A muse called Dharavi

Slumdog Millionaire is just the tip of the iceberg. The romance of poverty in one of Asia's largest and perhaps most vibrant slums, Dharavi, has for long inspired art, films, documentaries and books. But while these provided a slum tour from the vantage of an outsider, various recent cultural initiatives, including a brand new mobile museum, are helping artists from the impoverished address tell their story

SLUMGODS

Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Lokmanya Tilak look calmly down from photo frames as a classroom in Dharavi's Sant Kakkaya Municipal School shudders with some intense rap music. The children are dressed in voluminous pants and shirts, some with caps on backwards, some wearing chunky shoes. A few adults are among them, all part of Slumgods, a hip hop collective that began in 2009. The room is one of four that were recently rented out to them for classes, with some help from A R Rahman, director Shekhar Kapur and Universal Music.

An amplifier connected to a shifty switchboard powers the acoustics. While a child of 13 whistles and purrs into a microphone, mimicking the reverberations of machines and broken records, another begins to rap. One by one, the others come to the centre of the room and perform moves B-boying and popping. Everyone applauds eight-year-old B-boy Mohan's unsteady headstand.

Hip hop crews have since sprung up in several parts of the city but Slumgods claims it was the first of its kind. It was an aversion to Danny Boyle's 2008 film title Slumdog Millionaire that inspired the collective's name. The three co-founders of the group, Akash, Sunil and Sagar, would meet at Sion Killa after college to try out dance moves, aided by videos painstakingly downloaded on a box-type computer with slow internet. Local children who watched them would ask to be taught. In the free-of-cost classes which began in 2010, they teach various aspects of hip hop culture - rapping, beatboxing, B-boying and graffiti.

It helps keep the children engaged, says co-founder Sagar. It has, of course, also led to some fame. Filmmaker Kapur is set to follow their work in a documentary, the music for which will be given by Rahman. Then, there are the smaller triumphs. Anil Dhangar, 12, feels like a celebrity when he shows off his skills at school. Although he started as a b-boy three years ago, beatboxing is a new passion that claims two of his hours each afternoon. Ever so often, he will bring eager friends to class. Over the years, the number of crew members has grown from three to 55.

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A muse called Dharavi