Narrow lanes run between two and three storey brick workshops where potters, leatherworkers and tailors work on the ground floor and live above.
What Dharavi looks like
Ninety Feet Road runs through and is still called that, though shops jutting into it from both sides have narrowed it well short of ninety feet. Off it, the lanes run barely a shoulder wide between two and three storey workshops, brick and cement below rusted corrugated roofs and blue tarpaulin sheets.
Most buildings follow the same layout, a workshop on the ground floor with a family living in the rooms above it, reached by a steep metal stair or a ladder. Some workshops add a loft under the roof, low enough that crossing it means going on all fours.
Kumbharwada alone holds five lanes and more than 120 kilns, terracotta pots stacked along the low walls between them and smoke curling up from the firing. Leather workshops elsewhere cut and stitch wallets and bags in rooms barely big enough to hold the men working in them, and embroidery units run rows of computerised machines stitching sequinned cloth under a single strip light.
The deeper passages get little daylight at footpath level, walled in by the buildings that rise around them. The Mithi River runs along Dharavi's northern edge on its way to Mahim Creek. The drains that reach it are choked with rubbish and tarpaulin, crossed here and there by small footbridges.
Shot in Dharavi
Gully Boy went looking in Dharavi in 2019 for a small bridge over one of its drainage nullahs, a quieter meeting point for Murad and Safeena than the crowded lanes around them. Production designer Suzanne Caplan Merwanji called it the Romeo and Juliet bridge and had some of the houses visible from it repainted for the shoot, after ruling out Mumbai's railway footbridges because the film's sync sound recording could not control for their noise.
Gully Boy, 2019
Murad and Safeena meet on a small footbridge over a Dharavi nullah, houses behind them and rubbish floating in the water either side. The location team found the crossing while scouting nullahs in the area rather than following an address written into the script.
What Dharavi can double for
Orangi Town in Karachi, Pakistan
Orangi Town is a similarly dense, self-built manufacturing quarter, with brick and cement workshops under corrugated roofs opening straight onto lanes barely wider than a shoulder. Small garment and recycling units run on the ground floor with homes stacked above them, the same tool-house arrangement Dharavi's own workshops use. Orangi's plots run slightly wider and satellite dishes crowd more roofs, so a tight lane level frame holds the match better than a wide establishing shot. Try searching brick workshop lanes now.
Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Rocinha is built the same way upward rather than outward, brick and unpainted cement additions stacked storey on storey along alleys too narrow for a car. Small shops and workshops still open directly onto those alleys at ground level, the same working street Dharavi's own lanes give a camera. Rocinha climbs a steep hillside where Dharavi sits flat, so a wide or aerial shot gives away the slope and street level frames hold the match better. Try searching narrow brick alleys now.
Khlong Toei in Bangkok, Thailand
Khlong Toei is a comparably dense informal settlement of small workshops and homes built up along narrow canal side lanes, timber and corrugated sheeting standing in for Dharavi's brick and cement. Its canal edges crowd right up against the buildings, the same working waterline Dharavi's nullahs give a location scout. The tropical greenery and stilted construction read more Southeast Asian in a wide shot, so keep to narrow lane frames close to the canal. Try searching narrow canal side lanes now.
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