Most saw the village of Asalpha as a sea of grubby hovels. One woman saw a blank canvas – and made her vision a reality

When Dedeepya Reddy travelled to work on the Mumbai metro, her spirits would sink at the sight of the slum of Asalpha. Perched on a hilltop, every bit of it was grey, grubby and depressing. Only the blue tarpaulin sheets used to protect the hovels from rain provided colour relief.

“‘The metro and the road seemed so developed, and this slum looked so different,” says Reddy, 31, co-founder of a digital media agency. “It didn’t fit in. I thought of what could be done with minimum resources. Colours make me happy, so I thought, ‘Why not paint the homes to brighten them up?’”

Asalpha has an ugliness common to all Mumbai slums. The odd pot plant aside, these areas offer little by way of aesthetic cheer to the 10 million people – more than half the city’s total population of 18 million – who live there.

With her partner Terence Ferreira, Reddy got to work on a plan to transform Asalpha. Having persuaded Snowcem Paints to provide 400 litres of paint and brushes, she began an online campaign called Chal Rang De (Let’s Paint It), asking for volunteers to spend a weekend painting the walls.

Before she go to work in earnest, though, she had to find out if the residents liked the idea.

“They wanted to know why we wanted to do it. No one had ever done anything for them, so they were suspicious. Others wondered if coloured walls would really change anything in their lives,” she says.

Ravindra Sankpal, a 27-year-old construction manager who lives in Asalpha, remembers the scepticism. “Some neighbours refused at first, because they thought it was a plot by builders to take over their homes,” says Sankpal, whose walls are scarlet.

In early December, over three days, a team of roughly 400 volunteers began painting 175 walls. The atmosphere, says Reddy, was electric. The slum hummed with activity, chaos and excitement. The children got involved. Women kept up the supply of tea. At the end of an exhilarating weekend, the slum was alive with colour.

The following weekend, Reddy and Ferreira asked local artists to paint murals on some of the walls, images that would resonate with the residents. One shows a group of women turning steel wool into scouring pads, a source of income for many here. Another, painted for a local boy who said he dreamed of going into space, depicts an astronaut.

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When the project was finished, the residents were thrilled at the transformation. “I didn’t think paint could cheer me up but now, when I walk around here, it feels wonderful,’ says Aparna Chaudar, whose home has fuschia walls.

When a policeman walked into the slum last month to meet Sankpal over a local issue, his jaw dropped. He asked Sankpal to turn her brushes to his police station.



Tours of Asalpha will start at the end of February, providing job opportunities for a few young guides. Local women will earn some money by providing meals for tourists.

Reddy has been stunned at the psychological change. “Maybe because of the media coming in or interacting with the volunteers from outside, people are different now. They are proud and confident. Not only is the slum brighter, the people are brighter too. We hadn’t expected that at all.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dedeepya Reddy’s favourite part of Asalpha. Photograph: Fruitbowl Digital

Her favourite part of the slum is an alley that has an arch, niche and bright colours; it could be in Morocco, she says. People have got carried away and compared Asalpha with Positano on the Amalfi coast. The comparison is far-fetched. “Jolie laide” – French for beautiful-ugly – might be more apt.

Reddy and Ferreira plan to paint the slum on the other side of the road. “I want to brighten up whole neighbourhoods,” she says.