Ordinary Lives

Mumbai is the financial capital of India, which is predicted to be the most populated city in Asia in 2020. Today, half of the city's population - 7 million people - are living in slums. Such demographics only exacerbate the economic issues and infrastructural problems that exist. While offering solutions to problems faced by the people living in areas of appalling housing, confined space, and extremely low incomes, the Indian Government, NGOs and other research institutes treat people as if they are figures rather than human beings. Although several studies and films have been made on the issues of slums, their major focus lies in housing, infrastructure and other environment-related problems. They ignore the larger questions of how people are psychologically and socially shaped by their confined living spaces and how those residents, in turn, define the place they inhabit.

Ordinary Lives uncovers the living conditions of residents in a slum in Mumbai, focusing closely on the daily struggles of one joint family with ten members of three generations crammed in a 180-square-foot shack. This family represents those in India at the very bottom of the social hierarchy. The subordinate and poor--especially the young and the women - have different concerns from those of government officials, whose goal is to replace the slums with a new cosmopolitan, modern development modeled after those in Shanghai. Through a poised juxtaposition of voices from both inside and outside the slums, the film re-examines issues such as poverty, human rights, and gender equality that have been troubling India and other developing countries.