At first sight, Dharavi’s industrial 13th Compound seems anything but orderly or efficient. However, as the days pass and you begin to uncover the layers of confusion, the industrial mayhem dissolves and a bustling nexus of recycling facilities, clothing manufacturers, leather goods operations and a variety of bakeries emerge.

Unlike the common working hours we are accustomed to back home – business does not operate on the 8-5 schedule. Overloaded trucks begin to fill the narrow streets early in the morning, dropping off new loads of plastics, metals, paper, and other raw materials to be sorted, chipped, melted, and recycled for a new client and a new use. Throughout the day and into the night machines scream in distorted grunts and groans as they grind the plastics into smaller and smaller pieces, press paper into cardboard boxes, or pummel stones into course powder for concrete mix. As evening approaches another round of trucks create traffic jams in the side roads of Dharavi, with mere inches separating the massive trucks from the walls of the workshops and homes on either side of the road. More raw materials are dropped off as processed materials are picked up and begin their journey to a new factory for final refinishing into a new product.

As evening turns to night and the night leads way to quiet homes, a walk around Dharavi is surreal. At 2am, when most of the people are fast asleep and resting for a new day, you can still hear the sounds of sewing machines whirling away. That buzz slowly fades as a new sound emerges, a more guttural and aggressive sound of plastic toys being sent through a wood chipper; a necessary step in order to create small pieces that can easily be melted down. Meanwhile, the dogs that sleep or are otherwise passive during the day begin to patrol the streets with a more aggressive and territorial demeanor. During the day the streets are overly crowded with people, mopeds, and delivery trucks, but the nighttime gives the dogs the freedom to roam. The nighttime is their time.

Just when you would expect Dharavi to finally wind down, a new supply of plastics begins to funnel in over the pedestrian bridge. A small team hustles to unload a truck that is parked on the other side of the train tracks, each man carrying 75-pound bags of plastic on their heads and precariously balancing the load with their hands. A couple of hours later workers will wake up and begin processing the recently delivered batch. There is a steady stream of materials coming into Dharavi and no shortage of work.

You begin to realize that there actually is a method to the madness; the chaos doesn’t seem so chaotic. Dharavi has a system that keeps thousands of shops and tens of thousands of workers busy at any given hour, churning out new materials, finished goods, and tasty baked treats for all of Mumbai and beyond… day after day, after day.