Behind The Beautiful Forevers By Katherine Boo

Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb is a moving, heart-warming tale about a young woman, who suffers from insecurity and self-identity through a world where she is considered an outsider. The novel’s protagonist is Lilly Abdal, born to British vagabonds as she is left in the hands of the Great Sufi Abdal, who raises her to become a white, devout Muslim woman in East Morocco. The author seamlessly weaves in Dr. Aziz, an Ethiopian man who creates sparks in Lilly’s heart, only to be separated once Lilly’s embarks to London, England. Camilla Gibb takes the tale of an outcast, spun with religious beliefs and morals, to create a powerful story that challenges and uplights the reader’s mentality on religion and what it means to follow religious and cultural traditions.

She uses the description of slum children and their lives throughout the novel to manipulate the reader's emotions. The authors choice of language and diction supports her main rhetorical message that the children in Annawadi have been forced to live a life that no child should ever have to live. Boo’s appeal to pathos can be found throughout the novel. The author states that “Abdul had seen a young boy’s hand cut clean off when he was putting plastic into one of the shredders. The boy’s eyes had filled with tears but he hadn’t screamed. Instead he’d stood there with his blood-spurting stump, his ability to earn a living ended, and started apologizing to the owner of the plant.” (Boo. 65) The author gets the reader to visualize and picture

Behind the Beautiful Forever by Katherine Boo is about citizens trying to survive in Annawadi one of India’s largest 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.

Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers is a non-fiction book. Boo got to know the people there during the course of three years in India, and she wrote about the daily stresses and problems. The book describes a long story of life, death, and hope. It takes place near an international airport in a Mumbai undercity that is separated from the normal world by the “beautiful forever” wall. Boo describes how every resident of Annawadi in Mumbai is involved in the strife of day-to-day living and how each has plans to improve their situation. Annawadi is a society that subsists on the leftovers and castoffs from the affluent, and a society where corruption runs rampant. Boo has shown us how our lives and the people’s lives in Mumbai are different.

Katherine Boo gave a brief recount of her visit to Annawadi and her remarkable discoveries and experiences in the slums of Mumbai. Her speech featured a slide show presentation of pictures taken in a slum settlement called Annawadi. Her vivid commentary of each successive image described some of the characters on which her novel, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, was based. Boo explained how each of the people in the slide show influenced her decision to write the book and that the purpose of her novel was to paint a better picture of life in an industrialized Mumbai. She explained that her mission was to actually travel and stay in one of the slums to better understand and then authentically report how many of the underprivileged citizens

Personal Reflection Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo, a Pulitzer Prize winning US Journalist, telling the stories of the people of Annawadi. I liked this book because Boo spent four years in Annawadi (P-249), a slum near Mumbai airport to capture their stories, which is full of dreams, hope, aspiration, suicides, brutal murder and how they struggled to survive. I also liked how the author captured the economic disparity, poverty and humanity of the people of Annawadi. I am glad that someone in US has a reason, courage and motivation to bring the living conditions of three thousand people in three hundred huts to this world. I am fascinated when I realized Boo’s reason - “what it takes to get out of poverty in one of the richest

. This is a huge problem in todays society. Gender stereotypes are a set of expectations of what a girl or a boy should act and look like. While many people tend to stay in their respective stereotype, there are still many who objectify the stereotype and are usually judged for it. This has taken away the idea of being an individual.

In the poem "True Love" by Sharon Olds, the author describes a couple who seems to be happy on the surface, but upon closer reading, the reader finds out that is not the case. Although the poem seems to be about a couple who is madly in love, the negative connotation throughout the lines leads the reader to believe that the woman feels trapped and bound in her relationship. The word "bound" can be found several times in the poem, and it definitely helps reveal the true meaning of this poem. The beginning of the poem describes a poem who has just finished making love. It is odd that in line three, the speaker states that they look at each other in "complete friendship".

Without a plot there would be no stories, plays, or movies. A plot is described as the events that make a story and or the main part of the story. These events relate to one another in a type of pattern or sequence. A good story relies heavily on the plot. Setting and characters are built around the plot. Also, theme is very important in literature. The underlying message of a story is the theme. The big idea of a story comes from the theme. Authors use theme to convey their thoughts and beliefs about life. A piece of writing will often have more than one theme. Finishing each week’s assigned reading, I started noticing many have important and powerful themes.

This battle between the likable, progressive character of Koly and her difficult, traditional mother- in-law causes unfair associations with India. The young women is so westernized as to become unfamiliar in her own land and Stewart assesses that “Koly seems to be the exception rather than the rule” (100). Stewart remains apprehensive about Whelan’s account of Koly and India because the author of Homeless Bird seems to prescribe to western attitudes that ultimately “establishes a platform for situating the other, the ones not like us” that effectively illustrates them as “abject and marginalized” (97). This is manifested in Stewart suggestion that Whelan succeeds in villainizing an entire country’s way of life that is (inaccurately) embodied in the unlikable mother-in-law, essentially becoming the contemptuous other (100).

Mrs. Asrani, one of the important character in the book, says, "If we can't all live in harmony in this building, what hope is there for the nation?" Her mood changes often between embracing the unique individuals who share her living quarters and shunning them for insecure and picayune reasons. The author manages to give everybody good and bad days and thus offer this three-floored microcosm of urban India an emotional resonance that many readers will happily relate to ---especially those who lives in urban areas. The ailing drunk Vishnu becomes more and more decrepit, he wanders from floor to floor revisiting moments of his life through delirious remembrances of loves and horrors. Though the neighbours are not always interested in sharing his memories with him, he moves from landing to landing as if descending into a private hell, taking their abuse or kindness in whatever amount they wish to hand it

Amber Holloway has to make her own way in the world. Hunter Webb has had every advantage in life, but has an artist’s soul. When Hunter comes to Amber’s aid outside the art building of their college, an immediate attraction sparks a new relationship. But their own personal struggles and the malicious intentions of others threaten to destroy them.

During the 20th century, after India’s history with civil war, the novel, “Nectar in a Sieve” by Kamala Markandaya, exposes India’s state of affairs while struggling with an impoverished population. Markandaya’s tale describes a southern village in India and a family’s struggle to survive. An old women, Rukmani examines her experience with Nathan, and her other children after having embarked their journey to persist in a corrupt society. Without legitimized direction within the country, Rukman’s family must endure the result of subsequent political complications and ethnic

Through close analysis of Monica Ali’s Brick Lane, one is able to see the various ways women are represented in literature, showing that both social and cultural views of its context, as well as the author’s own view are equally important in crafting an ingenious storyline. In this novel, Ali focuses on several Bengali women as they embark on a journey of self discovery. Ali portrays them as suppressed by their patriarchal culture, by their religion, as well as being resilient fighters against injustice. At times, Ali conforms to Bengali cultural views, however, at others, they are

The city of Mumbai has seen much growth in the past years. A string of hotels have been set up for travelers and high-class businessmen. An ever growing, top of the line airport has been built for those coming in and out of the country. From the outside, Mumbai seems to enjoy being internationally integrated with the rest of world, otherwise known as globalization. However, this is not the case as seen in Katherine Boo’s novel Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity. This novel is set in a slum right next to the Mumbai International Airport called Annawadi. It focuses mainly on the life and story of the main character, Abdul. Abdul Husain and his family make a living by selling scrap metal tossed out by the upper class of Mumbai. When looking at Abdul’s story, one can see the corruption that made it near impossible for globalization to have a positive effect on Annawadi. Abdul’s relationship with his neighbor, one-legged Fatima, also shows how neighborhood relationships were a barrier to Annawadi’s ability to be a part of Mumbai’s globalization.