Story by Jessie Yeung, Priti Gupta and Esha Mitra, CNN photographs via Noemi Cassanelli, CNNPublished June 1, 2024
Mumbai, India – At 7 a. m. , Rupali Rao Kilare begins preparing for the day in the small space he shares with five members of his family.
Although the sun has long since risen, some alleys remain dark as she walks through the slum where she lives in Mumbai’s Goregaon West district, its narrow walls wedged between tightly packed buildings that block out the light.
Kilare, 22, has to rush to cheer up the crowd at the slum’s communal toilets, before taking a three-wheeled rickshaw to her boss’s house to go blank.
Just five kilometers away, in Goregaon East, 26-year-old Shreya Verma wakes up in her air-conditioned room, pulls back the window curtains, and admires the view of greenery and skyscrapers.
He puts on a smart jacket and heels and hops into an Uber to get to a foreign tech company, decorated with marble floors and hanging plants.
Although the two women are separated by only a few years and a 20-minute drive, their other lives illustrate India’s growing wealth hole and the inequalities that have allowed some to reach new heights in the country’s developing economy. while others are left behind.
This inequality has come under specific scrutiny in India’s current national elections, in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will add some other term to his 10-year government.
While his far-right Hindu nationalist policies have sparked controversy, Modi is also credited with advancing India’s economy through $3. 7 trillion and bringing the country closer to its position as a superpower.
But India remains largely a deficient nation, and the country’s wealth gap, according to a recent study, is more unequal than under British rule. This disparity is obviously visible in Mumbai, where the homes of billionaire tycoons and Bollywood stars sit along sprawling slums and street beggars.
The monetary center is described as “the city of dreams,” attracting millions of immigrants from all over India in hopes of experiencing their own success.
Verma is one of them and believes in Mumbai’s mythical outlook on life.
“Everyone here dreams of doing anything in life,” Verma said. “It’s Bollywood City, isn’t it? So you see celebrities everywhere, you see other people doing well; Even a rickshaw driver would have to do anything for themselves.
Kilare also has ambitions. But the exhausting and unrelenting demands of his life highlight how less attainable those dreams can be for some. “I tried to be an instructor after I finished school,” she said. “But life had other plans. “
Both were born in the country’s two largest cities: Verma in the frenetic capital New Delhi and Kilare in Mumbai.
From the beginning, their lives are polar opposites.
Verma, an only child, moved to the village for her father’s work in banking, while her mother, a housewife, took care of her. They would make weekend getaways and short trips around the country, enjoying the lush hills of northern India. and then, as his father’s career progressed, take vacations abroad.
She vividly remembers the first time they went to Europe when she was about 14 years old: the attractions of Switzerland and France, plus Paris Disneyland. This was especially important because his father had brought his parents, he says. They hadn’t grown up with cash, and it’s their first time on a plane.
The family’s interests shaped Verma’s personality and interests, he said, as evidenced through his Instagram page. “If someone asked me today: ‘What would you like to do after you retire’. . . I would love to travel around the world,” she told CNN, sitting on cushions through the window of her room.
Meanwhile, Kilare never left the slum where he was born and grew up with his sister and two brothers. His life was turbulent from the start, he said, as his father struggled with alcoholism, forcing his circle of relatives to reach out to him.
Kilare’s mother, a cleaner, would take her to work and let her do her homework while she cleaned the homes of Mumbai’s wealthy. When she was just 8 years old, Kilare started running to help her, she says, so young that she had to climb on a stool to get to the sink and wash the dishes.
Even now, she remains gentle and petite, standing around 1. 5 meters tall, with circular cheeks and a high-pitched, almost childlike voice, making her appearance more youthful than her age.
At age 14, she was forced to drop out of school in ninth grade when her mother became ill. “I had to take care of the space and take on her task before the family,” Kilare said.
To increase the weight on his young shoulders, he took out a $250 loan to take care of his mother’s fitness, and it took him two years to pay it off.
Indian law promises flexible schooling for young people between the ages of 6 and 14, which has especially contributed to increasing literacy rates in the country. In the slums of the western state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, the literacy rate has reached more than 84 percent, according to the most recent census in 2011.
But researchers and nonprofits say that’s far from enough, as many young people living in slums drop out of school or never enroll, infrequently because they have to watch their siblings while their parents work, or when they start running in a high school. School institution. Early age.
The challenge is especially acute for girls, who are encouraged to stay at home or marry young.
When they reached adulthood, the distance between Verma and Kilare widened.
After attending a famous personal school, Verma studied engineering at a primary university in the southern city of Bangalore, also known as “India’s Silicon Valley. “The Covid-19 pandemic led her to visit her parents in Mumbai, where she ended up staying and locating. her task as a salesperson in the technology company.
