Up their alley:

About half of Mumbai's 16 million residents live in informal settlements known as
slums, the largest of which is Dharavi. Between 600,000 and 1
million people call Dharavi home, but for many, it is also their place of
business, the site of approximately 15,000
cottage-industry factories powered by an unflagging entrepreneurial spirit. You
in the West so easily see the slum as a negative concept. ... But Dharavi has
also been mirroring India's
economic revival, one Dharavi advocate told The Guardian. Above, a boy looks on
in an alley at Dharavi on April 5, 2008.

Uriel Sinai/Getty Images

Slum sprawl:

Dharavi expands across a square mile of prime real estate smack in the middle of
Mumbai, between the two busiest rail lines and near the swanky Bandra Kurla Complex,
a glimmering corporate center. For the political and business elite, Dharavi is
an absolute eyesore. Rats scurry through gutters. Men sit waist deep in trash,
sorting it. Bloody viscera from mutton stalls trickle through open drains. The
place reeks of sewage. Yet, the land is worth $10
billion by one estimate. Consequently, the city has developed a
controversial plan to raze Dharavi, seen here on Feb. 3.

Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images

Too close for comfort:

A man makes chapatis as an Air India jet flies over Mumbai's Jari
Mari slum on Feb. 3 as it approaches the landing strip at the airport. Roofs of
corrugated metal are known to wink at passengers. But having a squalid slum
abutting an international airport doesn't
exactly put India's
financial capital on the path to joining the ranks of Shanghai,
Singapore, and Tokyo. As with Dharavi, city
officials want to redevelop Jari Mari, removing an embarrassing blight from the
metropolis.

Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images

Trash to treasure:

Dharavi may look like a junkyard, but there's no such thing as junk here. The community
is a superhub of recycling, employing more than 250,000
people who make their living reincarnating others' refuse. Eighty
percent of Mumbai's plastic gets reborn in the slum. As seen here on Feb.
3, workers meticulously sort everything from bottles and lids to ballpoint pens
and broken toys. The plastic is ground into tiny flakes that are reprocessed
into new products.

Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images

Can-do spirit:

Another product that is recycled is metal cans that once contained cooking oil. Workers,
similar to those shown here in Dharavi on Feb. 3, hammer dents out of the cans, bathe
them in water, and polish them for a second life. One can-recycling
entrepreneur told The Observer at his "corporate
headquarters": "We process over 400 of these [cans] a day. … We
clean them up and sell them back to the oil companies and direct to local consumers."
Other recycled products include cardboard and paint chips, which are pounded
into a powder that can be reconstituted into paint.

Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images

Carrying on:

Dharavi is famous for its potters' colony, called Kumbharwada.
Above, a potter on Oct. 14, 2008, holds earthen lamps used
during Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. Other products manufactured in
Dharavi's cottage industries include soap and leather. One leather worker was
so successful that he exported 25,000
belts to Wal-Mart in the United
States; he has since moved up and out of Dharavi.
Although low by Western standards, wages are much more than can be earned in rural
India,
a fact that attracts migrants. All told, annual economic output in Dharavi is
anywhere from $650
million to $1
billion.

SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP/Getty Images

At home:

A woman watches television in her one-room home in Dharavi on April 5, 2008. Although there can be breathing room when workers and children are outdoors, most living quarters are cramped, with extended families of 15 packed into 300 square feet. A 2002 study found that 85 percent
of households have a television.

Uriel Sinai/Getty Images

Dirty work:

A man washes himself at his home in Dharavi on April 5, 2008. In some parts of
Dharavi, there is one shared tap for every 10 homes; in other parts, almost every home has a jerry-rigged tap. Often, taps have run for just an hour a day, and additional water, brought in on tankers,
must be purchased. Sanitation is also a problem, with only one toilet per 1,440 people. Some areas have latrines that can be used for a fee:
1 rupee (2 cents) for a single use or 30 rupees (62 cents) for a monthly family pass.

Uriel Sinai/Getty Images

Something to shout about:

Due to Dharavi's prime location, Mumbai officials have created a
top-down plan for developers to raze the slum and erect office towers and
middle-class apartments. Slum dwellers who meet certain requirements would be relocated to sparkling-new 225-square-foot apartments in high-rises, complete with toilets. Many Dharavi residents are very resistant to the plan. Sprawling cottage industries, artisans' workshops, and recycling centers can't be neatly repacked into vertically stacked 225-square-foot boxes. Relocation would rip the social fabric of cohesive communities. Above, Dharavi residents shout antigovernment slogans during a
protest on June 18, 2007.

PAL PILLAI.AFP/Getty Images

On the right track?:

People cross railway tracks in Dharavi on Feb. 2. For the time being, the
proposed redevelopment has been stalled by the global financial crisis, bad
press, and local protests. Will Mumbai officials heed the will of the residents
of Dharavi, many of whom are proud of their community? As one told Time, "We did this. No government, no rich people, no charity. Just poor people, working hard." There's hope: As Slumdog Millionaire showed, sometimes,
through street smarts and scrappiness, the underdog can indeed win.

Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images