Madonna Tours Mumbai Slum During India Holiday

Story : AFPPop icon Madonna Tuesday walked through narrow lanes in a slum and visited a flea market in India’s financial capital during a holiday with her family.

Madonna, her film director husband Guy Ritchie and their three children arrived in Mumbai Tuesday morning by chartered plane from the historic city of Udaipur in western India, where they spent New Year’s Eve.

Dressed in a black T-shirt, jeans and jacket, the pop star along with her husband and bodyguards ambled through Mumbai’s crowded Ambedkar Nagar slums, an AFP photographer said.

Slum residents showered rose petals on Madonna to welcome her, even though few knew who the celebrity was.

The 49-year-old singer was accompanied by Australian author Gregory Roberts, whose bestselling autobiographical novel “Shantaram” is set in Mumbai.

Madonna then stopped for a roadside meal of a local delicacy called Misal Pav — bread and spicy white peas — at a budget restaurant with Roberts, a convicted bank robber who has made Mumbai his home.

The pop star also stopped by at the well-known Chor Bazaar flea market, but did not buy anything.

Madonna and her family spent nearly a week in the desert state of Rajasthan, where they went for horse-riding trips and kite-flying.