Rashmi Bansal

A great and simple book. Connected with me but your mileage may vary. You really need to get out of your day-to-day life and aspirations to connect with the stories of the people in this book. It also helped break some assumptions on my part. Having volunteered with NGO's, I was really thinking about the fact on how all these social projects/organisations are limited by the demands of their grant-makers. The first section was real respite to see that social work does not need to depend only on donations/charities but can also be run as a real full fledged business aimed at making "rational" profits. Stories of Pratham and ADR really struck a chord with me. All in all, the book's pace slows down as you progress linearly and the interesting-ness quotient also drops esp. during the last 3 stories. In short - a great one-time read. ;)… (meer)

Thanks to Slumdog Millionaire and the entrepreneurial spirit that is synonymous with the place, one can now take a ‘Dharavi Slum Tour’ – a tourist attraction apparently. That’s how Rashmi Bansal and Deepak Gandhi started their exploration of Dharavi. Supported by excellent photographs by Dee Gandhi, they have brilliantly captured the paradox that is Dharavi.

Sharing stories of ingenuity and success and yet not holding back on the poor living conditions of the residents this book presents a balanced view of Dharavi which is very inspiring to read.… (meer)