This paper presents extracts from interviews with slum dwellers,
primarily women, in Mumbai and Pune, and discusses the conditions they cope
with every day with regard to water and sanitation, and the ways these conditions
have changed over time. These women live in a variety of circumstances - on pavements,
beside railway tracks, in swampy areas, on steep slopes - and this affects the
particular problems they face. But in all cases, dealing with their needs for water and
sanitation is a stressful and time-consuming challenge. These interviews provide the
kinds of insights that rarely emerge in quantitative studies.