I am a master in India

Chapter 42 Urban Desert
Two days after Ron moved, he made an appointment with Luca to go to the medicine market in Mumbai.

Lina wanted to go along, but after hearing that the medicine market was close to the Dharavi slum, she gave up the idea.

"I heard that place is no different from ruins?" Luca asked curiously after getting in the taxi.

"Ruins?" Ron smiled. "Do you still remember your first impression of Mumbai?"

"Uh... there are a lot of people, it's very noisy, and there's a weird smell."

"It's a bad smell. There's no need to be so subtle. Everyone knows it."

The first thing every foreigner smells when they get off a plane or train in India is the disgusting stench.

This is by no means an exaggeration. Whether it is New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore or Chennai, the whole city is emitting various odors.

The smell of sweat, rotting food, excrement, and fermented garbage will fill your nostrils the moment you land.

Look at the streets nowadays: garbage and rats are commonplace even for foreigners. There are a few Indian men urinating in the corner, and even more far away in the bushes, there are even more people defecating.

When the man put down his loin cloth and left, a group of pigs and dogs immediately rushed up and grunted for the fresh excrement.

Ugh~, not to mention Luca, even the knowledgeable Ron felt nauseous.

"Man, why are your police so indifferent to all this?"

“Because the police sometimes do that too.”

"What?" Luca's eyes widened.

"That's nothing strange. This country is built on contradictions. Okay, time to get off the bus."

"But it seems we haven't arrived yet?"

"There's a cow blocking the road ahead. Judging by its temper, it might not even wait until dark."

Indian cows are not afraid of people at all. Even if they are skinny, they can still sit at the intersection and take a nap calmly.

Now everyone is stuck here, with motorcycles, taxis, carts, and pedestrians crowded together, and the deafening horns are blaring even louder.

In order to prevent the last accident from happening again, Ron simply took Luca downstairs and walked, since it was not far away anyway.

As mentioned before, Mumbai's development is rich in the south and poor in the north. In the central part, the dilapidated streets are so narrow that people can't even squeeze in.

The medicine market was hidden somewhere, but before reaching it, they needed to pass through the side of Dharavi.

This was also Ron's first time here. The slums in the distance were like dark brown sand dunes, stretching from the roadside to the distance, and finally intersecting and disappearing with the horizon in a scene transformed by dirty and hot smoke.

When you get closer, you will find that the houses there are extremely simple. They are simply made of rags, plastic scraps, cardboard, reed mats and bamboo.

People huddled together in narrow, winding alleys, and in the vast, chaotic slums, nothing was taller than a person.

Luca's mouth dropped open, shocked by the sight. He had been to the countryside before, but he had never seen a slum.

Looking more closely at the residents there, there was a woman squatting by the river combing her black hair, children playing in the river, and a man shaving in front of a cracked mirror.

Then, upstream of the same river, someone was combing the hair of three goats, and goat droppings fell into the water one by one.

"Not all people in the slums are poor. You see, they even have their own livestock," said Luca.

Ron glanced at the sheep, which had red ribbons tied around their necks. "If men in the slums don't have wives, they'll raise a few sheep."

"God, I don't understand you! Stop it!" Luca yelled.

The prank was successful, and Ron continued to lead him through the edge of the desert with a smile.

He is the fake Indian. Other Brahmins would never come to such a place.

In Hindu doctrine, the untouchables are also called Dalits, and their impurity is contagious. The caste system has been diluted a lot in open cities like Mumbai, but it still remains an insurmountable gap.

"Ron, what are they doing?" Luca discovered another strange thing.

Following his gaze, Ron saw an Indian woman wearing a headscarf, pasting something on the wall.

“That’s a cow dung cake.”

"Cow dung? Cake?" Luca racked his brains but couldn't figure out how these two words came together.

"See those round things on the wall? They're made from processed cow dung."

The mud walls of the slums are densely covered with hand-patted cow dung cakes.

It's all processed, basically collecting scattered cow dung, mixing it with soil, and then stirring it into chopped wheat straw.

These cow dung cakes are made by hand. First, they are pinched into the size of a ball, and then slapped against the wall to press them into a cake shape.

Standing here, you can clearly see the woman's fingerprints on the round cow dung cakes.

"What can this thing be used for?" Luca asked, trying hard to suppress his nausea.

"Fuel or sell."

"Sell?"

"That's right. Poor people can't afford gas and electricity, so cow dung cakes are the best alternative. Did you see the bamboo basket on the child's head?

The cow dung cakes there are 1 paise each. Oh, the price may have increased now. But 1 rupee is enough for a long time, so it’s a good deal for people here.”

“No wonder… No wonder…” Luca muttered to himself.

He saw all kinds of garbage along the way, including pig manure, dog manure, and various excrement, but there was no cow dung. It turned out that it had been collected clean long ago.

"Okay, stop looking. If you're interested, I'll buy you two later."

"I would never be interested in such a thing!" Luca protested loudly.

"Really? Do you remember the milk tea I treated you to before?"

"What...what happened?"

“The hot water for making milk tea is made from cow dung cakes.”

"Ugh~"

...

After walking for more than ten minutes on the edge of Mumbai's largest slum, Ron and Luca arrived at their destination, Valmiki Street.

Because the name is difficult to pronounce and most of the people here are drug dealers from all over the world, over time people just call it Drug Street.

Like other shabby streets, Drug Street has nothing to do with grandeur.

Billboards stretch out in all directions on both sides of the street, and they are surrounded by dense wires, like a spider's nest that makes people's scalps tingle.

Looking around, there are at least dozens of pharmacies on the street, and the hygiene conditions are generally worrying.

"Where should we go? I don't recognize any of the words here." Those earthworm-like Hindi lines were completely chaotic to Luca.

"Don't worry, let me check the situation." Ron randomly found a store and walked in.

He actually had another candidate introduced by Johnny, but before that it would be better for him to understand the market situation himself.

(End of this chapter)