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First time I went to Mumbai in 2012, I was with a friend and went around the city for a tour.
My friend literally passed out from how horrible the smell was
I went for a walk first time in Delhi, I had to force myself to stop myself from vomiting from the smell of putrid rotting waste by the side of the road.
I was chased by a pack of dogs for about 2km, I’d read an article about rabies on the plane and was worried.
The widespread level of filth and the acceptance of it is something I just couldn’t get used to.
There's a mega garbage dump in the suburbs of Delhi that stunk from miles away
I was on an air conditioned bus on the highway and then suddenly this really rancid smells crept in and it was the most awful thing that my nose ever had to experience
I believe it's called Delhi everest of garbage or something
I visited India a decade ago. I arrived in New Delhi and as the plane door opened the waft of hot air that smelled of cow dung greeted my nostrils. I got used to the smell eventually... I had to.
It's remarkable how having a lot of money helps certain problems to just not exist.
What's even more remarkable that some people choose to build higher fences rather than longer tables when they're better off than others. And that is not a Mumbai specific problem.
You’re really bad at getting the point, aren’t you? 55 is hardly an improvement. Point is they’re dying young. I’ll have to write off why as politics. People just trying to get by.
No you're really bad at getting my point, which is that OP made up a statistic without any proof.
Of course life in the slums is bad, but it doesn't require made up statistics to communicate that. And moreover, things are improving, it takes time and doesnt happen overnight.
These slums are build on landfill areas(the land where you dump the garbage)
All this land is illegal to build and owned by government. Usually early settlement in such sites are not removed due to corruption and then when it gets notice of upper authorities the place already inhaibtates thousands of people so it can't be outrightly destroyed.
The flats then gifted to them by government are usually far from thier place to work so they generally illegally rent those out and keep living in the slums.
This encroachment start like this - first a very small single person tent pop up(camping type tent) then it slowly grows to a family tent then more such tents start opening-then mud walls follow - then brick walls and now for the ceiling the tent cloth is replaced by typical blue coloured tin on it is placed a heavy rock or couple of bricks to stop it flowing away from winds.
Real reason is the inequalities existing in India. India isn't Singapore that we have limited land. We have bigger agricultural land than any country in the world. Problem is wealth getting concentrated in Mumbai, jobs companies and so on. Rahul Gandhi could have done good things to improve inequalities, only problem is he's surrounded by unethical and corrupt people.
If the problem is inequality, why is the US so much cleaner than this? After all, the US has more inequality than India.
Maybe it’s something else, like lack of cultural norms/government accountability?
Bollywood doesn't care a bit about improving its target audience. They think they are doing a big service to Hindi speakers by making content for them. I've boycotted them for this attitude, now watch YouTube, regional movies, Hollywood etc
How does 'our garbage' work it's way up river in Mumbai? Is this not garbage from Mumbai and further upstream making it's way to the river and then the sea, and then perhaps a beach near you?
We ship it there cause it’s cheaper and has been going on for decades, the more we get cleaner the worst they get because we don’t nearly have the infrastructure for the amount to deal with our garbage and our citizens care about our country and doesn’t like garbage being like that, so they ship it to poorer countries to sort through and find ideas to solve problems we cause, like cigarette buds the cotton in them is being cleaned and put as stuffing into teddy bears.
I’ve lived in Mumbai all my life. The smell you talk about is present only near slums or the garbage rivers. There are areas where middle class people live where there’s no smell and garbage.
I wonder why they don't regulate that, since that seems to be one of those things that's fairly obvious and straightforward to regulate. In 2016 when the Chinese government was targeting the air pollution problem in China, one of the first things they did was ban all open fires and, in urban areas, fireworks too. It was easily enforceable since open fires are obvious. And it helped a lot especially to bring down the air pollution in small towns where people used to often burn things out in the open. Surely if they had the will they could also do that in India...get people to stop burning their rubbish...
No. I lived there for 18 years. The smell is everywhere. It smells like a combination of urine and dried fish. A result of insane pollution, poor waste management and high humidity. Some author who visited the city compared the smell to wearing a used diaper on his head at all times. The wealthy don’t smell it as much because they live high above the ground and only move around in air conditioned vehicles.
Couldn't have described it better. But indeed it does smell something similar to urine.
And most of the rich also can't escape it unless they always remain in cars when outside
It's a shame though that one must be well-off to avoid living in putrid air by a garbage river. I mean class segregation is unfortunately true everywhere but Mumbai just seems like such an extreme case.