“I’ve never been one of those young people who came first in class. . . But I think with luck and the type of personality that I’ve evolved over the years, I was able to pass the interview and I was able to access (my job),” she said, highlighting the networking skills she learned from her father.
She never imagined she’d be hired at such a large company, but “it’s about taking advantage of those opportunities,” she said. “You know, opportunities are like a dance, they’re going to happen for everybody, you just have to hold them and make use of it.
Kilare, however, was never able to return to school. Instead, her parents arranged for her to marry a rickshaw driver; her grandmother even threatened not to see Kilare on her deathbed if she did not continue this union.
Kilare agreed. She was 19 years old.
His marriage started (and continues to be haunted by) endless loans, he said. They had borrowed $300 for wedding celebrations, which are culturally vital and extravagant in India. But after moving to Pune, her husband’s hometown in Maharashtra, the couple was harassed through loans. The sharks did not easily pay at exorbitant interest rates that brought their debt to $2,000.
Without many options, they returned to Mumbai, where Kilare’s former employers rehired her as a housekeeper, while her husband found a job as a school clerk. “However, the money we earn is not enough,” Kilare said. Together, they earn about $200 a month, which is used for members of their family circle and pay off the loan.
To appease the loan sharks, “my husband kept taking out loans to pay off a loan,” Kilare said. “To repay this loan, he took out a loan. . . It’s a vicious cycle of borrowing. “
Not long ago, Kilare’s family suffered another blow. He fell when he got off the bus and hurt his leg so badly that he couldn’t paint for two months. Their mother took out another loan for their treatment, putting them in even more debt.
“We asked our relatives to help us (with the loan), but no one responded,” he said.
Verma’s days are now a colorful tapestry of events and events that she says are imperative to balance her intense hours of painting.
At night, when she gets home, she takes dance or boxing lessons; On weekends, explore new cafes, volunteer, and go out with friends for lunch or to the movies.
On quieter days, he plays the ukulele at home or drinks tea with his parents on his small balcony overlooking the park. It is a very united family; Her parents gently mock her and the space is filled with laughter.
In many ways, Verma represents the millions of rising young Indians across the country: educated, English-speaking, and cosmopolitan; His family propelled his family forward in just two generations thanks to the country’s immediate economic growth.
This is partly due, he says, to Prime Minister Modi and the “kind of symbol he has created for the country abroad” by attracting foreign companies and tourists. Another reason, he says, is Mumbai’s unique culture: the fact that everyone from slum dwellers to aspiring actors to middle-class workers needs more for themselves.
Verma recalls a time when his Uber driver saw the towers of his apartment complex on the horizon. Not knowing that she lived there, the driver said, “Man, one day I’ll set up my space there. One day, I’ll need to stay there when the car pulled up in his space, “he looked at me like, wow,” Verma said.
To her, he embodied the spirit of the dreamers and the determination that sets Mumbai apart and shows the privileges of a lucky few.
“Even when you walk down the street, you see this kind of disparity, but at the same time you appreciate the kind of effort that those other people put in day in and day out,” she said. “I have to move to an air-conditioned workplace every day. But at the same time, I realize that the kind of Uber that leaves me is someone who has to make at least 20 trips to make ends meet.
Kilare also has a busy day, running seven days a week and cleaning several houses. She takes a break in the afternoon to go home, prepare food for the family, and do other chores, before returning to work until 11 p. m.
“I don’t have time for myself because I’m constantly running,” he said. But, he added, his life didn’t feel particularly hard. “I started running at a very young age, so now I love running and I’m used to running,” she told CNN in a small public square outside her home, where water dripped as she dried clothes.
Her leg still hurts if she stays in it too long and feels dizzy, she said. Despite her financial and fitness problems, she is now thinking about having children, under pressure from her mother-in-law and without resources to start. a circle of relatives herself.
“I’ve waited 4 years (since I got married) to have one, so every time I get pregnant, I’ll have a child,” she said.
And as she plans for the future, she thinks about the houses she’s been cleaning since she was a child; wealthy employers and their privileged children, some their age, who attended smart schools before pursuing a successful career.
“When I move on to painting in other places, in smart homes, I also feel like I have to paint hard to get to a level where I can have a better life,” he said. “My way of thinking has changed. I wonder if those other people can work hard, study and lead an intelligent life, I also have to make a great effort.
She would like to have a teacher, learn English and learn how to use computers, which “will give me greater opportunities,” she said. But when asked how she plans to pay off her loans, go back to school or raise a child. while in debt, she doubts.
“I have to go to work and examine if I have the opportunity,” he said. “But I keep thinking: if I satisfy my desire to examine, how will I manage my life and my house?. . . Currently, my monetary situations don’t allow me to do so. “
He looks at his mother, on the threshold of his house; time is of the essence; You have dinner to prepare and your next cleaning shift starts in a few hours. Hidden under the maze of hanging clothes crisscross, she turns and goes back to work.