All Smiles in Mumbai
By Claudia Farhart
When you touch down in Mumbai, the first thing that will strike you is the poverty. Mumbai is an endless city of 22 million people – 70 per cent of whom live in slums. With a total of 300 million people living below the poverty line, India is home to the largest number of poverty stricken people in the world.
However, once you leave the sheltered safety of the hotel and start exploring this vast city, you can’t help but notice the beaming smiles on the locals’ faces. Whether they are cooking India’s famous street food, playing in the streets, or working in their shops and stalls, the people of Mumbai are nowhere near as bleak as their financial circumstances would have you believe.
Mumbaikars are a people who seem to have both nothing and everything.
-
- Two friends, excited and nervous to meet foreigners by the Gateway of India.
-
- Victor, our savvy tour guide, admires the flower garland at the Dadar Flower Markets.
-
- Children splash about in the rain playfully at the Gateway of India.
-
- A woman wearing a traditional sari happily poses for a photograph in Hanging Garden.
-
- Two teenagers take a seaside selfie on the jagged rocks at Colaba.
-
- A man and his child enjoy an afternoon together at the Gateway of India.
-
- A young man sells India’s iconic marigold flower at the Dadar Flower Markets.
-
- A stray dog enjoys a lazy afternoon in Mumbai’s famous Hanging Park.
Claudia Farhart
Claudia is studying a combined Bachelor of Journalism/Bachelor of Arts at The University of Queensland. Claudia is currently representing UQ as a foreign correspondent in Mumbai, and hopes to use this opportunity to tell the stories of Mumbai locals through creating documentaries and multimedia pieces.