Santosh Thorat lives in a tiny tenement in Mankhurd slums. His goal is to explore the hidden talents of the slum. Many gems are lost. Many lives are never lived to their fullest. Santosh desires to help those people in the slum. Thorat understood the plight of people who fell victim to the BMC’s slum-free drive. He wants to provide pukka houses to everyone.
Today, the dwellers of the over 4,000-household-strong slums in Mumbai’s eastern suburbs of Mankhurd and Shivaji Nagar look up to Thorat as their leader. “There is no one here to be a leader, so they have made me that. I am involved with their daily problems of displacement and help them cope with other everyday problems of life,” he says.