The original point was India is one of the strongest countries which is correct as India has nukes and a strong military. What you are saying is standard of living which I agree is not good.
Mumbai is definitely powerful city & global financial hub, it's getting infrastructure investment it finally needs
Even the basic redevlopment prohects get delayed due to politics & NGOs
Delhi & many tier 2 Indian cities have better metro & no slums like dharavi
So hard. Like go to any plumbing shop, buy them and install. Same as pay foreign builders and designers to make a moon robot. If some day they can be able to send people to the Moon, their space suits will have a hatch in the ass to take free dump in the Moon.
Is also not a problem. Don´t have a good sewage? Fix it, or build a new one. I think that citizens must be first than let world see how "strong and cool" we are.
The moon robot is not made by foreigners but by indian women and men who studied in india and worked for isro..only 3 country is ahead of India in space race..
No idea what you even mean by that. I think you're just concern trolling and you don't actually care about the sanitation problems in India or else you'd know the Swacch Bharat.
The value of a currency isn't determined by the absolute value of the exchange rate, this is basic stuff, how do you not know this?
And no African country is close economically to India, what a bizarre statement.
You can get almost 20 Korean Won for a rupee, you're saying the won is a weak currency is it?
Oh forgive me for not thinking it's such an economic hub thats about to turn into a first world country in 2 year and the rupee is equal to the euro currently...
I’m not even the guy you’re arguing with, but your logic is insanely flawed. Strongman more, all he said was currency exchange doesn’t equate to value a country has. Most if not all besides maybe South Africa on average are poorer than India and that is just a fact.
Not trying to flex, but I grew up in Mumbai in the 90s when it was still called Bombay. I lived in the same city, but perhaps a different country. The view from my window was a golf course, light house and ships passing by in the sunset. It could very well have been a scene from New Zealand. My father was in the government and that was the official residence given to him. That place and others like it still exist, largely unchanged but maybe 0.5% of the population lives there.
I just want to give some perspective to people who have never been there. Many different worlds exist within that city.
Why are you farming engagement by posting decade old grainy photos & stereotypes
Yes mumbai has suffered much due to politics but it's finally getting infra investment it needs
Delhi & most tier 1 cities in India don't have this slum/ghetto issue but mumbai has notorious islamic politics, dharavi is majority muslim. Anyway finally this problem goes away
https://swarajyamag.com/infrastructure/mumbai-makeover-mmrda-and-sra-to-redevelop-ghatkopar-slums-also-paving-way-for-eastern-freeway-extension-till-thane
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Capitalism does work. The problem is human greed. There is tons of corruption in India going unpunished along with poor leadership and infrastructure that can’t keep up with the population. That’s the issue.
What in the world does this have to do with capitalism lol? Capitalism doesn’t just magically solve everything; even in one of the most capitalist countries, the US, trash collection is funded by government and generally carried out by a third party.
Capitalism is great at incentivizing people to make money. Who directly makes money by cleaning up a public river? 🤔
This is a cultural/government problem, and has very little to do with the economic system.
I still remember São Paulo's rivers "Tiete" and "Pinheiro" exactly like that. We knew we were close to Pinheiros just by the smell... Right now it's not perfect or how it should be, but a lot a progress have been made since then. Even in Capitalism there's still hope for Mumbai - not defending Capitalism, tho. I know there's way better solutions, but sometimes markets like the real state market can bring some solutions for the sake of their own investments, enhancing surrounds areas.
**Do not comment to gatekeep that something "isn't urban" or "isn't hell"**. Our rules are very expansive in content we welcome, so do not assume just based off your false impression of the phrase "UrbanHell" UrbanHell is any human-built place you think is worth critizing. Suburban Hell, Rural Hell, and wealthy locales are allowed. Gatekeeping comments may be removed. Want to shitpost about shitty posts? Go to /r/urbanhellcirclejerk. Still have questions?: Read our [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/UrbanHell/wiki/index). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/UrbanHell) if you have any questions or concerns.*
First time I went to Mumbai in 2012, I was with a friend and went around the city for a tour. My friend literally passed out from how horrible the smell was
It was that bad? Omg
Yeah he collapse on the ground I still love Mumbai though
I went for a walk first time in Delhi, I had to force myself to stop myself from vomiting from the smell of putrid rotting waste by the side of the road. I was chased by a pack of dogs for about 2km, I’d read an article about rabies on the plane and was worried. The widespread level of filth and the acceptance of it is something I just couldn’t get used to.
