Joyous Devi

Joyous Devi: Urban Slums - A World of Images

The world on the other side of  the huge plate glass window revealed  itself in its  changing facets,   as the day shifted from  early morning   to the time when  the lights came on in the city, to  when these too were snuffed out. The view,  from  the eight floor restaurant of the  luxury hotel that I was standing in, as a result of several interesting circumstances, left one with mixed feelings. It showed a Mumbai rakish and suave in its  self-assurance, matchless in its fused identity of big money and glamour  and yet as my eyes roved over the changing landscape of luxury hotels,  forgotten relics of building  and the  ceaseless  activity centred around the construction of various infrastructural projects, they were arrested  by the naked visibility of its other face. One, raw with need  and the hunger to clamber up the slithery steps to a better life....