PDF Summary:Behind The Beautiful Forevers, by Katherine Boo
Book Summary: Learn the key points in minutes.
Below is a preview of the Shortform book summary of Behind The Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo. Read the full comprehensive summary at Shortform.
1-Page PDF Summary of Behind The Beautiful Forevers
Behind the Beautiful Forevers is a 2012 nonfiction account of the lives of residents of a slum in Mumbai called Annawadi, which sat adjacent to the Mumbai International Airport. U.S. author and journalist Katherine Boo follows the stories of a handful of the slum’s residents, including that of Abdul Husain, whose family’s fight with a neighbor changes the course of his life.
The poverty and hardship faced by the slum’s people reflect a globalized world—offering more wealth and supposedly more opportunity, but where many still struggle to survive day to day. The poor try to exploit one another to get ahead, and government officials and agencies exploit the poor, leaving them with little power and few resources.
(continued)...
Asha’s political work reflected part of a larger effort on the part of the Indian government to address issues in India like poverty and women’s empowerment. However, most of these problems, as well as big ones like corruption and exploitation, continued to go unaddressed. For example, when the government initiated a group in which women pooled their money to give each other loans in times of need, Asha devised a system where women would pool their money and give it to women outside of the collective at a high interest rate. But when the foreign press needed a tangible example of India’s progress, the government would often send them to Asha to show her projects.
Though Asha was supposed to be a teacher at an elementary school, she had her daughter, Manju, do the teaching instead so she could tend to her political obligations.
Manju: Different Aspirations
Thanks to her mother’s efforts, Manju was the only slum resident attending college. In addition to her college studies, she spent most of her time caring for her family home—gathering water, cooking, cleaning, and more. She also spent two hours per day teaching. The school itself was Annawadi’s only school, taught out of Asha and Manju’s home. It was funded through the Indian government with help from a Catholic charity. Many schools in Mumbai were funded by unscrupulous charities that worked to line the pockets of the wealthy rather than serve school children. But the charity funding Manju’s school was better than most.
Asha thought Manju should only teach on days that someone from the government visited to check in on the school, but Manju wanted to be a teacher when she finished college, and she took pride in her work. Covering all of her responsibilities while completing her studies left Manju only four hours of sleep most nights.
Part 2: The Husains’ Conflict With Fatima
One fateful week, Abdul’s family began renovations Zehrunisa wanted for their home. In the construction process, they upset Fatima, their next-door neighbor. How Fatima chose to retaliate ultimately led to her death and drastically disrupted the life of the Husain family.
Hut Renovations
Zehrunisa and Karam planned to make the family hut more liveable. Zehrunisa wanted to install Italian tiles like the ones advertised on the Beautiful Forever poster, as well as a new shelf near her cooking area.
Fatima’s Anger
The renovation work involved many noisy tasks. To prepare the hut for the ceramic tiles Zehrunisa wanted, some family members were working to break up the stone floor and level it. Abdul was working to install a cooking surface, but to do so, he needed to cut into the wall that separated their hut from Fatima’s, the one-legged neighbor. Fatima periodically called out from her hut to complain about how loud the work was.
As Abdul was trying to install the cooking surface, he accidentally bumped the brick wall the Husains’ hut shared with Fatima, knocking mortar dust into a pot of rice she was cooking.
Fatima was upset and went outside to confront the Husains about the work. Zehrunisa met her outside and they began shoving each other. Fatima said that they needed to stop doing the work on the wall or Zehrunisa’s family would pay for it, but Zehrunisa contended they had built the shared wall and had a right to do work on their own home.
Fatima went to the police to file a complaint, but they largely dismissed the incident as too minor a squabble for them to deal with. Zehrunisa went to the station later to tell her side of the story and ended up with police officers asking her for bribes.
Meanwhile, while Zehrunisa was at the police station, Kehkashan, her eldest daughter, confronted Fatima outside her hut. She was frustrated with Fatima for complaining to the police, which had led to her mother being harassed for money. Kehkashan threatened to tear Fatima’s other leg off. Fatima retorted by calling Kehkashan a whore, which brought Karam out of the Husains’ hut. He told Fatima that they planned to finish the work and would try to avoid each other after that. But a little while later, he grew angry that Zehrunisa was still being held at the police station and stormed over to Fatima’s hut, threatening to have Abdul beat her. Abdul wanted no part of it. Kehkashan intervened and calmed her father down.