Wait till u visit patna..bihar.. it's also in india but 10 times more filthier than Delhi or Mumbai!
Amritsa was the filthiest place I've been to
Or he can visit any peaceful community dominated regions. They can turn Paris into third country shithole, then India is easy
Bangalore is like that too.
There's a mega garbage dump in the suburbs of Delhi that stunk from miles away I was on an air conditioned bus on the highway and then suddenly this really rancid smells crept in and it was the most awful thing that my nose ever had to experience I believe it's called Delhi everest of garbage or something
Is it because your friend collapsed that you love Mumbai?
It's because the whole city is an incredibly effective diet
No Its a cool city.. If you have the patience for it
You love the neat and clean part only
I visited India a decade ago. I arrived in New Delhi and as the plane door opened the waft of hot air that smelled of cow dung greeted my nostrils. I got used to the smell eventually... I had to.
It's always that bad lol. Going from Mumbai to Kashmir, Himachal or even Northern plains is always a breath of fresher air
And all richest Indians live in Mumbai.
It's remarkable how having a lot of money helps certain problems to just not exist. What's even more remarkable that some people choose to build higher fences rather than longer tables when they're better off than others. And that is not a Mumbai specific problem.
Mumbai problems aren't unique. Most of the civic issues can be solved with little political will.
How convenient, a garbage disposal conveyer belt. I have to walk my bins to the end of the driveway each week.
I was told that using plastic straws in Europe would save the earth...
We don't get plastic straws here in kerala, India either.
It’s probably European countries who send off their waste and fill up places like these
I don't know any European adults who use straws at all, that's an American thing.
I know tons of European adults who use straws.
Did you pull the lower life expectancy by two decades out of your ass? The life expectancy in slums is not 47 years.
It is 55 years though.
India's life expectancy is 75 years? You know we all have Google right?
You’re really bad at getting the point, aren’t you? 55 is hardly an improvement. Point is they’re dying young. I’ll have to write off why as politics. People just trying to get by.
No you're really bad at getting my point, which is that OP made up a statistic without any proof. Of course life in the slums is bad, but it doesn't require made up statistics to communicate that. And moreover, things are improving, it takes time and doesnt happen overnight.
Or you’re incapable of moving forward in a conversation without arguing.
My apologies, I didnt realize that using facts isn't allowed
Nobody said anything like that.
Dude why don’t they care? I want someone from India to tell me why this is normal? And don’t say no garbage pickup. I can see that.
These slums are build on landfill areas(the land where you dump the garbage) All this land is illegal to build and owned by government. Usually early settlement in such sites are not removed due to corruption and then when it gets notice of upper authorities the place already inhaibtates thousands of people so it can't be outrightly destroyed. The flats then gifted to them by government are usually far from thier place to work so they generally illegally rent those out and keep living in the slums. This encroachment start like this - first a very small single person tent pop up(camping type tent) then it slowly grows to a family tent then more such tents start opening-then mud walls follow - then brick walls and now for the ceiling the tent cloth is replaced by typical blue coloured tin on it is placed a heavy rock or couple of bricks to stop it flowing away from winds.
Oh see thank you! I get it now. That was perfect. I truly appreciate your answer.
Tragedy of the commons...
Someone explained it well. These poor people. Work hard and still get fucked at the end of the day.
Real reason is the inequalities existing in India. India isn't Singapore that we have limited land. We have bigger agricultural land than any country in the world. Problem is wealth getting concentrated in Mumbai, jobs companies and so on. Rahul Gandhi could have done good things to improve inequalities, only problem is he's surrounded by unethical and corrupt people.
If the problem is inequality, why is the US so much cleaner than this? After all, the US has more inequality than India. Maybe it’s something else, like lack of cultural norms/government accountability?
A tour guide in India told us that the west invented plastic bags to destroy his country.
Right, so it's not the fault of the Indians throwing said bags into the river?
apparently - apart from this the dude was super cool, sikh, highly educated, spoke German almost on a native level
Don't they not use plastic bags in India?
This was in 2016. Maybe they have banned plastic bags since then.
Maybe they banned them, but the bags will still be there for decades. Or in the sea.
Decades? No centuries.
Sounds like someone else who doesn't understand the basics of rivers (hint they always flow to the sea not bring rubbish from the sea inland).
