Mumbai resident's one night in chawl makes them realise what they took for granted

A Mumbai resident's Reddit post described how a night in a chawl changed their view of daily comforts.Mumbai resident’s one night in chawl makes them realise what they took for grantedA Mumbai resident’s one-night stay at a chawl left them looking at the comforts of their own home differently, particularly when it came to something as basic as having a private toilet.In a post on Reddit’s r/Mumbai titled “I stayed in a chawl for one night, and now I will never complain about my life,” the resident recalled visiting a distant relative who lived in a slum. Since it was already late at night, the relative insisted that they stay over, and they agreed. What they experienced the following morning, however, left a lasting impression.“I was shocked to see how people even stay there,” the resident said, describing how five or six people slept in a single small room with little privacy and constant noise around them.The experience became particularly difficult the next morning when they needed to use the toilet. They found around 10 people already waiting in a queue, each carrying their own bucket. “I couldn’t gather courage to stand in line and go to the toilet, so I just skipped it,” they said.Yet, what struck the resident most was how positively many chawl residents viewed their life there. They observed that people often spoke about being like one family and helping one another, in contrast to those living in flats. By the time the resident returned to their own flat and used their private bathroom, something they had previously taken for granted suddenly felt like a privilege.“When I reached my flat and used the toilet, I felt so blessed. I will never take these small things for granted now,” they wrote.The post prompted a range of responses, with people who had grown up in chawls offering sharply different perspectives based on their own experiences.One user, who said they had spent their entire life in a chawl before moving to an apartment, challenged the idea that chawl communities were always as close-knit as they appeared. They described the environment as a “crab in a bucket” situation, arguing that residents could be jealous even when their neighbours made small strides in life. For them, moving into an apartment brought a level of peace and privacy they had not experienced earlier.Another person reflected on spending a large part of their life in a chawl while slowly building their career and becoming financially stable. They recalled having no toilet at home, no air conditioning and very little privacy, adding that getting out of that situation took time. Their life is “significantly better” now, they said, and they would never want to return to their old living conditions.For another user, the biggest privilege of moving into a middle-class residential society was having a bathroom and toilet of their own. They argued that people who grew up in poverty in a chawl and later moved to more comfortable homes would understand just how significant that difference was.But not everyone agreed that life in a chawl should be viewed primarily through the lens of hardship.One person who grew up in a chawl said they would not change that experience for anything. Their chawl, they explained, was not poor, and residents did not have to share toilets. More importantly, they described a community where doors were always open and neighbours functioned like an extended family.They recalled how residents could always count on one another, particularly during emergencies such as illness. The sense of community was so strong, they said, that even people in their 80s and 90s could live independently because they knew there were others around who would help them.- EndsPublished On: Aug 14, 2026 13:59 IST