In 2007, the New Yorker writer Katherine Boo started three
years of visits to the Annawadi slum in Mumbai, India, interviewing residents
in the small shantytown behind the city’s gleaming airport and near several
luxury hotels. Boo’s resulting book “Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death,
and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity”(Random House, $27, 288pp.), is a breathtaking
work of great reportage, full of lush images and nuanced characters.
Boo focuses on Abdul, a teenage garbage broker who supports
his family of 10, and introduces readers to Kalu, who braves the barbed wire of
the Mumbai airport to raid the recycling bins. Boo also explores the changes to
Asha, a woman from the impoverished countryside who becomes a small-time political
activist immersed in bribery and fraud.
The community of 3,000 is rocked by the suicide of the
one-legged Fatima, who Abdul is falsely accused of murdering. Abdul’s trip
through the Kafkaesque Indian court system allows Boo to examine how individual
initiative can easily be crushed by cruelty, corruption and indifference.
Boo, 47, splits her time between Mumbai and Washington,
D.C. She spoke with freelance writer
Dylan Foley by telephone from Portland, Oregon.
Q. How did you wind up finding the Annawadi slum?
A. As a point of principle, I don’t use fixers. I found
Annawadi on my own in November 2007. I went with a man who was monitoring a
micro-lending scheme in Annawadi. Asha was there.
Q. The center of the book becomes Abdul, who is falsely accused
of murder. How did you bond with him?
A. For months, I just watched him work, sorting garbage. His
father would be coughing in the hut, and his brothers and sisters would be
running around. He started telling me his views on the value of life.
Q. The book opens with a mesmerizing image of a terrified
Abdul hiding from the police in his rat-infested garbage storage area. How did
you create the vignette?
A. I was with Abdul before Fatima set herself on fire. I had
videotapes of where the garbage was stored. I reported from Abdul’s
perspective, from that of a small Nepalese boy (a witness) and I had police documents.
I reported from Fatima’s hut, as well as the hospital.
Q. Asha goes from being a no-show schoolteacher to becoming
a semi-ruthless powerbroker in the slum. How did she evolve for you?
A. Asha comes from a region in India that is the shorthand
for hardship and poverty. Her husband is a drunk and she’s got three children.
He always seemed to be passed out. She could have gotten a job in a factory, but
she’s smart as hell. The local corrupt politician was able to notice her
intelligence and uses it. I am not trying to sentimentalize her, but over the
course of the book, I hope the readers will understand the choices she’s made.
Q. Despite the poverty and fist-to-mouth existences of most
of the people in Annawadi, you present a balanced portrait. The street children
have witty commentaries on the wealthy people in the nearby hotels and women
dress their best for festivals. Why was this so important?
A. That’s part of the problem with how poverty is written
about. We think that people will only care about the poor if they are sitting
around, sad-faced and miserable. I wrote about this moment when there was a
break in the rain and the kids took a busted inner-tube and started playing
ring toss with the flagpole. It was mayhem and joy.
Q. Did you ever feel the need to intervene when you
witnessed violence?
A. There were certain incidents when I did intervene. I am
not physically strong, but I’d use my video camera and start yelling. There was
an incident where men were evicting a widow, pulling her out by her hair and
throwing her possessions in the sewage lake. I created a distraction.