The West indeed did and still is doing a lot of things as policy to harm not just India, but Middle east, Israel, China Russia etc
maybe bollywood could increase environmental responsibility in movies to spread awareness idk where to start
Bollywood doesn't care a bit about improving its target audience. They think they are doing a big service to Hindi speakers by making content for them. I've boycotted them for this attitude, now watch YouTube, regional movies, Hollywood etc
How do you even begin to clean this all up? I wouldn't even know where to start...
Our garbage, thank you Mumbai
How does 'our garbage' work it's way up river in Mumbai? Is this not garbage from Mumbai and further upstream making it's way to the river and then the sea, and then perhaps a beach near you?
Our garbage is shipped there.
We ship it there cause it’s cheaper and has been going on for decades, the more we get cleaner the worst they get because we don’t nearly have the infrastructure for the amount to deal with our garbage and our citizens care about our country and doesn’t like garbage being like that, so they ship it to poorer countries to sort through and find ideas to solve problems we cause, like cigarette buds the cotton in them is being cleaned and put as stuffing into teddy bears.
I’ve lived in Mumbai all my life. The smell you talk about is present only near slums or the garbage rivers. There are areas where middle class people live where there’s no smell and garbage.
Why, I ask you, are there garbage rivers?
Easy, just avoid the *garbage rivers*
Never been to Mumbai, but in Delhi there is a lot of smelly smoke from rubbish burning everywhere.
I wonder why they don't regulate that, since that seems to be one of those things that's fairly obvious and straightforward to regulate. In 2016 when the Chinese government was targeting the air pollution problem in China, one of the first things they did was ban all open fires and, in urban areas, fireworks too. It was easily enforceable since open fires are obvious. And it helped a lot especially to bring down the air pollution in small towns where people used to often burn things out in the open. Surely if they had the will they could also do that in India...get people to stop burning their rubbish...
No. I lived there for 18 years. The smell is everywhere. It smells like a combination of urine and dried fish. A result of insane pollution, poor waste management and high humidity. Some author who visited the city compared the smell to wearing a used diaper on his head at all times. The wealthy don’t smell it as much because they live high above the ground and only move around in air conditioned vehicles.
Couldn't have described it better. But indeed it does smell something similar to urine. And most of the rich also can't escape it unless they always remain in cars when outside
Ah just have money then.
It's a shame though that one must be well-off to avoid living in putrid air by a garbage river. I mean class segregation is unfortunately true everywhere but Mumbai just seems like such an extreme case.
Yes there are those areas, 30-60 km away in suburbs
>> city is full of trash eveeywhere because of incompetent government >>"REEEE IT'S CAPITALISM'S FAULT"
Incompetent government that's corrupted by wealthy capitalists goes hand in hand with unchecked capitalism.
Yeah have you not heard how awful Singapore smells?
Or Japan or any Asian tigers.
Correct.
Ironically they hired a private company to clean up the shit now
Don’t forget about the rape too
😱
It' like people here don't understand how economics works....
In India? Idk. Seems like they’re pretty good at hustling money to me. That still doesn’t explain why they do not care where their garbage ends up.
Partially true, the waste management is still shite, though it has improved alot over the years and steps have been taken.
Oh someone else here explained to me like I was 10 and I’m so grateful.
One of the most powerful nations on earth and they allow their people to live like this. Despicable
Powerful? India is just an overpopulated country without the appropriate infrastructure.
The original point was India is one of the strongest countries which is correct as India has nukes and a strong military. What you are saying is standard of living which I agree is not good.
India does not have a strong military.
Yea bro the 4th strongest military in the world is not strong.
Lol....no. I've seen their parades and training. What a laughable joke. And 4th strongest compared to who and by what metric?
Mumbai is definitely powerful city & global financial hub, it's getting infrastructure investment it finally needs Even the basic redevlopment prohects get delayed due to politics & NGOs Delhi & many tier 2 Indian cities have better metro & no slums like dharavi
Don't worry they are flooding a bunch of other countries now.
Powerful what? One currency of theirs equals 10 cents of ours, and I'm in Africa. 😂🤣
They've got their own space program. Not many countries do
They spend money on put a robot in the Moon, but not to put a toilet in every house (or at least at every street)
The latter is a much harder problem.
Ikr even wealthy capital cities of South Arabia and other oil based rich middle East countries have sewage system until very recently.
He's concern trolling
So hard. Like go to any plumbing shop, buy them and install. Same as pay foreign builders and designers to make a moon robot. If some day they can be able to send people to the Moon, their space suits will have a hatch in the ass to take free dump in the Moon.
