Voice from the streets

“There is something deeply satisfying about eavesdropping on the sleeping habits of the residents of Apna Jhopadpatti in Mumbai’s Byculla district even at the unlikely hour of 3.30 in the morning. The rise and fall of 500 pairs of lungs. People you know by name,some of them well,asleep on backs,sides,tummies…”

Hollick spent almost a quarter of a century producing radio documentaries on India for the National Public Radio,BBC Radio4 and World Service,recording,writing and clicking pictures that captured a large population of pavement dwellers in Mumbai. In Pune to launch his book,Apna Street he talks about how a community revolution became a subtle change agent. “I spent around 25 years seeing the work these people were doing. The outcome was a series of 34 radio programmes that have been broadcast worldwide. I realised a few years back how this small initiative by a group of women grew up to become such a strong will to fight for their rights. I immediately wanted to write this story.” The backdrop of the book is the success of Mahila Milan,a women’s collective. From 1986,they,in association with National Slum Dwellers Federation and SPARC,Mumbai,worked to rehabilitate these people to finally give birth to Slum/Shack Dwellers International,a world-wide movement that works in more than 23 countries.

As a radio producer,Hollick thought that he looked at the story very differently. “I have always maintained that radio is a democratic medium where sound is your adjective. I think the uniqueness of the book is that I wrote it for the radio. I feel there is a certain vividness in each experience,in the uncomfortable aura around and that perhaps tries to tell the happening that occurred then.”

So which are the characters that stayed with him as a writer? “I remember Samina quite vividly,” he says. “She died in 2002,a big fiery woman. Hers was not a tragic character,but she commanded all the relief work during the riots.”