The Old City of Ahmedabad

On another day, I was taken to the ‘Old City’ (more stories from the Old City later). As we crossed the Sabarmati river from new to old, I looked out to the left of the auto (what we call autorickshaws) and saw the patchwork of a river settlement. It is a slum quite like no other in the city. It is a place where auto drivers drive up to their blue-tarped dwelling and switch on the television. Two women cooked a stove, and there was even a refrigerator behind them. Whether it worked or not, I will never know. Perhaps it merely provided a safe place from the ants to store food. But here there is no road, only the dirt of above a levee overlooking the floodplain and river.

I asked a few residents if they knew why there was such a distinction between the street dwellers in the west of the city, the shoe shine boys in front of bookstores, and color television watchers along the river. Why they seemed to be clustered by ethnicity and by trade; how intentional it felt, though probably by personal preference to be with your own rather than outsiders. I also asked why it was that each neighborhood seems to sell the same exact merchandise. They don’t seem to have an answer.

I asked some people working in the microfinance world- the world I had originally intended to be working in here in India, and got an answer I don’t much like. There is this entity called a Self Help Group (SHG). They apply collectively for a loan from a bank, microfinance institution (MFI) or through a NGO. Some of these operate with more care than others. It seems that it is just easier for a loan officer or equivalent to sign over money if it goes toward similar services (or products) A shopkeeper selling school supplies is merely selling next door to his buddy in the SHG. In order to minimize conflict, competition becomes less about business viability, as in selling these products in other parts of the city, but more or less letting the bargaining begin between shopkeepers.

But there is something else to note here. This is pretty much the same trend in any given neighborhood. Jewelers by jewelers. Tailors by tailors. Caste by caste. Religion by religion. Ahmedabad more so than Chennai or Pondicherri. The only semi-equalizer/unifier is this amorphous being called the middle class. Well over the size of the population of the United States, India’s middle class makes nearly 7 times more than the next rung down in society. The gap is growing, but at least Hindus, Muslims and the rest seem to be all up in the mix.

Go to a restaurant in Chennai or Ahmedabad and there will be hejab, dupata and blue jeans. But more or less people stick to their own- whether by choice or by design. The SHG explanation can only be useful so far as the microfinance/credit options are concerned. The rest is borrowing from relations – family, friends or caste. This puts your shop right smack dab in the middle of shops just like yours. No great insight here, just finding it interesting.