Zindabad . Zinda. Abaad — a life, a house. With a clenched fist and a winning smile, Shabnam Vakil Khan bids goodbye. She manages a 10x10 sq ft life, propped up with corrugated sheets. Two kids, a makeshift kitchen, an uneven mud floor covered with a plastic sheet, a decade of memories and knickknacks , and a stubborn black chicken, are shuffled constantly in this grid, leaving little room to breathe. Shabnam’s hut is one of 3,000 crammed into 21 acres of Annabhau Sathe Nagar, a slum in Mankhurd.

Annabhau Sathe Nagar falls in M-ward , which locals call Mumbai’s dumping ground — for garbage and people. According to a Human Development Report published in 2009 by the Ministry of Housing And Urban Poverty Alleviation, the maximum number of resettlement colonies exist here. It has the highest illiteracy rate in the city, as well as a child mortality rate of 66 per 1,000 births.