When a 16-year-old Joshua Joseph navigated the narrow winding lanes of Dharavi in 2016, reciting impromptu rhymes for locals lounging on the sidewalks, he didn’t have many takers

Dharavi Anthem by music producer Shaurya Verma and Joseph, who now walks the streets as MC Josh, opens a window to the same bustling lanes, but almost decade after his teenage experience

The experience that sparked the fire in the 25-year-old’s heart to pen the anthem is one that is shared by the youth of Dharavi. He was at a job interview with my friends from Dharavi last year. When the time came to state where they had come from, most of them claimed to be from Sion, Matunga or Mahim

Joseph is now recording a music video for the track in the lanes of Shahu Nagar where children from the neighbourhood will don shirts sporting lines from the track and sing along to the anthem

The rapper, who most recently performed at the Ziro Literary Fest in Arunachal Pradesh in September, has a point to make through the anthem. Dharavi, he says, is no longer a place you’d pray to make it out of