Behind The Beautiful Forevers Analysis
Corruption in the Beautiful Forevers
Katherine Boo’s “Behind the Beautiful Forevers” takes place in Annawadi, a small slum near the airport in Mumbai, India. The story focuses on the Husain family, who makes their living selling recycled garbage. Sadly, even in this small slum, the population is inundated with corruption on every level. Corruption is so common that many of the inhabitants in Annawadi view it as a necessity to improve their way of life so they strive to be corrupt.
Asha Waghekar, a kindergarten teacher, set her sights on becoming the new slumlord of Annawadi. She doesn’t want to be a garbage sorter; she wants to raise her status by running the slums. She willingly takes on the problems of her neighbors, but only if she will gain a financial benefit. She refuses to help anyone if they cannot afford to pay her. She works at keeping the slum under control in hopes that one day she will obtain her dream job of becoming the Corporator of Ward 76. Asha convinces her hard working daughter to lie and say they are teaching the children when in reality they don’t unless supervised. She concocts a scheme and claims she’s been running multiple schools and receives $10,000 even though she hasn’t been …show more content…
Abdul Husain, in particular, is a guiding light in such a dark time and corrupt community. Even though corruption is rampart and it would be so much easier to just follow suit, Abdul sticks to his beliefs and lives his life with his morals intact. He does not have an easy life, and it doesn’t keep him out of trouble, but at least he has a reason to be proud. This is a very heart-wrenching look at a community forced to be a slum and the horrors that they have to deal with every day. However, there is a strong theme of staying true to a moral path no matter what the rest of the world does. It might not always be the easy path, but it is the most respected
Katherine Boo’s “Behind the Beautiful Forevers” takes place in Annawadi, a small slum near the airport in Mumbai, India. The story focuses on the Husain family, who makes their living selling recycled garbage. Sadly, even in this small slum, the population is inundated with corruption on every level. Corruption is so common that many of the inhabitants in Annawadi view it as a necessity to improve their way of life so they strive to be corrupt.
Asha Waghekar, a kindergarten teacher, set her sights on becoming the new slumlord of Annawadi. She doesn’t want to be a garbage sorter; she wants to raise her status by running the slums. She willingly takes on the problems of her neighbors, but only if she will gain a financial benefit. She refuses to help anyone if they cannot afford to pay her. She works at keeping the slum under control in hopes that one day she will obtain her dream job of becoming the Corporator of Ward 76. Asha convinces her hard working daughter to lie and say they are teaching the children when in reality they don’t unless supervised. She concocts a scheme and claims she’s been running multiple schools and receives $10,000 even though she hasn’t been …show more content…
Abdul Husain, in particular, is a guiding light in such a dark time and corrupt community. Even though corruption is rampart and it would be so much easier to just follow suit, Abdul sticks to his beliefs and lives his life with his morals intact. He does not have an easy life, and it doesn’t keep him out of trouble, but at least he has a reason to be proud. This is a very heart-wrenching look at a community forced to be a slum and the horrors that they have to deal with every day. However, there is a strong theme of staying true to a moral path no matter what the rest of the world does. It might not always be the easy path, but it is the most respected