Survival of the fittest: Cyber worlds in Mumbai Metropolis

Our interviews with café managers and participant observation in cafe premises reveal an atmosphere of arbitrary norms and regulatory practices towards internet browsing and tolerance of pirated software transactions governing everyday operations. There are inconsistencies in billing, evidence of pirated software and multiple businesses running under a single business title. In an environment rife with non-formal business relations, cyber cafés are spaces that depend on social networking to procure and maintain café infrastructure and a loyal clientele (Rangaswamy 2007). Prem, 25, manages a café in the largest shanty town, Dharavi, says, “We even allow happy hours during the day halving rates and allow our loyal clientele to browse longer if they want to…”

The oldest café in our sample, in outer suburban Mumbai started shop nine years ago. Amit, who has now taken over the business from its original owner recalls, ‘’… it was some kind of dating services. We had cubicles with curtains running all around them… I believe the owner thought that in his area, that had no open spaces or parks this would be hit… At that time when cyber cafes opened pornographic surfing was very rampant… In Mumbai where do you get private space…? But I don’t allow such activities…” Around 20% of cafés in our sample still have separate cubicles but deny any thing improper or illegal going on. When asked why then enclose spaces when one could open up more shop space, the owners fall silent and smile.

Out of our 31 cafés, 3 had enclosed cabins and 5 others partially enclosed spaces for internet browsing. Almost all operators, including those with enclosed cubicles, said they strictly prohibit pornographic web surf. We probed:

“I mean, you created privacy even in this small space, when you could have freed up more space for business… and you cannot know what goes on…”

“We have written very clearly on our walls… Yes, we do not peep over shoulders to see what is going on…”

“Err… why you had these private cubicles”

“Hmmm… we wanted people to do work in privacy, like e-mail, chat etc without getting disturbed…. Well, what can we do if they go to these sites…?”

“There are blockers etc… You know…”

“Yeah! If we install these even good sites get blocked and slows down the already shared connection… We cannot do all these things just to stop all kinds of surfing”

Enclosures not with standing, ‘inappropriate’ surfing are a distinct possibility. We did note the preponderance of young adult and male users at certain hours in cafés. All cafes had regular women clients but afternoon hours saw very few visiting cyber cafés and are predominantly a ‘male space’.

Inside café premises several business practices fall into the contested terrain of legality. Café managers are hard pressed to run a profit making enterprise and resort to available measures, time tested in existing business practices, slipping into the broader culture of non-formal economic relations. We are yet to encounter a café that owns original software. Many do not own any legal software while some have a single system license and generously share with the network. Amit, opinioned that in today’s MTV world there is ‘so much out in the open’. People can easily hire pirated CD’s etc and watch at home. He added that some cafes that he knows of in adjoining neighborhoods offered pirated CD’s for circulation. I asked him what he felt about piracy. He remained silent and smiled. But Taussif, who runs a café in Ray Road, a South Mumbai neighbourhood and home to a sprawling informal automobile hardware market, lost his temper when he heard the name of our research sponsors “… how the hell do we buy your software when it so expensive. We are running hand to mouth business and you fancy buying legal versions for all our computers….” When we mentioned our research focus and the company’s interest in ground level realities, he told us to ‘get lost and never to show our faces in his café’.

All cafés in our sample had attached business. Many who began the business thinking it lucrative had to diversify to make ends meet. Computers, software, maintenance and repair were all obtained in markets with dubious legal credentials. The ready availability of such markets promoted proliferation of internet cafés driving heightened competition amongst them. To beat maintenance expense, around 50% of café owners, in our sample, were hardware literate and assembled and sold PCs to their customers. Infact their cafés attracted prospective clients. Assembled PCs were cheap¹⁰ and parts were procured in Mumbai’s sprawling informal markets at Lamington Road. Around 70% of cafés were communication centres offering local/national/international telephone services and digital Xerox/scanning/printing services. Around 30% had mobile servicing as attached business. One of them had a book lending library, one was a photo studio, one is a share/stocks trading centre, the last two using idling PCs for café business. One of them even offered food catering services. Many of them ran these multiple business under a single license. From what we gathered, income and profits were not declared with full transparency, more so when profits were hard to come by.

Sanjay, owner of a cyber café next to Mukesh, also operates a interior design consultancy, a money transfer franchise and a telephone booth form the same premises. He says;

“…I grew up in Mumbai. My family members are all in services but I wanted to run a business. I started my own outfit with the help of friends and began interiors. I began the café 4 years ago. There is such heavy competition amongst internet cafes. Surfing rates are dropping steadily. We have 4 other cafes down the road itself… Starting a café is not much. Assembled PCs are cheap, home PCs are increasing. Even this telephone business is going down. The Sathyam corporate chains of i-cafés are providing VOIP so cheap. We find people with headphones talking away in these cafes paying so little”

Most café spaces were rented out and relations between owner and tenant were unclear. Dinesh, managing an outer-suburban café says:

“…: Actually, there are two different people. One owns the place while the other has rented it and set up the cyber café”

“…okay meaning the place belongs to a different person and the setup belongs to a different person”

“…yes exactly. … I am a third party in this business. The second party totally handed over the business to me. I have no contact with the first party, the space owner. I deal with the second party who own the cyber café”

“And you have employed some one else to look after the café in your absence”

“Yes, that is the fourth party who reports to me”

Dharavi

In Dharavi, the non-formal slips back and forth into the illegal with greater vigour. The very social-geographics of this hyper-active slum community is intimately tied to illegal squatting, tenements and the many productive business transactions. It is true that Dharavi is unique even amongst slums. It is spread over 223 hectares and consists of densely packed informal settlements accommodating an estimated seven lakh people (although figures of how many actually live in Dharavi remain disputed). It is also different from other slums in that it is home to over 4,000 ‘industries’ producing anything from foodstuffs to clothes, jewellery, leather and surgical sutures. A recent survey¹¹ established that in a central area of Dharavi called, Chambda, ‘leather’, bazaar the density is 336,643 people per square kilometer!¹² Virtually all regions (and languages) of India are represented in Dharavi. In every nook and corner of Dharavi there is ‘industry’.