Behind The Beautiful Forevers Analysis

While reading Behind the Beautiful Forevers, I found the prologue to a bit confusing. The reader suddenly learns that the presumed main character, Abdul, is going into hiding while his father, Karam is going to offer himself to the police. I suppose the author was trying to set up direction of the story and then backtrack to the beginning where she would discuss the events that led up to the scene written in the prologue. It reads like one of those news magazine television shows, such as 48 Hours, wherein the show starts off with the attention grabbing main event in order to grab the audience and keep them interested. Such a format would be in line for Ms. Boo since she is a journalist by trade.

After a long period of time, she was finally able to gain the citizens’ trust and they started to open up to her, giving her a better sense of what life is really like in Annawadia. When Boo discovered that there was widespread corruption in the slums, lack of law enforcement and undocumented deaths, she began to dig through public resources to understand the corruption. In her book, she wrote about some of the specific events of corruption she witnessed firsthand, but she also wanted to convey to her readers how the increase in poverty stricken areas all over the world (especially in developing countries) will likely promote corruption and mistreatment of those occupying slum settlements. As she went on and on about her fascinating experiences in Mumbai, she explained how her mindset changed and instead of just reporting on what life is really like in slums and for the impoverished, she wanted to write a book and give her audience a more story-like interpretation of her views from her experience in

The book Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo, addresses the corruption of a slum in India called Annawadi. Annawadi is a small, poor area in the shadows of luxurious hotels and an airport near Mumbai. The poor community struggles to make a living and hold on to a hope of one day reaching success since India is improving economically. As India is improving economically, Annawadi seems to stay the same because of the people who abuse their power and take money from the poor. People there are being held back by the unfairness that they will not be able to have a better life. Laws are not enforced in poor communities because it causes corruption in both the establishment and in the people.

Katherine Boo’s book, Behind The Beautiful Forevers, portrays the “new life” the people in India live as capitalism and globalism ventures into their lives. These two systems look to promise new and improved social opportunities for all classes, not just the wealthy. However, although this makes it seem like the government of India in the 21st century is progressing towards a more fairer society for all its citizens, the reality is, they are really not progressing at all. Of course, while capitalism and globalization initially gave all citizens, especially the lower classes, hope that more opportunities would be available to them, it seems it has prevaricated it all as these opportunities have been more transformative to the elite and privileged classes than it has for the poor.

While poverty continues to globally define people’s lives and morality, it is corruption that designates whether or not someone is able maintain their idealistic moral compass. In Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Boo explores the idea that corruption in society is what forces people to abandon their beliefs in attempts to survive their venal community. In Boo’s story, she describes the Indian slum called Annawadi where the primary source of business for the slum dwellers is to sort through and collect recyclable garbage that can be sold to recycling companies. Boo describes the character Sunil, a young boy who scavenges through garbage to provide for his sister, Sunita, and himself, however, Sunil does not want to be a scavenger

In Katherine Boo’s novel Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity we are thrown into a slum in Mumbai, Annawadi and are shown that corruption is an undeniable difficulty that the Annawadians face in their everyday lives. “For every two people in Annawadi inching up, there was one in a catastrophic plunge” (24) the people of Annawadi are in such a state because of all the corruption. As soon as they get ahead there’s someone there to remind them where they belong, living their lives barely scraping by in the slums. The corruption in Mumbai has become the status quo, denying citizens of even their basic rights making everyday life a difficulty.

I believe that the community of India is hopeless. I believe this because by comparing their community to ours, there isn’t really much hope for recovery in their present situation. The poverty in India is different from the poverty in the United States. Between India and the U.S., homes, revenue, and jobs are drastically different. In the U.S., homes are bigger and are built by organization who help those who live in poverty. Those who are homeless are presented with food stamps as a way of currency so they can survive. Also for those who live in poverty in the U.S. are presented with more jobs and more opportunities than the people of India. These differences show how even though both India and the United States have similar economic difficulties, one almost has no hope of return.

According to Most of the communities in India (such as Bengali), are succumbed in 'Culture of Poverty'(a theory introduced by an American anthropologist Oscar Lewis), irrespective of class or economic strata, lives in pavement or apartment. Nobody is at all ashamed of the deep-rooted corruption, decaying general quality of life, worst Politico-administrative system, weak mother language, continuous absorption of common space (mental as well as physical, both). On the other hand looking at the corruption within the UK is much less in fact not much corruption as there are many laws and law enforcement that prevents the level of corruption within the UK

Behind the Beautiful Forever by Katherine Boo is about citizens trying to survive in Annawadi one of India’s biggest slums of 2008. Their slum is built on land that belongs to Mumbai airport. All of the citizens living in this slum face many struggles in their day to day lives that they must overcome to survive. In this book the Muslim Husian family’s struggles are described, they are the minority in the slum surrounded by Hindus. One family member, Abdul, is the oldest boy who helps the family with money by collecting garbage. Other boys bring Abdul different garbage they find and he weighs it, and decides what products are worth reselling to the big recycling center.

Corruption can do many things. It can lead to unstable lifestyles, pollute minds and bring on the downfall of just about anything or anyone. One of the best examples would be from the story, Dorian gray by Oscar Wilde. This story showed a young Dorian living his innocent life, only to be surrounded and influenced by the corrupt society around him and would ultimately lead to his demise. It is not easy to define corruption as a whole. But to narrow it down, corruption is mainly associated with bribery and it takes many forms. Corruption has been a part of human society since the earliest times. Fraud, embezzlement, theft, bribes are all great examples. Corruption has progressively increased and is now just about everywhere in our society, the evil nature of it will only lead to failure and collapse.

Corruption can be defined as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. It can be classified as grand, petty and political, depending on the amounts of money lost and the sector where it occurs.” Bribery, extortion and embezzlement are the three principle versions of corruption. For instance, an employee of a firm who is in charge of purchasing functions takes some amount of money from a supplier (bribery), in which that same employee ensures the payment for the products to be above the usual price. Then the residuary amount between the actual price and the turgid price after bribery would get siphoned off by the employee and the supplier (embezzlement). If it’s the case of political corruption, an exemplifying scenario can be, some government officials use their positions to extort payments from some government regulated firms. Expectably, economic corruption impairs development and political corruption depraves prospering governance. Unfortunately, both of these types of corruption continuously persist all around the world .

To begin with, corruption can be pinpointed in the city with people leaving the small towns only to be taken advantage of and economically hurt due to the social inequality which is rampant in the city. Next we can see that fear is also a corruption force as it forces Kumalo’s son and other blacks to resort the stealing and murdering in order to survive. Lastly was can see that Alan Paton attempts to alleviate the idea of corruption by giving hope to the readers. This hope is portrayed through Jarvis’s grandson who attempts to help the village and give them resources to better their lives. Throughout the story, the concept of corruption played a vital role in how the characters developed and acted on their

Political corruption is parasitic; it finds a host, and can almost always find a way to survive. Eventually, people grow dependent on this corruption as a means for income, thus forming a symbiosis between the people who benefit from it, and the elites that regulate it. People sometimes ignore the corruption surrounding them, feeling that as long as the politicians do their jobs well, their ‘extra salary’ can’t hurt (BNS).

Through the analysis of the different aspects of corruption at different levels of society, it can be argued that the differential treatment of women and their lack of empowerment (2) is the cause of the greater effect that corrupt systems have on women (1).

Corruption in India is a consequence of the nexus between Bureaucracy, politics and criminals. India is now no longer considered a soft state. It has now become a consideration state where everything can be had for a consideration. Today, the number of ministers with an honest image can