Let's face it, India has a mixed reputation. On one hand, you have this vibrant, rich, colorful culture with some of the most breathtaking landscapes. And on the other hand, you have some of the most polluted cities on this planet. India's capital Delhi has overtaken the Pakistani city of Lahour as the most polluted city on earth. People are living amidst an ecological and public health crisis. diabetes, cancer. But Indian people are some of the most resourceful people on this planet. Today, we'll be venturing deep into the back alleyways of one of the most notorious neighborhoods in Mumbai, a city of 22 million people, and witness the incredible ways that the locals here put bread on the table. No stone is left

unturned, and we'll see how one man's trash really is another man's treasure. Let's do this. And that's how you cross the road in India. So we've arrived in Davi. We've entered into the biggest slum in India here. And you can see this is the commercial areas where the business goes on and everything. So that's a banana. You know in a slum the banana is the best friend for everyone. They eat banana in the lunch time. They eat the banana in the dinner time because when they don't have money they eat banana and they fill the stomach. How many bananas do you eat a day?

10 piece. 10 banana. You can see how many cars she was intaking in the body. 10 bananas are big. Uh, Danad, huh? Oh, New Zealand. Yeah. anybody. How much do these guys earn a day? Be like a $67 they make in a day. If they're earning $7 a day, then how much do they pay? Rent and food. Rent almost free because where they work, the owners provide their homes. Means they work in downstairs and live in upstairs. And food is very cheap.

They just charge 50 cent for the lunch and 50 cent for the dinner and unlimited. You have as much you want. These guys are taking random plastic containers, detergent, bleach, food containers, you name it, and they throw it into this huge chipper, cutting the plastic into thousands of small pieces. Then it's melted down and recycled. I cannot tell you how loud that is. And they're sitting in there with no hearing protection. Just all day chopping up old bits of like oil containers, detergent containers, bits of old plastic. IT'S AN INSANE INDUSTRY. And you can see this man here is organizing all the plastic by color. And he owns this business. And it's just him sitting in this small little brick hole sorting through plastic for hours every single

day. How many hours a day do you do this? 12 hours. 12. Is it boring working for 12 hours doing this? You enjoy it? You like it? Yes, I enjoy it. Oh, really? And is it a good business for you then? Yes. Right. Amazing, man. It's inspirational. My father. Do you have a family? Yes. You've got kids. Nice, man. One kid. How old are you? Do you mind if I ask? Huh? How old are you?

30. How is India? Is it a good place to live? You love India? Yes, of course. Wow. Amazing. And you going to stay here for the rest of your life or entire life? I will stay here. You love it? Yes. Amazing. Thank you so much, sir. Good luck. So, here this is a Wi-Fi modem station and you can see there's just hundreds of Wi-Fi modems and this man sits here all day pulling them apart into little pieces and separating them by color and parts and then they'll go on to get recycled. How many hours a day do you do this? Maybe 8 to 9 hours.

Do you get bored? Yeah, you do? Yes. It must be quite boring, right? Yeah. Just watching the movies on mobile. Oh, are you watching movies on the mobile? This one. What are you watching today? Bollywood. South Indian. Bollywood. Yeah. Is this going to be your permanent job for the future? This is my own business. Oh, wow. And you're going to keep doing this for many years? Yeah. Wow. And how is India? Is it a good place to live?

Yes. You like India? Yeah. Happy with how everything's going and the government and everything? Maybe government is doing the wrong decision. What are they doing wrong? Something is uh related to the uh relig relative religions dividing that's it. Nothing else. Okay. So the government's dividing Muslims and Hindus, right? The world's second most populous country is grappling with a fundamental issue. India was founded as a proudly diverse country. So how did it go from this?

Prime Minister Neu called upon leaders representing many shades of political thought and various religious groups to help build a modern democratic state. To this the Hindu nationalist ideology that inspired the murder of Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi was a fringe element of the country's politics for decades. Now it's the ideology of India's ruling party the BJP. Here everybody seems to be friends right in real life but on the media they say there's a problem right? Mhm. Okay. And what do you hope will happen for the future of India? Future is good but this politician is a very bad decision to dividing the Hindu and Muslim.

