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The biggest lie in life is that hard work equals wealth. The second biggest lie? That smart work does.

The truth is: birthright equals wealth. Then smart work. Then hard work.

If you don’t believe me, ask the people of Dharavi.

I just took a tour of Dharavi, the largest slum in Asia - occupying .92 square miles and home to over one million people. We visited shops and ateliers, where everyone was hard at work. The average wage? About five dollars a day.

The garbage pickers were working much harder than the man I saw back at the Leela Mumbai dressed in linen, sipping wine, and enjoy a two-hour lunch. Birthright.

My lovely tour guide was Rhianna, an employee of the tour company. The tour lasted about two hours cost about $11.00. I was the only client, meaning Rhianna made some meager portion of $11.00 for two hours of work - hard work. And it was smart work too - she had every line memorized.

But I don't care for travel bits. So, I asked questions.  

"Do you want to get out of Dharavi?" I asked.

"That is my dream," she replied. "I go to University for accounting."

Her father used to drive a taxi, but he broke his leg and cannot work. Her mother is a housewife, who never worked. Rhianna is 19 - the oldest of two girls. It falls on her to support the family. 

She told me about her day, "I get up around 5:30 and pray. My first class is at 6:30. I return to Dharavi and give tours until the late afternoon, when I go back to class. It is the Holy month of Ramadan. So, at sunset, I return home to break the fast with my family.  Afterwards, I teach school at 8pm." She added, "It is a volunteer job, just to help the children."

That sounds like hard work to me. But what do I know of hard work, having been born on American soil? 

We walked through a maze of alleyways where thick bundles of wires drooped just overhead - sometimes so low we had to duck. She warned me they were live. “Don’t touch,” she said. Damn right I won't touch. Each wire delivers 220 volts.

These alleyways were maybe three feet wide. Dark. Dank. The only light shone in from the entrances and exits. Pools of stagnant water collected in the dips of the walkway. And the smells? Imagine a million plus people in one square mile.

After the first alleyway, this ugly American was ready to head back to the Leela Mumbai. But we kept going. After five more alleys, we arrived at her family home - a small one room apartment with a curtain for a door. She brushed it open to reveal her sister sitting on a clean, white tile floor. That's all I saw - no refrigerator, no bathroom, very little light. 

"Where's the bathroom?" I asked.

She led me around the corner. I could smell it before I saw it.

"Here's the community bathroom," and she pointed to a small room with six stalls. "It is used by seventeen hundred people a day. In the morning, when you come out there is always a long line, with people yelling 'hurry up, hurry up'," Rhianna said.

She smiled. "No newspapers allowed."

We visited a soap factory. Hotel workers collect the small bottles of shampoo and body wash left behind by the guests. They're brought the slum, where the plastic goes to the recycling shop and the soap remnants are fashioned back into a black soap bar. It's too harsh for the skin, but great for dishes. And it's far cheaper than liquid dish soap, which most Dharavi residents can't afford.

I saw venders selling street food covered with flies, barefoot men kneeling in the Mosque, mothers waiting for their children at the school yard, drunks in the barroom getting loud.

A lot of hustle and bustle. A lot of hard work.

The people were welcoming and nice.

Life looked difficult.

I was happy to return to a two-hour lunch afterward - no flies.

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