Another day of touring planned.

Breakfast at the Taj. They seem to know me by now because of my apparently strange request for no salt. They have accommodated brilliantly.

Plan: Dabbawala tour & Dharavi tour ( The Dharavi slum tour)

Actually:

Sassoon dock
St. John Church
World Trade Center and Marine drive
After that, we went delivery Lunchbox
Victoria terminal Station
Dharavi
Bkc

Tea at Taj

These are sold locally wholesale and some retail gigantic business employees thousands in an area that looks like it’s falling apart, but clearly isn’t

St. John’s Church, not picture. Built after the Afghan war of 1820s something.

Notice each bag is numbered

The dabbawala lunchbox delivery system in Mumbai is an iconic service that has been operating for over a century. According to estimates:

• Around 200,000 lunchboxes (or “dabbas”) are delivered daily.

Been going on for about 150 years

• The system serves about 200,000 people, as each lunchbox is typically for one individual.

Each lunchbox is hand cooked by a family and destined for husband wife student whomever, but it is personal cooking not commercial cooking

• Approximately 5,000 dabbawalas (delivery workers) handle this massive logistics operation.

• The system has an impressive efficiency rate, often cited as six sigma (99.9999% accuracy) with very few mistakes.

This traditional system operates with remarkable precision, despite relying on manual labor and bicycles, and has even attracted the attention of global business schools like Harvard for its efficiency.

Next to self-explanatory

Stopped at the local train station where there were multiple comuter trains of course. round-trip out to the suburbs twenty rupees . twenty four hours tickets but between two fix points; only roughly twenty five cents.

Synagogue, Sephardic. At one time there was a large Jewish population, but partition and the creation of Israel both occurred in 1948 a large part of the Jewish population moved to Israel 

First off it’s not a slum

Dharavi is one of the largest informal settlements in the world, located in the heart of Mumbai, India. It covers around 2.1 square kilometers and is home to an estimated 700,000 to over 1 million people. Despite its reputation as a slum, Dharavi is a major economic hub, with thousands of small-scale industries, including leather tanning, pottery, recycling, and garment manufacturing. The annual economic output of Dharavi is estimated to be over $1 billion.

Next to the Tamil area across the street

The pottery section was very unpleasant due to wood burning, kills and unbearable, air quality. Community manufacturing. The Tamil area was just busy commerce.

Next to Papadum manufacture

This is a large manufacturing operation entirely staffed by women part of a large company and employees only women to sit around and make these classic home manufacturing. People would not allow me to take pictures of them and ask several turned me down as did others in other areas. In this area, they claim the company did not permit photographs.

Had a long conversation with a fine English speaking person whose family had been doing this since 1977. We discussed the possibility of the government closing down this area, even though they’re trying to naturally tear it down for a bigger or better newer.

 this is from the recycling area which employees thousands

Again, pictures were not possible

Splurged mightily on a Tea buffet at the Taj tea was basically extra unless you wanted a bag of tea.

Very large buffet with hot food, cold food, cakes, pastries on and on and on