Fatima’s Burning and Hospital Stay
Fatima was mentally unstable, and she wanted a way to get back at the Husains for their threats and the renovations. She barricaded herself in her house, poured kerosene on herself, and lit herself on fire. Some of her neighbors had to break down her door to rescue her. From her hospital bed, Fatima told police that Abdul, Karam, and Kehkashan had burned her.
Meanwhile, the police knew that Fatima had set herself on fire from having talked to her 8-year-old daughter who witnessed it firsthand. They sent a government worker to take an official account of Fatima’s story. In India, it’s a serious crime to commit suicide. Therefore, the government worker framed Fatima’s account by saying she had been driven to do this by the Husains.
Despite knowing that the Husains didn’t do it, the police, the government worker, and Asha saw the incident as an opportunity to extract money from the Husains by convincing them to pay to make the charges go away. Fatima soon died of her injuries.
Abdul and Karam in Police Custody
Karam was arrested for burning Fatima, and Abdul surrendered to the police after a night of hiding in his trash pile. While in police custody, Karam and Abdul faced frequent beatings from police. Their detention was not entered in police records, and they were kept in a room for unofficial police business. It had a small hole in the wall where visitors could talk to those inside and offer small gifts, like cigarettes. Zehrunisa visited regularly to update Abdul and Karam on the status of Fatima and the case.
Zehrunisa had already paid some money when she originally visited the police station to argue their case, but the police wanted even more in exchange for making the case go away. Meanwhile, Asha and the government worker who took Fatima’s official statement were also asking for money to make the case go away. Abdul realized the jail was being run like a business where innocence could be bought for the right price.
Kehkashan, Abdul, and Karam in Jail
Kehkashan was sent to a women’s jail, Karam to the Arthur Road jail, and Abdul to a juvenile detention facility. In India, without paying for jail bonds, the accused could be held for years before facing trial. Zehrunisa had trouble providing collateral to pay for jail bonds to get her three family members out.
At first, Abdul was going to be sent to the same adult jail as his father, but Zehrunisa paid a bribe to a local school to falsify a school record for Abdul, showing that he was 16. She didn’t know his age because families that were struggling to survive didn’t often keep those records.
Eventually, a judge ruled that Abdul wasn’t a flight risk and could live at home until his trial as long as he promised to check in with the jail three days per week.
Zehrunisa told Abdul that his trash business had collapsed in his absence. Abdul decided to restart his business, but he felt determined to walk a more virtuous path. This meant not buying stolen materials from the scavengers and being okay with the income he’d earn from running his business three fewer days per week to meet the jail’s check-in requirement.
Part 3: Marriages and Deaths
Annawadi’s residents attempted to make a living, secure marriages for their children, and find opportunities to climb the social ladder. Their motivation to do so sometimes stemmed from trying to escape worse circumstances in economically depressed rural areas. But sometimes, they couldn’t overcome their challenges and suffered violent deaths or suicide.
Asha and Manju: Rising Through the Ranks
Asha took Manju on a trip to her home region of Vidarbha, an agricultural area, to look for a husband for her daughter. Asha hoped to lift her family further out of poverty by marrying Manju to a decently wealthy family. While visiting Vidarbha, they found a soldier who was interested in marrying Manju; he met with Asha and Manju to discuss it.Though Asha had liked the man, and he was somewhat wealthy, her husband objected to the marriage because he believed army men tended to be heavy drinkers.
Manju hoped to marry someone who wouldn’t take her away from her life in Mumbai. When she and Asha returned to Annawadi, they spent some time trying to improve their appearances and build their social networks. Asha hoped this would expand Manju’s marriage prospects and prepare them to fit into high-class society.
Accidents and Suicides in Annawadi
Annawadi saw a number of deaths and suicides each year. Along Airport Road, it was common for trash pickers to get hit by cars. Passersby from the slum were often too busy with their own affairs to call the authorities for help, or they feared the authorities.
