From the terrace of architect-activist PK Das' Prabhadevi office, a clutch of buildings can be seen hurtling upwards, each competing to reach the sky. Das, who is joined by friends and comrades-in-arms veteran journalist Gurbir Singh and senior development economist Ritu Dewan, stares into this abyss, before cracking a joke about the urban, concrete jungle. His displeasure is evident and this sentiment is also shared in his new book, Chasing the Affordable Dream (Bombaykala Books), co-written with Singh, Dewan and journalist Kabir Agarwal. The objective of the book, say the authors, is clear: The right to dignified housing for one and all in the megalopolis of Mumbai, where for years now, we have been fed the "myth" of want of land to accommodate its burgeoning population.

A model example
Mumbai, as they describe in the preface of the book, boasts of nothing, but a "collapsing infrastructure" where "deteriorating standards of life, is rapidly spinning out of control". And, all because "astronomically high real estate prices put a decent home out of reach for a vast majority of its citizens". The result: 6.53 million of its population of 12.43 million are forced to live in slums, while over 2.5 million more live in slum-like conditions in dilapidated buildings. The book, the result of several decades of work that the writers have put into Nivara Hakk — an umbrella movement started in 1981 to provide an alternative path of development for slums and footpath dwellers — provides logical solutions to fight the current shortage of 10 lakh "affordable homes".