Okay. Oh well. And you're you're Hindu or Muslim? I am Muslim. Okay. Cool. Shria. You're welcome. Thank you sir. So this is where they sharpen the blades for those plastic machines that you saw. So people from all over this area who are cutting up and recycling the plastic bring their blades here because it's just constantly running and they need to be sharpened. Every last thing is covered here. It's like medieval times when there were shops for each thing in the neighborhood. You don't have to go to a big factory or a big trades shop. What's your name? Abdul. What do you do for a job?

He's a tailor. He's working in the textile. And do you like living here? Yeah. You love it. Okay. Thank you. Cheers. So this is like the car parts recycling area here. This is all recycling old bumpers of cars. Namaste. Machinery, loud noises, the smell of food, and a lot more. I'm sure you can imagine. Uh it's absolutely incredible here. and uh filter. Filter. Yeah. Nothing goes to waste here at all. The biggest industry in this slum is recycling. It's a recycling every day. They get more than 7,000 kg to 20,000 kg plastic.

Doesn't matter is there the Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. They work every day. 7 days in the week and 30 days in the month. just the intricate streets. Like look at those stairs up into these nests that people live in, you know. Look at the cables. Look at all these stairs everywhere. Every last square in is taken up. You got people migrating from all over the subcontinent of India to come here because this is where you can get your start in life. What's your name? My name is Mani. And do you deliver all around Mumbai? Mumbai. Is that good money? Where is your job? I'm New Zealand.

Yeah. You know. Oh, mah. Yeah. Is that good pay? Good job. Uh 1,500. He worked really hard. He worked 11 hour in the motor bank. Yeah. Imagine sitting in a one position. You're driving in the traffic with the dirt. Good luck. They sacrificed this for a Islamic tradition, right? It's for the Islamic tradition. Is this goat on steroids? No, it's huge because of the breed. These breeds are different. They grown much more faster, but their meat is not that much tasty. So, this guy's doing welding and his eye

protection is a little piece of glass you can see there. Thank you, sir. So, all these guys are preparing hundreds of meals for the other parts of the slum. So, you can actually get them delivered up into the other parts of the slum. So, we got rice here. Then we got bags of curry here. Amazing. No, they don't make that much spicy. As a baby, you're born with a chili in your mouth, right? Uh something like that. But Mumbai people, they eat less spicy. If you go south part of the India, they're normal spicy. For me, it's very big So this is where they make soap.

Yeah. So what they do? They collect the used soap from the hotels. Tomorrow you're going to love the hotel. You're going to love the piece of the soap. For them, it's not used. And for you, it's not used. So all the waste soap left over from the hotels and old halus soap comes here gets all melted down into these cases here combined mixed with animal fats and cooking oil and then made into soap used inries or for cleaning purposes. Unreal. And you can see here the guys cutting it into squares and packaging it up ready to be sold with Mumbai having 22 million people in it. You can imagine there's a lot of waste and there's a lot of people wanting to make a dollar. What you're seeing here is the result of that.

So, we've come up one of these extremely steep ladders here. And in here they're what are they doing here? They color the clothes. Means you saw they have a white. They're dying them. Yeah. This is a new diamonds made by plastics. And what they're going to do, they're going to take these diamonds and they're going to stitch into the clothes. So this man makes a design on his computer and then it gets put into the laser machine and the laser machine carves a design into this piece of wood. Then they put the plastic diamonds on the piece of wood. Shake it so all the plastic diamonds fall into the design. Then it's compressed onto the fabric

with glue. So you have clothing with plastic jewelry pressed into it. Can you put it on for me? Why not? Sure. Oh, very pretty. Oh, this is not for the me. This is for the women. No, it suits you. Okay. The tiny plastic for you it's waist, but for them it's a diamond and it's good quality. Ladies t-shirt. Butterfly. Half butterfly. I think you're a butterfly kind of guy, right? Beautiful. And that's a Porsche. The car. You like the car?

