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Summary Of Behind The Beautiful Forevers By Katherine Boo

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Out of Sight, Out of Mind
In a city less fortunate than the average in North America, the daily struggle to rise above poverty is perplexing. In the non-fiction book written by Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Boo describes in great detail of what living in Mumbai’s slum, Annawadi, entails. Many of Annawadi’s people are just trying to earn enough money to eat what little they can buy. Others focus more on gaining power and image to benefit one’s self, while a portion of the citizens try to escape the wrath of a corrupt government. Behind the Beautiful Forevers displays that being a citizen in Annawadi has a range of difficulties from being ineffectual, power hungry, to corruption.
Mumbai’s degraded Government causes there to be …show more content…

Asha Waghekar, One of the book’s main characters, is a mother of three and a wife to a drunk. Waghekar strives to become the unofficial slumlord of Annawadi and is willing to pay the cost in doing so. As she works for the corrupt Corporator, Subhas Sawant, Waghekar learns the Corporator’s ways in doing things and stops doing affairs from the heart “Before Asha had learned better, she had performed many such kindnesses for free” (Boo 21). The potency of money persuaded Waghekar to stop assisting individuals in need. Waghekar is a part of a government scheme to make more citizens appear in the slum and causes people to come up with fake businesses to obtain money. One of Waghekar’s friends asks for a fixed loan, as he needs money to save his life. Waghekar in regards of making money proposed, “to come back with a better financial proposal” (Boo 26). Even Waghekar’s daughter, Manju, is disappointed in her mother for turning away a family friend with a failing heart. Neighbors turning on each other to have dominance over the other causes jealousy in which people will not help each other in times of need. As Waghekar does things to gain popularity, another goes through the wretched government’s

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