There shouldn't be two Indias; we need affordable housing. There are projections that by 2017, 18.78 million will be the number of those living in slums.
I don't belong to the slums, but to play Naru in 'City Of Gold,' I had to live for months in a real chawl before we shot the film.
There's no unemployment in squatter cities. Everyone works. One-sixth of humanity is there. It's soon going to be more than that.
One of the remarkable things about slums is that they do develop their own social organization and economy and even culture that is, on some level, functional and in some cases, remarkably resilient. This is kind of amazing.
I had to do a lot of preparation for 'Kaaka Muttai.' I had to literally spend every night and morning in the slums, observing the life of people there, and work on my diction.
I am aware it's easy and may be fashionable to pose with a slum child, and the irony of getting the media along means that it can come across as disingenuous. But you take these things on board, and you hope you mean it whenever you get stuck into something.
I lived in a favela.
The Government regularizes illegal slums inhabited by outsiders, but the government workers or policemen do not get permanent house in Mumbai.
I was spending a lot of time in Mumbai after I met my husband, who is Indian, and while parts of the city were prospering like crazy, I couldn't quite make out how the new wealth had changed the prospects of the majority of city residents who lived in slums. So after a few years I stopped wondering and started reporting.
In Rio, 1.4 million of the 6.3 million people live in favelas, or slums. They are all over the city, but favelas are not always a problem - sometimes they can be a solution, if you have the right public policies.
I call it an ensemble cast or the world of 'Gulabo Sitabo' which is about the lifestyle of my characters. I just go and sit there in a corner and observe these characters through my camera. That's how I shot the film.
Yes, Manila had its slums; one saw them on the drive from the airport: vast districts of men in dirty white undershirts lounging idly in front of auto-repair shops - like a poorer version of the 1950s America depicted in such films as Grease.
