Space
Friday, February 21, 2014 at 01:36AM In the more crowded parts of Mumbai, one million people live crammed into a square kilometre. How is that even possible? That’s one square metre per person. Do they sleep standing up? Even given vertical slums, and the fact that some families sleep in shifts, that’s pretty crazy stuff.
Comparisons: in Sydney, the population density is 2,186 per square kilometre, in Hong Kong (the place I have always thought of as the epitome of crowdedness) a mere 6,415. Granted, the average density in Mumbai is only 20,694, but in the more heavily populated areas it’s up to a cool one mill. Fifty families share one toilet, with people getting up at 4am to make sure they get their turn.
I read all this in The Age, in a fascinating article by journalist Amrit Dhillon. I read it in bed and then I get up and walk down our long corridor to use one of our two toilets.
I’ve never hankered after a McMansion. When all our kids lived at home there were six of us, and the house felt right. When I cleaned our grimy rooms and passageways, I felt a genuine satisfaction that there was so much dirt in every part of our house, indicating how well used it was. It was a well-lived in house and it felt like the perfect size for our boisterous brood and the dog.
I was well aware of how spoiled we are in this country – how profligate we are with space. ‘In Hong Kong there would be six families living in a place this size,’ I told the kids at regular intervals. In Mumbai, an entire village would happily inhabit our spacious rooms with their high ceilings and big, bright windows, our shining, tiled bathrooms.
But wait, there’s more: like many Australian families, we have a second house that we go to for holidays, a perfectly adequate dwelling that lies empty for a good deal of every year.
Our son and his fiancée have recently returned from three years in the UK and are struck by the way we live here – so many Aussies in our own house with our own backyard. In London, in Europe, even well off people choose to squeeze into what we would consider tiny apartments. They use public parks for green space.
The awareness of India’s crowdedness isn’t a new thing for me. I grew up there; I’ve been back many times. Every visit, I marvel anew at the ingenuity that enables families to set up a tiny living space on a pavement, under a station platform, beside a tree: raising their kids and cooking their meals and setting off to work in less space and privacy than we would give a small pet dog. It amazes me every time, seeing immaculate kids emerging every morning from a dwelling made out of cardboard and tarpaulins and kerosene tins beaten flat – their hair oiled and tidy, school uniform pressed and gleaming.
How do they do that? In these homes the size of prison cells, how do people enjoy private conversations, have sex, quietly read a book, write a diary, where do they take their kids to play?
India’s not the only place with housing issues; we have our own homeless population in Melbourne. If it were up to my husband, a big-hearted extrovert, we would fill our house with people who need somewhere to go. The closest we came to doing this was five years of foster parenting when we were having our own babies. It nearly killed me, but maybe now, with our children grown and more self-awareness of what he and I need to be productive and happy, we could do something.
Being aware of these wild injustices is a good start. Dwelling on them is a reminder of the privilege that surrounds me and my family. In this rampantly consumerist society, where many, including some dear friends, will always be way more affluent than we are, I can occasionally kid myself that I’m a bit of a battler who has worked hard for everything she owns and has experienced. Not so. Compared with most of the world I live in the lap of luxury.
Reader Comments (1)
Grounding Blog indeed. Clare. We need that from those who have the experience to make it real.