I honestly don't know where to begin. It is such a thought-provoking work!
Spoiler alert - I will be talking directly about what the book made me think about. However, in this case, I feel that it might be overlooked, even if you haven't read it yet, since we are actually talking about a news report!
At first glance, "Behind the beautiful forevers" seems to be a fictional narrative about a slum, called Annawadi, that is situated very near a Mumbai airport. The story revolves around several families in Annawadi, and how they get by. The characters and events seem to be constructed to tell a particular story, however, it turns out that the whole work is an extended report by a journalist. Katherine is a journalist for "The New Yorker", and has spent her professional career by reporting from areas of extreme poverty. After she got married in India roughly some ten years ago, she took on herself the project of telling the story of an average Mumbai undercity. She spent three years in Annawadi (2008-2011), and all the names, events, motivations, psychology etc. are factual (to the extent the truth can even be ascertained in such a context - the author's note at the end of the book sheds some light on the subject).
The book is not an easy read - the morality of every character is at least what you would call "shady". There are no heroes here, and no victories - not for the people of Annawadi, not for the Indian middle class, and definitely not for the western charities trying to help the poor. The members of the Annawadi community are what we would easily call common criminals if they simply came out into the open with everything that they do to survive - however, some of them play extremely important roles in their community, and even help others out from purely noble motives. Corruption turns out to be a far more complex concept, as well as charity. The two keep intertwining so much that in the end the differences start to blur. In Annawadi, charity work can make the living conditions for everyone more miserable then ever, and obvious abuse of power can lead to improved health and actual happiness. Corruption also turns out to be the best (if not single) way out of poverty for the Annawadians. For the people of the undercity, abusing power is merely a business like any other. It exploits a resource to obtain some a profit. If the net gain is positive, then it is a good business. One of my favorite moments is when some non-government hippies come to Annawadi with a serious intention of suing one Annawadian for cruelty to animals - in particular, his own horses. Indeed, the horses are badly treated, but the whole affair is simply hilarious to everyone around, because of all the living beings in Annawadi, the horses in particular are probably doing better than anyone else. So the hippies, who would normally be praised for their noble cause, can't help seeming corrupt themselves - they are using their position of power to inflict actual damage where it is utterly uncalled for, especially as every single human being around them is actually starving (unlike the horses).
One amazing aspect of the book is that it gets up close to the actual people of Annawadi. It doesn't take more than a few pages to realize that the people in Annawadi are as unique as anyone else. All of them have their personalities, ideals, ambitions, prejudices, traits to be proud of, and traits to be ashamed of. There is no sugar-coating, though. The people of Annawadi don't look pretty, and neither does India as a society. Katherine allows herself a bit of romanticizing here and there (as can be seen in this actual quote by an Annawadi child):
"Everything around us is roses, and we're the shit in between."
The quote being in the context of the "overcity" of Mumbai flourishing literally at the expense of hundreds of millions of people in adequately named "undercities". Katherine made sure that the book is filled with resonating metaphor, which allows for a much more fulfilling read - otherwise it would really be just a cold news report.
The book poses very very interesting questions. In the simplest terms - you simply can't stop and reconsider your own economic situation, and that of people around you. Here in Serbia, most of us aren't even near the poverty line. We do feel poor, because we keep looking westward, but really, we are actually very well off. However, we will often, and very quickly, feel obliged to look down on the Romani gypsies who actually live in slums here in our very own vicinity. We don't only look down on them, we also accuse them for being an actual drain on our society. This is an obvious course, because we perceive them as filthy thieves, and not as actual complex people with their own motives, ideals and social backgrounds -which they actually are. It is actually very wrong to use words such as "liar" or "thief" to denote the same thing, when talking about different social contexts. And this is merely a direct and obvious takeaway from the book. There are also plentiful moral dilemmas, which every reader will take on individually, but also complex socio-economic questions such as "What is a good charity, and how should it operate?", "Is corruption inherent to human societies?", "Does Katherine help at all by her reporting, and if so, is that worth invading a society and abolishing privacy for multiple families?", "Why is economic inequality so prevalent, and what structures can be built to avoid it?"
I would highly recommend reading "Behind the beautiful forevers", whoever you are, and wherever you are. And, please, if you have any comments, ideas, or questions, leave them in the comments.
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