35 pages • 1 hour read
Behind the Beautiful Forevers
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Themes
Every Person for Themselves
Annawadi is a place where “fortunes derived not just from what people did, or how well they did it, but also from the accidents and catastrophes they dodged. A decent life was the train that hadn’t hit you, the slumlord you hadn’t offended, the malaria you hadn’t caught” (xx). When confronted with so much strife and misfortune, it’s difficult to consider anything beyond survival. It’s also difficult to extend kindness to others when you’re struggling through the same oppressive circumstances and when you have so little yourself. In Annawadi, where most of the residents “earn to eat” and live in poverty, everyone must look out for themselves.
For example, Sunil steals the sandals off his drunken father’s feet for food—although this later earns him a beating. And then there is Asha, the ultimate self-serving example in the book. She aspires to be the slumlord of Annawadi not because she cares anything about her fellow neighbors but because she believes this will give her influence. One of the cruelest instances of her selfishness is when she turns down Mr. Kamble’s pleas for assistance with a government loan because he does not have enough to pay her for her help. He later dies because he does not receive this loan and cannot afford heart valve surgery—all because Asha could not profit off the situation.
The Husains are a stark contrast to this theme, as they do seem to look out for each other—all 11 members of their family—on a daily basis. By combining resources and working for the common good of their family, they achieve relative prosperity in Annawadi. The Husains also present a rare example of virtue in the slums, apparent through Zehrunisa’s refusal to participate in the rampant corruption and Abdul’s general morality, as well as his resolve to become even more diligent and honorable.
However moral and upstanding the Husains are in their character, even they are concerned with their well-being first and foremost, as is clear when Zehrunisa evicts a family when they cannot afford to pay rent. Although this leaves the family homeless, Zehrunisa asserts that her own family’s financial security must come first. In Annawadi, where selfishness is a survival mechanism, kindness and compassion almost always comes at a price.
Things Are Not as They Appear
Behind the wall that announces a “Beautiful Forever” exists a slum with a sewage lake and residents who barely survive day to day. Annawadi is surrounded by wealth, but this wall obscures the slum from view. As Mumbai gains more international recognition and becomes more developed, the disparity between this modernized “overcity” and the impoverished “undercity” grows ever wider. Mumbai’s apparent wealth suggests prevalent prosperity while disguising the extreme poverty just next door. This wall is only the first sign that things are not as they appear in Mumbai and Annawadi more specifically; other examples include the horses of Robert Pires, two of which are painted with zebra stripes and rented out to children for their birthday parties.
Money seems to be pouring in to charities, such as the orphanage and nonprofit ventures like Asha’s string of fake kindergartens, but in truth this money rarely reaches the people it is intended for. Even when school is held on a regular basis, the expectations are very low. Manju will graduate college not having read any books; instead, she memorizes plot summaries. For most of the schools and nonprofits (and the children’s prison at Dongri), any good work that actually occurs is enacted without oversight or supervision. Manju’s little hut-school alone seems to accomplish something—although the most she teaches the students are a few English words that will quickly evaporate from their vocabularies.
As is noted in Chapter 7, despite the hardship that plagues Annawadi, beyond its borders life in Mumbai continues as normal. The implication is that the city is ignorant of the daily struggles in the slum, and this ignorance acts as a veil between the two Mumbais. If those in the overcity cannot see the struggle, then it does not exist. The system writes murders off as health failures and encourages outrage over animal abuse while downplaying the humanitarian crisis. Despite all the modernization and economic progress that Mumbai has experienced in recent decades, the problems of pervasive poverty, inequality, and corruption still persist. The book’s ending gives little hope this dynamic will change, as the government plans to bulldoze Annawadi to make way for further modernization, opting to erase and displace rather than acknowledge and reform.
Corruption Exists at All Levels
Corruption is accepted as a necessity of life in Annawadi, and it exists from the top down. The Corporator himself won office under false circumstances, and his corruption trickles down to everyone who works for him, including Asha. The police are corrupt, as they are paid to keep scavengers away from Airport Road, where they may upset tourists, yet are willing to look the other way for a cut of the profits. The police also take bribes to make cases go away or to stop the beatings of inmates. Charity organizations like the orphanage take donations of food and clothing and sell them to fund other things. Zehrunisa runs into all levels of corruption as she tries to navigate the legal system for.
In fact, for Annawadians, corruption is means of survival and accruing status and power. In the Western hemisphere, “and among some in the Indian elite, this word, corruption, had purely negative connotations […] But for the poor of a country where corruption thieved a great deal of opportunity, corruption was one of the genuine opportunities that remained” (28). The message seems to be that if you can’t beat the system, join it or exploit it.
Asha is especially adept at playing this game. She employs various corrupt schemes, from extortion to trading sex for influence to money laundering, to acquire power and improve her circumstances. If Asha exemplifies how individuals pursue corruption to achieve prosperity, then Zehrunisa demonstrates how individuals are crushed under the weight of it. After her husband and son are falsely imprisoned for burning Fatima, she encounters corruption from all sides in the form of bribes to fix her family’s situation for a fee. Believing that the truth will prevail, Zehrunisa struggles to fend off these bribes while trying to navigate the legal system for her family.
While the text examines how shrewd and enterprising individuals can work within this system, it mostly indicts the rampant corruption that forces individuals into depravity just to survive. It also questions the fairness of a justice system in which favors or freedom can be sold to the highest bidder.
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