IIT, Elephanta Caves, Dharavi Slum

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Despite my exhaustion on Tuesday night, I was not yet able to beat my jetlag. I went to sleep at 10:45; when I woke up, I was tired but felt wide awake. I checked the time and it was 12:13am…I had expected to see 5:00 or 6:00am on my watch. Instead of making a futile attempt to go back to sleep, I followed the advice of a co-worker at Apple: in his words, “when I travel, I usually wake up at 2 or 3am and just start working.” I got up and worked for a couple hours then eventually made it back to sleep around 3:30. For those readers who have not skipped to the next paragraph yet, I am happy to inform you that I slept well on Wednesday night.

Tuesday morning we visited IIT-Bombay, one of the most prestigious schools in India. Entrance to the university is incredibly competitive and is based on an applicant’s performance on a single exam. We heard a lecture from Professor Sohoni, head of C-TARA, the Center for Rural Technologies. He spoke about the role of C-TARA in helping people in villages use the method of science to better their own communities. The “method of science” is not just measurements and data analysis, but also incorporates economics and social science perspectives. He also talked about how the Big System (corporations) is not good for the world in terms of its contribution to climate change; when facing the problem of climate change, everyone needs to be informed on a global level but all actions must come from a local level for them to be effective.

After the lecture from Professor Sohoni, we got a chance to interact for a few minutes with some of Professor Subimol Ghosh’s students. Professor Ghosh has worked closely with Professor Ganguly (Northeastern professor) and Udit (Northeastern grad student TA). I talked with one student named Shashi for a long time about climate, agriculture, and salaries. After discussing more serious topics for a while, we chatted about how much different professions make in the US and India.

We had a late lunch after our visit to IIT, followed by an academic session. Most students, including me, did not venture out for dinner because we were tired from the long day.

On Thursday (5/19), we visited the Elephanta Caves and the Dharavi slum. The Elephanta Caves are a temple located on an island near the city of Mumbai. They were chiseled out of the stone in the 6th century. It took approximately 200 years for the caves to be completed. The most amazing aspect of these caves is that it took over 5 generations for their completion—there were no drawings or written instructions on how to proceed in the chiseling of the rock. All features of the cave had to be passed down orally from one master builder to the next. We will never know how much the final state of the cave differs from its original design. After working two different engineering jobs that were heavily focused on technical drawings, I cannot imagine working on a project without at least a crude drawing of what the final product would look like. Another interesting note about the cave: the columns are all decorative and do not serve a structural purpose.

Other highlights of the trip out to the Elephanta Caves include most of the group getting left behind on the dock and some great snacks on the island. The docking area had rough water, so after 4 of us got on the boat, we pulled away and were on the water by ourselves for about 15 minutes before the rest of the group finally joined us. On the island I ate some delicious roasted corn rubbed with lime and chili salt. I was constantly followed by a cow who wanted my corn; I fed her the cob when I finished. Another great snack was unripe mango slices with chili salt.








After another late lunch, in the afternoon we visited the Dharavi slum. This 3 square kilometer area (about 1 square mile) holds 1 million people. It is the largest slum in the world. Many of the people that come to Dharavi have come from rural areas outside Mumbai in order to better their lives and the lives of the children. There are great entrepreneurs here, especially in the recycling industry. Dharavi’s sanitation is not adequate for its inhabitants—about 1 toilet for every 1500 residents—but its people are hard-working and industrious. It is overwhelming to walk around Dharavi and experience all the sights, sounds, and smells. A few pictures of Dharavi are below:







One final picture from Boston:
Rose (fellow TA) and I before leaving for the airport

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