Life As Usual for Bandra’s Sidewalk Residents

Around 10.30 PM on 7 May in Mumbai, Partap Singh lay on a pavement outside American Express Bakery, Bandra, staring at the cloudless sky. He was dressed in a tight T-shirt with the seam of his lungi tucked into the waist, oblivious to the blaring traffic on the road. “All I know is that he ran over someone here,” he says, sprawled on a chatai, his head resting on a pillow. The ‘he’ refers to Bollywood actor Salman Khan.

In the first week of May, Khan was sentenced to five years of rigorous imprisonment by a Mumbai sessions court for running over four pavement dwellers with a car he was driving, killing one. The accident, which took place nearly 13 years ago, has made little difference at ground zero. Every night, a handful of people, mostly migrant labourers who work at shops in the vicinity, continue to take to the pavement to retire at night.

“I come here because it is too hot to sleep inside the bakery,” says Partap. Like him, his four co-workers on the spot are mostly migrants from Uttar Pradesh. They come to the city every summer to earn some money. With the onset of rains, they go back to their homes, planting wheat and other crops on their farms.

With the Salman verdict dominating headlines for a large part of the first week of May, bikers and motorists could be seen slowing down their vehicles here, and at times, pointing the bakery out to others.

“If you are at fault, you pay for it,” says one worker who wishes to remain anonymous. The workers are conscious of the buzz around their workplace, although they tell me that it makes little difference to them or their lives.

While they can afford rooms to stay, like other employees of shops around, they cite their sleeping arrangement as a case of financial prudence. As Partap grins and says, “Why bother with a room when it is only a matter of three months here?”

American Express BakeryBandrahit-and-run caseSalman Khan