It's a Porsche. No, this one's definitely your style. Thank you so much. Thank you. Keep up the great work. So, this is outside the diamond shop and they actually keep it shut because they don't want people stealing their designs because everybody makes their custom version of it. And so the recycled diamonds are viewed as, you know, a thing of value, right? So they keep it top secret here behind these shutters. I've been crossing borders a lot lately, and the last thing that I want to be doing when arriving at a new destination is hunting for local SIM cards. That's why I've been using Moby Matter, who is the sponsor of today's video. What I

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Is this great? That's a great quality, but no brand. All right. They don't use any brand. Uh only they get separately the brand name. They're going to stitch the labels as counterfeit. Yeah. How old is this man? 19. How many hours a day does he do this? 13 hour, 14 hour sitting in the same position with the with no support. The back gets p. And this is not the cushion chair. This is made by you know the bumps get hurt. he take all the clothes from the people's those who don't want to be washed the clothes and he going to put the tag number and he going to send this all the clothes to the laundry one of the biggest laundry in the world. They go there they get

washed on there. You're going to dry on there and give back to this guy and you're going to do the ironing. Your horse? No. What was your name? Abdul Cay. Abdul Kim. Nick. Nice to meet you. So, the moment you've all been waiting for. Here are the toilets. So, have a look at this. It just goes straight through to a river underneath. So, this is the river where the toilet drops into. You can see there's uh some animals down here looking through the toilet trash.

Yeah, this is the reality of this area of India. So, we got some apple juice here. Apple juice. But has it got milk? Apple milk. I've never seen an apple milkshake before. No, they have apple milkshake. They have a banana milkshake. And where does he get the ice from? They have the equipment to make a ice cubes and they call them I want a one block. They give them a blocks and the people put it here. You need the supply, you will get the supply. You will get everything in the slum. You don't need

to go outside. Dates banana shake. Wow. Dates and bananas have a good carbs and sugars. Good for the bodybuilders. Right. Get your hair cut here on the side of the road. Oh, it smells good. Here you're going to find mostly mens only. Okay. Because they people are immigrants. They have a family. Where? They are from Uttar Pradesh. Oh, really? Yeah. He's from Uttar Pradesh and he came here for the work to make more money.

How long have you lived here? Mhm. Four years. He's 18 years old. 18. And he came here when he was 14. He came here. He was when he was 14. sir. Behind every one of these doors, there's a thousand stories to tell. And there's just people on computers, people doing physical work, all kinds of different activities and money making industries and residential areas. It's uh everything that you can possibly imagine and more goes on in these incredible streets. Hey Salamkum. The people are honestly so hospitable and friendly and you know they seem somewhat content and hi. You good?

Okay. Come. Okay. So, just as I was saying, I've been invited out. What's your name? Sakawat Khan. Sah Khan. Sah. Sakalwood Khan. K. I'm Nick. Nick. Me. My name. Why? Nick. This is your house. Yeah. You live in here? Closed. Oh, building. Yeah. Okay. What? Shifting. Shifting on. Oh, you're moving. Okay. What about upstairs? Oh, wow. Asalamaikkum. Salam. Asalam. Printing.

Oh, printing clothes. Yes. Fish. Making fish. Oh, wow. What kind of fish you got? What's your name? Khan. Sean. Oh, nice to meet you. Are you from uh New Zealand? New Zealand. Yeah. You know it. Cricket. India. Cricket. One of the most favorite sports of India is cricket. And in New Zealand, it's very popular. So, it's always a way that I found to bond with Indians is to talk about cricket Instagram. Yeah. Instagram. Same as again. Indigo traveler. There you go. That's it. They're all subscribing to my channel and follow me on Instagram. Yeah. You like that?

Thanks, brother. Appreciate it. Here. It's soaking Sudan. South Sudan. Africa. What do I know about Africa here? Vlogging video. Asalam alaikum. Your brother? Yes. Oh, wow. Real brother. Cousin brother. Okay. Brother. Where are you from? Oakland. No. Uh, South Island. Oh, South Island. Yeah. We're video calling everybody now. Your mom. Wife. Your wife. Asalamikum. He's from uh New Zealand. Oakland. Nice to meet you. Alhamdulillah.