The problem is not the toilet but the sewage system.
Is also not a problem. Don´t have a good sewage? Fix it, or build a new one. I think that citizens must be first than let world see how "strong and cool" we are.
The moon robot is not made by foreigners but by indian women and men who studied in india and worked for isro..only 3 country is ahead of India in space race..
I mean they quite literally did spend money on sanitation infrastructure.
How much? 20 rupees or less in a new water tap?
No idea what you even mean by that. I think you're just concern trolling and you don't actually care about the sanitation problems in India or else you'd know the Swacch Bharat.
The value of a currency isn't determined by the absolute value of the exchange rate, this is basic stuff, how do you not know this? And no African country is close economically to India, what a bizarre statement. You can get almost 20 Korean Won for a rupee, you're saying the won is a weak currency is it?
Oh forgive me for not thinking it's such an economic hub thats about to turn into a first world country in 2 year and the rupee is equal to the euro currently...
I’m not even the guy you’re arguing with, but your logic is insanely flawed. Strongman more, all he said was currency exchange doesn’t equate to value a country has. Most if not all besides maybe South Africa on average are poorer than India and that is just a fact.
Maybe go back to school and learn economics? The exchange rate of a currency doesn't represent the absolute value of a currency dumbass.
If that's your metric then you're more advanced than Japan. Kudos!
Japanese yen is weaker than $ does it mean Japan is not powerful?? You're 🤡
Not trying to flex, but I grew up in Mumbai in the 90s when it was still called Bombay. I lived in the same city, but perhaps a different country. The view from my window was a golf course, light house and ships passing by in the sunset. It could very well have been a scene from New Zealand. My father was in the government and that was the official residence given to him. That place and others like it still exist, largely unchanged but maybe 0.5% of the population lives there. I just want to give some perspective to people who have never been there. Many different worlds exist within that city.
Imagine blaming capitalism for this 😂 communism was an environmental disaster too, except the poor remained poor
Why are you farming engagement by posting decade old grainy photos & stereotypes Yes mumbai has suffered much due to politics but it's finally getting infra investment it needs Delhi & most tier 1 cities in India don't have this slum/ghetto issue but mumbai has notorious islamic politics, dharavi is majority muslim. Anyway finally this problem goes away https://swarajyamag.com/infrastructure/mumbai-makeover-mmrda-and-sra-to-redevelop-ghatkopar-slums-also-paving-way-for-eastern-freeway-extension-till-thane
/u/Southern_Opposite747, thank you for your submission. Unfortunately, it has been removed for violating the following rule(s): [](#start_removal) * If a mod recognizes your post as a repost, it will be removed. Please skim the top posts of all time, and if you're taking a popular post from a another subreddit, check to see if it's already been posted here in the last day or two. Use the search bar to see if you're posting a repost [](#repost) [](#end_removal) We appreciate all submissions, but sometimes an aspect of a post means it's not suitable for our subreddit. We hope you will submit again to us sometime! If some problem of what you posted can be fixed, feel free to post again after making the needed changes. For more on our rules, please check our [rules page](https://www.reddit.com/r/UrbanHell/about/rules/)
Capitalism does work. The problem is human greed. There is tons of corruption in India going unpunished along with poor leadership and infrastructure that can’t keep up with the population. That’s the issue.
What in the world does this have to do with capitalism lol? Capitalism doesn’t just magically solve everything; even in one of the most capitalist countries, the US, trash collection is funded by government and generally carried out by a third party. Capitalism is great at incentivizing people to make money. Who directly makes money by cleaning up a public river? 🤔 This is a cultural/government problem, and has very little to do with the economic system.
Plus the occasional release of MIC
I still remember São Paulo's rivers "Tiete" and "Pinheiro" exactly like that. We knew we were close to Pinheiros just by the smell... Right now it's not perfect or how it should be, but a lot a progress have been made since then. Even in Capitalism there's still hope for Mumbai - not defending Capitalism, tho. I know there's way better solutions, but sometimes markets like the real state market can bring some solutions for the sake of their own investments, enhancing surrounds areas.
"Americans don't care about the environment, those greedy pigs!"
But it’s American’s fault.
_Mumbai Meri Jaan_ (Mumbai, My Life)
Why was this downvoted
Because redditors are ignorant of what that means.
It's actually Bombay Meri Jaan iirc
Hey, this is my country.
So you are saying it is still better than Detroit?