The New Gateway of India

In Shivaji Nagar, if you are 39 years old you are most likely dead. Some in this neighborhood say it is far worse if you are alive. Yet, seemingly paradoxically, the residents of this neighborhood do not want to leave it. Located between one of Asia’s largest garbage dumps and Mumbai’s largest abattoir, this Deonar neighborhood is popularly known as “Bombay’s gas chamber.” This dissertation examines the social worlds of the residents of Shivaji Nagar by asking how an apparently odious, and potentially toxic place that appears to foreclose all possibilities other than failure, waste and death becomes an object of attachment for its residents.