City Of Joy Sparknotes

For example, one of the slum’s young women, Manju is on track to become the first female graduate from Annawadi. Another can be seen in Abdul’s business of recycling and how it is helping improve his own economic conditions. Or through a number of the younger Annawadi kids going to these prop up free or “bridge” schools, despite them not being of the highest quality. While this may not seem to be rather huge events, or some may view them in isolation of each other, it at least demonstrates a slight trend of upward mobility and a subjective increase in quality of life for a number of Annawadi’s civilians. These smaller trends would perhaps distinguish Annawadi from India’s true poor citizens who were born in to poverty and have seen almost or perhaps no opportunity to escape the situation of which they were born in. This can be related back to the idea of development being a widening of peoples capabilities or opportunities, and that Annawadi may not be considered truly poor in comparison inside India due to a number of it’s people finding or having the smallest openings to exploit scenarios where they have been able to improve their life

Imagine living in a city where hundreds of people go missing in just six months. Then, we find out that one person is suspected of killing over 200 people. This serial killer was Herman Webster Mudgett, common alias H. H. Holmes. At the Chicago World’s Fair, when the head architect, Daniel Hudson Burnham, attracted thousands of people to Chicago, hundreds of people went missing and nobody noticed. However, through historical records, letters, and documents, we know that Burnham’s intentions were good. In Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City, Holmes and Burnham were polar opposites brought together by the Chicago World's Fair. Holmes represented evil while Burnham represented good. However, they did have two things in common, their negative perspective about women and their need for riches.

In the novel The Joy Luck Club written by Amy Tan, there are several stories that intertwine into one novel. Each of the stories takes place China where the roles and the actions of woman are vastly different compared to American tradition. In the different stories, they all are about different mothers and daughters. Throughout the book, the reader can see the development in each relationship between mother and daughter with their conflicting backgrounds from China to America.

While it may be easier to persuade yourself that Boo’s published stories are works of fiction, her writings of the slums that surround the luxury hotels of Mumbai’s airport are very, very real. Katherine Boo’s book “Behind the Beautiful Forevers – Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity” does not attempt to solve problems or be an expert on social policy; instead, Boo provides the reader with an objective window into the battles between extremities of wealth and poverty. “Behind the Beautiful Forevers,” then, exposes the paucity and corruption prevalent within India.

unfamiliar with the new world that has been placed around them. The novel S​old,​b​y Patricia McCormick, begins with a young girl named Lakshmi, living in a small village in Nepal with her mother, baby brother, and an unworthy step­father. Even though she is dreadfully poor, she is happy and lives a life of wonder and imagination with her best friend, but all too soon, everything changes when the monsoons destroy the family crops. The story continues with Lakshmi leaving to earn money to support her family and learning an unbelievable truth: she has been sold into prostitution. This novel taught me the importance of making sacrifices for loved ones and finding companions

Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums, predicts the direction in which the world’s cities are headed, and how the changes in living conditions are only going to deteriorate if certain trends continue. The title of his book explains Davis’s vision for the future of cities as he feels there is enough evidence pointing towards an exponential rise in slum populations across the world’s largest cities. Additionally, he expresses his opinion on many issues regarding the rapid rise in developing cities’ slum populations, although he offers very one-sided arguments geared towards those who feel the current system is causing more problems rather than improving current conditions. This causes Davis to overlook the problems of slums as resolvable through different modes of assistance such as international aid programs. Instead, he views aid programs as the root cause of imbalance created during industrialization. Throughout the book, Davis presents information that confirms his preconceptions towards the slums. Therefore, all the evidence that is presented by him portrays confirmation bias as Davis fails to mention anything about the resolution of the problem of the growing number of slums and instead sees this problem as unavoidable. Particularly, Davis’ writing, although intended for the general population, is more geared towards critics who have similar ideas. Instead of providing the means through which the economy could be improved and the problem of slums could be resolved, it is

