, separate, and bundle metal cans into bright gold bails bigger than a car. The area is a kind of recycling center spread out over city blocks. After the rains, it becomes a dump. Dongri is just a stone's throw from Kamatipura, the city's red-light district, setting of the Mira Nair film Salaam, Bombay!

The route of the bus passes nearly a kilometer of brightly and colorfully painted holes-in-the-wall, fronted by women painted as brightly and colorfully.

They squat, spit, pick at their hair, do each others' hair; they purse their lips, swing their skirts, make way for a satisfied customer combing his hair as he exits. Bombay is home to some 80, "commercial sex-workers". The euphemism is significant. Like many official illegalities, prostitution is condoned. On Raksha Bandan, the Hindu holiday when sisters give wrist bracelets to their brothers in return for protection, prostitutes gave bracelets to local politicians.

Over half of these prostitutes are HIV-positive. I only once ventured through Kamatipura at street-level. The women called out to me and pulled at my satchel strap. Some months later, I would be taken through this area again by a well-intentioned cabby. He had presumed that being a foreigner and a bachelor, I would make a beeline for Kamatipura. He drove me through areas off the route, and gave me a new sense of Kamatipura's extent. The going rates were between Rs.

Entire city blocks housed these practitioners of the oldest profession. One day in a bar near Chowpatty Beach, some earnest, but quite drunken college-students made the same false presumption. When I mentioned the HIV statistics, they waved them off. Strange that Kamatipura could be so close to my school, and its female students and faculty. Every day the students swarmed in from Dongri's hidden corners, with their long black hair braided and looped, walking determinedly forward in their pressed pale-blue uniforms.

The teachers walked with equal poise. And every day, five or six hours later, they disappeared into Dongri again, the students congregating for a while in Dharmshala Road, slurping up cane juice; or taking a ride on a manual, rickety, and rusted Ferris wheel jutting out into SVP road.

Sadly, Dongri never quite became my home. My home was in posh Malabar Hill, and I appreciated its respite. By midday, Dongri became intolerable. The noise and the scorching heat caused headaches for the unaccustomed. It was not an environment for reflection, or even productive action. Invitations to people's homes were common, but seldom detailed. Rents are so high in Bombay becoming comparable, recently, to those of Tokyo or New York that extended families occupied one space.

Students often claimed to live with nearly ten people at a time. A solitary foreigner in such a situation would have been humorous at best. I finally accepted a persistent invitation from the family of Amera, a student of mine.

And this only a few days before my departure. As I was leaving her flat, a diminutive old man wearing a topi approached me. Smiling, he asked me something in Hindi. I couldn't parse it, so a bystander rushed to my aid. The old man was asking me where I was going.

I had just come from the Patni's home, I said. This pleased him. He shook my hand vigorously, still with that infinite smile. Skip to main content. How to get to Dongri in Mumbai by Bus or Train? See Dongri, Mumbai on the map.

Get directions now. How to get to Dongri by Bus? More details. He had to pay for it, with his life. Get our Daily News Capsule Subscribe. Thank you for subscribing to our Daily News Capsule newsletter.

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