In Dharavi, a celebration of dreams unlimited

It's the best Eliyas (12), a Dharavi resident, can imagine. “Lots of Idli Chilly” is a “mast life” for him. Prod him a little and see him amidst nods of dissatisfaction from his ‘we-will-paint-apples’, Eliyas would tell you that a “sketch of a girl skipping in a green garden” has a more positive story behind it. His sketch, once complete, will join hundreds of “dream canvases” adding to an Iceland-based group’s “I have a Dream project” in a Norway Exhibition. Children between ages 8 and 15 will put on display their dreams of a perfect world.

“It’s like how I have always dreamt of good health, and a skipping girl makes for a good sketch,” says Eliyas as he sits inside a small classroom in Dharavi, where a white screen blinds the blackboard and slowly transforms into a community gathering as part of the Friends of the Pangea Day initiative.

Ingemar Pettersson from the Sweden-based Kaospilots Malmo Institute of Education became one of the many hosts of the world’s first Pangea Day celebration as they chose the Dharavi neighbourhood for those who “do not have a television to participate”.

At the entrance to the makeshift classroom, which is also the office of the Reality Tours and Travels offering tourists a “slice of Dharavi”, Sophie Uesson is recording the words of Girish as part of another global initiative termed “Say it out aloud”, where the participant etches his age, city and country on his palm and voices one thing he would want to happen to make the world a better place before dipping his hand in a palette of colours.

As the cafes around Colaba and NCPA were gearing to show the Pangea Day, the different initiatives taking shape on Saturday evening around this Dharavi neighbourhood echoed Pangea’s primary thought of “an urgent need of filling the lack of moral imagination” as said by Pangea’s Indian representative Tom Hamilton.

“This project is also a part of our annual outpost programme. We visit other cultures to understand, share and learn from them” says Pettersson.

Uesson was often asked her “good name” by the locals whose houses they visited with the Pangea invite. Says she “We started this initiative in Bandra where people between 4 and 77 years of age told us what they want changed.”

Both agree that unlike the rest of the world, where people talk about global warming, and wars, Mumbaikars had local issues to share. But, there have been times when the city’s habits of throwing garbage “even at places like Elephanta caves” have puzzled Johanna Olsson (24). “We don’t do that in Sweden,” she says.

“Colaba is usually the place where we are seen as tourists. They come to beg from you or just try to push you into a taxi for Mumbai sightseeing. I want to come back to Dharavi every time. Here I am allowed to play with the children and nobody gives me a second look. It’s like being home in a different way.”

Even as the group was putting up the makeshift screen, Andrea Wehlen (24) shared the same views later echoed on Pangea screens across the world by main host and CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour: “It was time to tell a different story”.

Said Wehlen: “I was told that people rob you, and that they are not good to tourists. I am going back with so many nice experiences, and a new story. People here are more open. In Sweden you don’t see people clinging to their traditions. Here women still wear a saree, unlike us who get our traditional dresses out only during any community gathering.”

Elias Kristoffersen (26), who played guide to the children said: “I will always remember the hospitality of the people, but they need to learn more on how to keep a gentleman’s promise.”

And for Finnur Sverrisson (26) from Iceland, hosting Pangea Day in Dharavi was a culmination of two months of work after failing to get permission from authorities to get a bigger screen.