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Katherine Boo spent almost four years with the residents of Annawadi, a slum near Mumbai airport. The result is the gripping and deeply affecting Behind the Beautiful Forevers. ANNAWADI SAT TWO hundred yards off the Sahar Airport Road, a stretch where new India collided with old India and made new India late. Chauffeurs in SUVs honked furiously at the bicycle delivery boys peeling off from a slum chicken shop, each carrying a rack of three hundred eggs. Annawadi itself was nothing special, in the context of the slums of Mumbai. Every house was off-kilter, so less off-kilter looked like straight. Sewage and sickness looked like life. The slum had been settled in 1991 by a band of laborers trucked in from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu to repair a runway at the international airport. When the runway work was complete, they decided to stay near the airport and its tantalizing construction possibilities. In an area with little unclaimed space, a sodden, snake-filled bit of brushland across the street from the international terminal seemed the least-bad place to live.  From the author’s note: The events recounted in the preceding pages are real, as are all the names. From the day in November 2007 that I walked into Annawadi and met Asha and Manju until March 2011, when I completed my reporting, I documented the experiences of residents with written notes, video recordings, audiotapes and photographs […]I also used more than three thousand public records, many of them obtained after years of petitioning government agencies under India’s landmark Right to Information Act.  […] They validated, in detail, many aspects of the story told in these pages.  […] I witnessed many of the events described in this book. I reported other events shortly after they occurred, using interviews and documents. For instance, the account of the hours leading to Fatima Shaikh’s self-immolation, and its immediate aftermath, derives from repeated interviews of 168 people, as well as records from the police department the public hospital, the morgue and the courts.’ Read the book and then listen to Slate’s audio book club discussion => HERE [disclaimer: I’m not entirely sure whether all the photos above are of Annawadi but I believe that the woman brushing her hair is Asha.] Katherine Boo spent almost four years with the residents of Annawadi, a slum near Mumbai airport. The result is the gripping and deeply affecting Behind the Beautiful Forevers. ANNAWADI SAT TWO hundred yards off the Sahar Airport Road, a stretch where new India collided with old India and made new India late. Chauffeurs in SUVs honked furiously at the bicycle delivery boys peeling off from a slum chicken shop, each carrying a rack of three hundred eggs. Annawadi itself was nothing special, in the context of the slums of Mumbai. Every house was off-kilter, so less off-kilter looked like straight. Sewage and sickness looked like life. The slum had been settled in 1991 by a band of laborers trucked in from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu to repair a runway at the international airport. When the runway work was complete, they decided to stay near the airport and its tantalizing construction possibilities. In an area with little unclaimed space, a sodden, snake-filled bit of brushland across the street from the international terminal seemed the least-bad place to live.  From the author’s note: The events recounted in the preceding pages are real, as are all the names. From the day in November 2007 that I walked into Annawadi and met Asha and Manju until March 2011, when I completed my reporting, I documented the experiences of residents with written notes, video recordings, audiotapes and photographs […]I also used more than three thousand public records, many of them obtained after years of petitioning government agencies under India’s landmark Right to Information Act.  […] They validated, in detail, many aspects of the story told in these pages.  […] I witnessed many of the events described in this book. I reported other events shortly after they occurred, using interviews and documents. For instance, the account of the hours leading to Fatima Shaikh’s self-immolation, and its immediate aftermath, derives from repeated interviews of 168 people, as well as records from the police department the public hospital, the morgue and the courts.’ Read the book and then listen to Slate’s audio book club discussion => HERE [disclaimer: I’m not entirely sure whether all the photos above are of Annawadi but I believe that the woman brushing her hair is Asha.] Katherine Boo spent almost four years with the residents of Annawadi, a slum near Mumbai airport. The result is the gripping and deeply affecting Behind the Beautiful Forevers. ANNAWADI SAT TWO hundred yards off the Sahar Airport Road, a stretch where new India collided with old India and made new India late. Chauffeurs in SUVs honked furiously at the bicycle delivery boys peeling off from a slum chicken shop, each carrying a rack of three hundred eggs. Annawadi itself was nothing special, in the context of the slums of Mumbai. Every house was off-kilter, so less off-kilter looked like straight. Sewage and sickness looked like life. The slum had been settled in 1991 by a band of laborers trucked in from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu to repair a runway at the international airport. When the runway work was complete, they decided to stay near the airport and its tantalizing construction possibilities. In an area with little unclaimed space, a sodden, snake-filled bit of brushland across the street from the international terminal seemed the least-bad place to live.  