In Bombay, some four million people-about half the city's population-inhabit hastily constructed huts clustered in sidewalk colonies. Attempts to cure the city's ills through “beautification” have led to the periodic bulldozing of the slums, but somehow, the poor always reappear. With characteristic compassion and ironic insight, Patwardhan gives equal time to Bombay's slumdwellers and to their privileged opponents-indeed, some of the most compelling evidence against demolition comes from the very people who favor it, as they reveal their nostalgia for the good old colonial days while enjoying the fruits of the slumdwellers' backbreaking labors. The people who are literally building the metropolis are afforded no home there. One poor woman confronts the filmmaker: “Do you have a solution? You just want to earn a name taking photographs.” Patwardhan's only reply is to continue filming, giving a few disenfranchised people the chance to speak.