As a first generation Indian-American, I am no stranger to being a part of a distinct community while observing two unique cultures. Traveling to India exposed me to a dynamic population with rich diversity comprising of numerous languages and differing religions. Though these individuals may have had differing customs from their neighbors, there were similar ambitions to conquer grinding poverty. This poverty can be clearly noticed by seeing citizens sleeping on floors of a railway station, or the lack of air conditioning in searing hot weather. The frailty and mortality of the human condition was starkly visible in India. As a fellow human, I was humbled not only by the lack of privilege and opportunity of many citizens, but also by their

Poverty and oppression is a serious condition that is prevalent even in today’s modern society. Women and children are exposed to poverty and subjected to a life of injustice. One of the countries where such problems still occur is in India. Despite the country’s modernization, there lies an undercity where the disparity of wealth is transparent. These social problems are thoroughly described in movies and literature such as Slumdog Millionaire and Behind the Beautiful Forevers. In the book Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Catherine Boo, the author describes slum life for a set of individuals and the hardship that their social conditions confined them to. Another movie that gave insight to slum life in India is Slumdog Millionaire

An intense portrayal of life at the extremes, Born into Brothels is a movie that challenges our perception of human resilience. The documentary takes place in Calcutta, India, home to one of the oldest populations and religious doctrines in the world. India is a country with an extraordinary history, yet suffers from massive overpopulation, environmental degradation, extreme poverty, and religious strife. (https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/in.html) Calcutta is the second largest city in India and one of the largest in the world, the square mileage of its metropolitan area measured at 228.5 sq mi. Within this unforgiving landscape is the red light district, a city within a city, known to openly display many of society's

In the book Behind the Beautiful Forevers, author Katherine Boo sheds light on the topic of corruption. Corruption is something that is seen everywhere, but varies in depth. She chooses to focus on India, because she is fascinated with how so many people are impoverished while others prosper. Boo is able to convey both the benefits and downfalls of corruption within a community by deciding to only focus on a sliver of people from a single slum. She chooses to focus on the citizens from a slum called Annawadi due to sense of possibility in the community. Boo decides to watch this community for several years to see who gets ahead, who doesn’t,

The city of Mumbai has seen much growth in the past years. A string of elegant hotels have been set up for travelers and high-class business men. 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 have taken a liking to being internationally integrated with the rest of world, otherwise known as globalization. This is not the case, however; 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

Hamida is the character that represents the people who yearn for a change. Often, she feels as though she is worth more than just living in the old alley – and she calls it a “Nothing Alley”(27) and asking herself “Oh what a shame Hamida, what are you doing living in this alley? (27)”. During World War II, many people in Midaq Alley go to work for the soldiers in the hope of earning more money and living in a more comfortable life. Hamida is one of those people who sacrifice themselves and everything that they have in an exchange for the wealthy life they always have dreamed of. Hamida is not a religious person and has a different perspective from the people in the alley because she sees a better life in the modern world. In the end, she decides to become a prostitute for pretty clothes and jewelries. She does not regret choosing this life as she is able to have an opportunity that gives her “desire for life and adventure (186)”.

The government also promises to the poor, better schools and hospitals. Balram’s father died because there was improper medical care in their home town, and the life expectancy in India is only 66.8 years. There are nearly 1,189,172,906 people in India and only 61% of the people living in India are literate. In New Delhi, though, the government does fulfill its promises to the rich. They live unaware and uncaring of the slums surrounding their middle class lives. The government makes promises of better livelihoods to its people that are never fulfilled; causing India’s poor to remain in the slums and the government to have little understanding of the problems poor people face.

It is no wonder that how advanced the world may be, there are still a number of human beings, who struggle a lot for their survival; These are the human beings, who are pushed to the margins for the reasons unknown to them, these are the human beings, who are denied a secured place in the world for the mistakes which are not committed by them. These are marginalized people and just like them, their history too is marginalized. Being neglected by the mainstream history, this marginalized history, sometimes has to transform itself and settle in fiction in order to come into light.

In previous community development research, Bhattacharyya (2004) finds that locality has been used as a proxy for community development. He argues that it is becoming analytically irrelevant