From the author’s note: The events recounted in the preceding pages are real, as are all the names. From the day in November 2007 that I walked into Annawadi and met Asha and Manju until March 2011, when I completed my reporting, I documented the experiences of residents with written notes, video recordings, audiotapes and photographs […]I also used more than three thousand public records, many of them obtained after years of petitioning government agencies under India’s landmark Right to Information Act.  […] They validated, in detail, many aspects of the story told in these pages.  […] I witnessed many of the events described in this book. I reported other events shortly after they occurred, using interviews and documents. For instance, the account of the hours leading to Fatima Shaikh’s self-immolation, and its immediate aftermath, derives from repeated interviews of 168 people, as well as records from the police department the public hospital, the morgue and the courts.’ Read the book and then listen to Slate’s audio book club discussion => HERE [disclaimer: I’m not entirely sure whether all the photos above are of Annawadi but I believe that the woman brushing her hair is Asha.] Katherine Boo spent almost four years with the residents of Annawadi, a slum near Mumbai airport. The result is the gripping and deeply affecting Behind the Beautiful Forevers. ANNAWADI SAT TWO hundred yards off the Sahar Airport Road, a stretch where new India collided with old India and made new India late. Chauffeurs in SUVs honked furiously at the bicycle delivery boys peeling off from a slum chicken shop, each carrying a rack of three hundred eggs. Annawadi itself was nothing special, in the context of the slums of Mumbai. Every house was off-kilter, so less off-kilter looked like straight. Sewage and sickness looked like life. The slum had been settled in 1991 by a band of laborers trucked in from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu to repair a runway at the international airport. When the runway work was complete, they decided to stay near the airport and its tantalizing construction possibilities. In an area with little unclaimed space, a sodden, snake-filled bit of brushland across the street from the international terminal seemed the least-bad place to live.  From the author’s note: The events recounted in the preceding pages are real, as are all the names. From the day in November 2007 that I walked into Annawadi and met Asha and Manju until March 2011, when I completed my reporting, I documented the experiences of residents with written notes, video recordings, audiotapes and photographs […]I also used more than three thousand public records, many of them obtained after years of petitioning government agencies under India’s landmark Right to Information Act.  […] They validated, in detail, many aspects of the story told in these pages.  […] I witnessed many of the events described in this book. I reported other events shortly after they occurred, using interviews and documents. For instance, the account of the hours leading to Fatima Shaikh’s self-immolation, and its immediate aftermath, derives from repeated interviews of 168 people, as well as records from the police department the public hospital, the morgue and the courts.’ Read the book and then listen to Slate’s audio book club discussion => HERE [disclaimer: I’m not entirely sure whether all the photos above are of Annawadi but I believe that the woman brushing her hair is Asha.] Katherine Boo spent almost four years with the residents of Annawadi, a slum near Mumbai airport. The result is the gripping and deeply affecting Behind the Beautiful Forevers. ANNAWADI SAT TWO hundred yards off the Sahar Airport Road, a stretch where new India collided with old India and made new India late. Chauffeurs in SUVs honked furiously at the bicycle delivery boys peeling off from a slum chicken shop, each carrying a rack of three hundred eggs. Annawadi itself was nothing special, in the context of the slums of Mumbai. Every house was off-kilter, so less off-kilter looked like straight. Sewage and sickness looked like life. The slum had been settled in 1991 by a band of laborers trucked in from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu to repair a runway at the international airport. When the runway work was complete, they decided to stay near the airport and its tantalizing construction possibilities. In an area with little unclaimed space, a sodden, snake-filled bit of brushland across the street from the international terminal seemed the least-bad place to live.  From the author’s note: The events recounted in the preceding pages are real, as are all the names. From the day in November 2007 that I walked into Annawadi and met Asha and Manju until March 2011, when I completed my reporting, I documented the experiences of residents with written notes, video recordings, audiotapes and photographs […]I also used more than three thousand public records, many of them obtained after years of petitioning government agencies under India’s landmark Right to Information Act.  […] They validated, in detail, many aspects of the story told in these pages.  […] I witnessed many of the events described in this book. I reported other events shortly after they occurred, using interviews and documents. For instance, the account of the hours leading to Fatima Shaikh’s self-immolation, and its immediate aftermath, derives from repeated interviews of 168 people, as well as records from the police department the public hospital, the morgue and the courts.’ Read the book and then listen to Slate’s audio book club discussion => HERE [disclaimer: I’m not entirely sure whether all the photos above are of Annawadi but I believe that the woman brushing her hair is Asha.] Katherine Boo spent almost four years with the residents of Annawadi, a slum near Mumbai airport. The result is the gripping and deeply affecting Behind the Beautiful Forevers. ANNAWADI SAT TWO hundred yards off the Sahar Airport Road, a stretch where new India collided with old India and made new India late. Chauffeurs in SUVs honked furiously at the bicycle delivery boys peeling off from a slum chicken shop, each carrying a rack of three hundred eggs. Annawadi itself was nothing special, in the context of the slums of Mumbai. Every house was off-kilter, so less off-kilter looked like straight. Sewage and sickness looked like life. The slum had been settled in 1991 by a band of laborers trucked in from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu to repair a runway at the international airport. When the runway work was complete, they decided to stay near the airport and its tantalizing construction possibilities. In an area with little unclaimed space, a sodden, snake-filled bit of brushland across the street from the international terminal seemed the least-bad place to live.  From the author’s note: The events recounted in the preceding pages are real, as are all the names. From the day in November 2007 that I walked into Annawadi and met Asha and Manju until March 2011, when I completed my reporting, I documented the experiences of residents with written notes, video recordings, audiotapes and photographs […]I also used more than three thousand public records, many of them obtained after years of petitioning government agencies under India’s landmark Right to Information Act.  […] They validated, in detail, many aspects of the story told in these pages.  […] I witnessed many of the events described in this book. I reported other events shortly after they occurred, using interviews and documents. For instance, the account of the hours leading to Fatima Shaikh’s self-immolation, and its immediate aftermath, derives from repeated interviews of 168 people, as well as records from the police department the public hospital, the morgue and the courts.’ Read the book and then listen to Slate’s audio book club discussion => HERE [disclaimer: I’m not entirely sure whether all the photos above are of Annawadi but I believe that the woman brushing her hair is Asha.] Katherine Boo spent almost four years with the residents of Annawadi, a slum near Mumbai airport. The result is the gripping and deeply affecting Behind the Beautiful Forevers. ANNAWADI SAT TWO hundred yards off the Sahar Airport Road, a stretch where new India collided with old India and made new India late. Chauffeurs in SUVs honked furiously at the bicycle delivery boys peeling off from a slum chicken shop, each carrying a rack of three hundred eggs. Annawadi itself was nothing special, in the context of the slums of Mumbai. Every house was off-kilter, so less off-kilter looked like straight. Sewage and sickness looked like life. The slum had been settled in 1991 by a band of laborers trucked in from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu to repair a runway at the international airport. When the runway work was complete, they decided to stay near the airport and its tantalizing construction possibilities. In an area with little unclaimed space, a sodden, snake-filled bit of brushland across the street from the international terminal seemed the least-bad place to live.  From the author’s note: The events recounted in the preceding pages are real, as are all the names. From the day in November 2007 that I walked into Annawadi and met Asha and Manju until March 2011, when I completed my reporting, I documented the experiences of residents with written notes, video recordings, audiotapes and photographs […]I also used more than three thousand public records, many of them obtained after years of petitioning government agencies under India’s landmark Right to Information Act.  […] They validated, in detail, many aspects of the story told in these pages.  […] I witnessed many of the events described in this book. I reported other events shortly after they occurred, using interviews and documents. For instance, the account of the hours leading to Fatima Shaikh’s self-immolation, and its immediate aftermath, derives from repeated interviews of 168 people, as well as records from the police department the public hospital, the morgue and the courts.’ Read the book and then listen to Slate’s audio book club discussion => HERE [disclaimer: I’m not entirely sure whether all the photos above are of Annawadi but I believe that the woman brushing her hair is Asha.]