Nice to meet you, Shukria, brother. Nice to meet you, sir. Thank you for inviting me. I appreciate it. Grab me rope so I don't die. Going through the tight alleyways now. There's someone coming. Just turn around and try to pass it right then and then left. Okay, so this is their downstairs and downstairs. Left, left, left. You can look left and right. Look right like this. Left and then you can look right. There is upstairs. Just turn around and Oh, wow. The chili is in the air, man.

Somebody's cooking spicy food. No, no, no, no. You can see how the houses are built here. It's like just stacked on top of each other with bits of metal welded together and old bits of whatever they can find really. Old gates recycling even when it comes down to the houses. Believe it or not, I was here in this exact slum almost 10 years ago making videos. So that really shows my age. I had a bit more hair then. This has just been an amazing experience. Say hi. SWEET. BUT WHAT HAS also changed since those days is the development. There's big skyscrapers in the background here and they weren't there. Also, the bridges and the metro that goes over the slum wasn't here. There's huge

development going on here and they're actually ultimately all these people will be pushed out to another part of Mumbai far away maybe an hour and a half away because with the developing population of India and the rise of the financial and middle class the neighborhoods are developing at a unmatched pace and this is prime real estate back then Mumbai wasn't as big but now it's growing astronomically remarkable to see from a first person's perspective over 10 years how much it's changed mumbai by as a whole has day and night difference. It's so much more developed than it was 10 years ago when I first came to India. It's uh pretty impressive.

How are you? Good. Where are you from? I'm from New Zealand. Where are you from? Yes, this is my first vlog. Oh, this is your first vlog. You know, you subscribe to your channel. So, we're coming up to where some people actually live. Check this out. This is a tannery. So, you got the animal skins here from the goats and they dye them. And also they live here. So you've got the kitchen here and then over here this is the bedding. So they roll out these fabrics on this hard concrete ground and uh they sleep on that and up here is their bags. So as I was saying earlier people come from all over India to work very

hard as you can see for hours on end day in day out 7 days a week and they live in these conditions but they're so hospitable and kind. I mean, it's the same thing that you'll see in a lot of places, but it's always uh, you know, makes you consider your own life and your own complaints, you know. Make sure you look where you're putting your feet in these places. Hi. How are you?

Give you money. You give me money. How about that? Hello. The family house here is just basically few meters by a few meters. So, Naira. Yes. Uh, you live here in this house? Yes. How many people live in this house? Uh, four and five. Wow. And do you sleep upstairs or on the floor here? Yes. On the floor? Yes. Yeah. Wow. So your mom, your dad, and your brother and sister all sleep down here? Yes. My sister.

Oh, wow. So, so uh brother, sister, mom, dad working? Yes. Do you like living here? Yes. Yeah. And you've got lots of friends? Yes. Do you go to school? Yes. Will you live here for your whole life or will you go somewhere else? All life. What do you want to do for a job when you grow up? Navy. Yes. Wow. And that's a very brave job. Yes. So why do you want to be in the Navy? Uh Navy. Navy is my father tell to you job navy.

Oh your dad wants you to be in the Navy. Wow. And what about you? Oh you want to be a lawyer? Yes. Oh wow. You're going to be very successful then. Good luck. Nice to meet you. High five. Thank you. Welcome. So, we've jumped on the train and we're about to go to this huge laundry area. This is the biggest open air laundry in the world. They wash 100,000 piece of clothes in a day. They get all the clothes from the hospital, restaurants.

This business was started by the English people in 1890. Thanks for joining me as we ventured deep into the heart of Mumbai today. Although India does have a mixed reputation, the one thing that can't be disputed is that Indian people are some of the most innovative, hardworking, resourceful people on the face of this planet. And you can have a great laugh with them. Thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next video. And in case I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening and namaste.