Metropolitan slums in diverse nations like India have always been homes to rural migrants from a variety of linguistic, religious and regional backgrounds and reflect a unique cultural dynamism. This paper seeks to address some of these issues through a brief report of the author's findings regarding the changing patterns of values, beliefs and identities discerned in some life histories and nearly two dozen long semi-structured interviews with the denizens of Aradhaknagara slum cluster near Seema Puri in East Delhi and of Dhantalaa village in Meerut district of Uttar Pradesh.