    Katherine Boo spent almost four years with the residents of Annawadi, a slum near Mumbai airport. The result is the gripping and deeply affecting Behind the Beautiful Forevers.

    ANNAWADI SAT TWO hundred yards off the Sahar Airport Road, a stretch where new India collided with old India and made new India late. Chauffeurs in SUVs honked furiously at the bicycle delivery boys peeling off from a slum chicken shop, each carrying a rack of three hundred eggs. Annawadi itself was nothing special, in the context of the slums of Mumbai. Every house was off-kilter, so less off-kilter looked like straight. Sewage and sickness looked like life. The slum had been settled in 1991 by a band of laborers trucked in from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu to repair a runway at the international airport. When the runway work was complete, they decided to stay near the airport and its tantalizing construction possibilities. In an area with little unclaimed space, a sodden, snake-filled bit of brushland across the street from the international terminal seemed the least-bad place to live. 

    From the author’s note:

    The events recounted in the preceding pages are real, as are all the names. From the day in November 2007 that I walked into Annawadi and met Asha and Manju until March 2011, when I completed my reporting, I documented the experiences of residents with written notes, video recordings, audiotapes and photographs […]I also used more than three thousand public records, many of them obtained after years of petitioning government agencies under India’s landmark Right to Information Act.  […] They validated, in detail, many aspects of the story told in these pages.  […] I witnessed many of the events described in this book. I reported other events shortly after they occurred, using interviews and documents. For instance, the account of the hours leading to Fatima Shaikh’s self-immolation, and its immediate aftermath, derives from repeated interviews of 168 people, as well as records from the police department the public hospital, the morgue and the courts.’

    Read the book and then listen to Slate’s audio book club discussion => HERE

    [disclaimer: I’m not entirely sure whether all the photos above are of Annawadi but I believe that the woman brushing her hair is Asha.]

    “

    A cliché about India holds that the loss of life matters less here than in other countries because of the Hindu faith in reincarnation, and because of the vast scale of the population. I’ve found that young people feel the loss of life acutely. To my mind, what appears to be indifference to other people’s suffering has little to do with reincarnation, nothing to do with being born brutish, and a great deal to do with conditions that can sabotage innate capacities for moral action.

    In places where government priorities and market imperatives create a world so capricious that to help a neighbor is to risk your ability to feed your family, and sometimes even your own liberty, the idea of the mutually supportive poor community is demolished. The poor blame one another for the choices of governments and markets, and we who have means are ready to blame the poor just as harshly.

    It is easy, from a safe distance, to overlook the fact that in undercities governed by corruption, where exhausted people vie on scant terrain for very little, it is blisteringly hard to be good. The astonishment is that some people are good, and that many people try to be—all those invisible individuals who every day find themselves faced with dilemmas not unlike the one Abdul confronted, stone slab in hand, one July afternoon when his life exploded.

    If the house is crooked and crumbling, and the land on which it sits is uneven, is it possible to make anything lie straight?

    Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo (excerpt from the author’s end note)
    “Just Drive” is a short and funny piece that Gary Shteyngart wrote for the New Yorker (issue dated 20 May) => HERE Many of the problems I’ve faced during the past forty years have revolved around coördination and spatial skills. I don’t know how close I should be to objects either moving or stationary. Get too close, and I might hurt them. Stay too far, and I will never know their love. Another thing I don’t understand is the difference between left and right, which, when I was a little boy, frustrated my father no end. Using a felt-tip pen, he drew on one hand the Russian letter “П,” which stood for pravo, or “right.” On my other hand, he drew the legend “ΛГ,” which stood for levoe govno, or “left shit.” (Perhaps he was also evoking his political philosophy.) I would march around, swinging my arms, saying to myself, in Russian, “Left shit, right; left shit, right.” Today, I would respectfully submit that my father’s pedagogical method was a failure. If placed in the cockpit of a car and told to “turn left,” I would instinctively say to myself, “Left shit,” but the wheel would find itself swinging right, leaving the car impaled atop a Fresh Peaches & Corn stand off Route 9G, young farmers screaming beneath my still spinning wheels. . . .

    “Just Drive” is a short and funny piece that Gary Shteyngart wrote for the New Yorker (issue dated 20 May) => HERE

    Many of the problems I’ve faced during the past forty years have revolved around coördination and spatial skills. I don’t know how close I should be to objects either moving or stationary. Get too close, and I might hurt them. Stay too far, and I will never know their love. Another thing I don’t understand is the difference between left and right, which, when I was a little boy, frustrated my father no end. Using a felt-tip pen, he drew on one hand the Russian letter “П,” which stood for pravo, or “right.” On my other hand, he drew the legend “ΛГ,” which stood for levoe govno, or “left shit.” (Perhaps he was also evoking his political philosophy.) I would march around, swinging my arms, saying to myself, in Russian, “Left shit, right; left shit, right.” Today, I would respectfully submit that my father’s pedagogical method was a failure. If placed in the cockpit of a car and told to “turn left,” I would instinctively say to myself, “Left shit,” but the wheel would find itself swinging right, leaving the car impaled atop a Fresh Peaches & Corn stand off Route 9G, young farmers screaming beneath my still spinning wheels. . . .