Why a Booktrail?
Ever wondered what life is like for a young boy in Mumbai’s slums?
Ravan and Eddie
What you need to know before your trail
Two boys are growing up in the slums of Mumbai.They are not friends but have lived in the same building and in fact have been enemies because of an accident that happened days before Eddie was born.
But boys from all backgrounds find it easy to get into trouble in Mumbai.
And they do.
Life in a Mumbai Chawl would be an apt description of the book. It is also a rather quirky tale of two young boys who seem to live different lives but end up being more similar than it would first appear.
Travel Guide
Primarily set in the homes of the lower working class in 1950s and 60s Bombay. Many generations of one family all cramped into one small space. Rich in the varied tapestry and the cultural fabric of bombay – chawl life especially is illustrated and examined well.
The Hindus and Catholics in Bombay’s CWD chawls (and perhaps almost anywhere in India ) may as well have lived in different planets. They saw each other daily and greeted each other occasionally, but their paths rarely crossed.
A chawl is the name for a slum type of building found in India and were built to cope with the floods of people who came looking for work in the cotton mills in the early 1900s for example. They are around 4 to 5 storeys tall and each ‘home’ is one multipurpose room. There is little room and little if no privacy.
Those ancient buildings, the CWD chawls, stronger than the pyramids in Egypt, even they shook like onion paper.
This world is a unique one where children get into trouble like anywhere but where their world is different to that of adults and the authorities. they show us a world of fun within tragedy, a bustling world full of chaos and heartache and most of all poverty.
This is a story of observations, realisations and shows life in a chawl from every conceivable angle. And when it’s from a child’s honest eyes, the view can be quite something else.
Where Next?