The local police, for their part, felt increasing pressure from the government to maintain a safe environment around the airport to bolster its image. Officially, only two murders were recorded in the area around the airport, from slums to hotels, over a two-year period. However, deaths were likely undercounted. The deaths of slum residents were largely regarded as a nuisance rather than a problem to fix.
Kalu’s Story
Kalu, one of the young trash pickers Abdul worked with, had come to Annawadi from another slum after his mother’s death. He’d become known for scavenging high-quality recyclables from the airport grounds, but he ran into trouble with the police for doing so—in the eyes of the law, he was trespassing on airport grounds and stealing the goods. The police made a deal with Kalu: He could continue scavenging if he acted as an informant on drug dealers operating around the airport.
Kalu agreed but lived in a constant state of stress. He feared both the police and the powerful drug dealers he ratted on. After leaving Annawadi and trying unsuccessfully to work in his family’s pipe fitting business, Kalu returned to Annawadi. But he was soon found dead on Airport Road. The police recovered the body and concluded that Kalu had died of tuberculosis, but not before some boys from Annawadi had looked at the body. They could see he had severe injuries and said he’d been murdered.
After Kalu’s death, the police rounded up five trash pickers living without shelter in Annawadi, held them, and beat them. To prevent more people from ending up dead along Airport Road—and tarnishing the airport’s image—they gave the trash pickers an ultimatum: Either stop picking trash along Airport Road and at the airport, or face being charged with murdering Kalu. The police didn’t tell the boys that they had already attributed Kalu’s death to tuberculosis in their official report.
Part 4: Recession and Trial
By 2008, the great recession had begun in the U.S. and started to affect the livelihoods of Annawadi residents in numerous ways. The court began the trial of Kehkashan and Karam, but it was a long process.
Global Recession Felt in Annawadi
The U.S. recession affected the local economy of Annawadi in complex ways, including reducing jobs and scrap metal prices. At first, the trash pickers thought things would pick up with the start of the tourist season, but after a series of terrorist attacks in Mumbai’s hotels, train stations, and taxis, they realized tourists would be too afraid to come, reducing the waste stream. Many slum residents had to start eating rats and frogs again, unable to afford enough food.
The Fate of the Husain Family
Karam and Kehkashan’s case was put on a fast track—their trial began after they had spent months in jail rather than years. If convicted, they faced 10 years in prison. Abdul would face a separate trial with separate charges.
Though the fast-track system shortened the waiting time for a trial, judges often heard dozens of trials at the same time, holding short hearings for each case each week. So the trials themselves still took months to finish.
Zehrunisa found a lawyer to argue Karam and Kehkashan’s case. Karam hoped they would be exonerated. However, he was concerned that the prosecution was planning to call many witnesses who hadn’t observed Fatima’s burning or the words Karam and Kehkeshan said to Fatima.
The government worker who’d taken Fatima’s statement in the hospital tried multiple times over the course of the trial to convince the Husains to pay her to help resolve the case. The first time, she threatened to embellish the details of the case, and the second time, she said that Fatima’s husband was willing to drop the case in exchange for about $4,000. However, because the case was being brought by the state, it couldn’t be called off for any amount of money. She hoped that the Husains wouldn’t realize this, but they saw through her scheme and refused once again to pay her off.
The Husains finally were found not guilty of burning Fatima. Abdul continued to check in at the juvenile prison, and his family feared that his case might drag on forever.
Abdul had resolved to live a more virtuous life. If most people were like water, he wanted to be like ice—made of the same substance, but elevated above others by how he lived. But as time dragged on, and his trial wasn’t scheduled, he became more disillusioned. He told Allah that he felt as though the ice inside him was melting, and he was becoming water, just like everyone else, because of how the world worked: No matter how much he tried to do the right thing and get ahead, he couldn’t.
Want to learn the rest of Behind The Beautiful Forevers in 21 minutes?
Unlock the full book summary of Behind The Beautiful Forevers by signing up for Shortform.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being 100% comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
- Cutting out the fluff: you don't spend your time wondering what the author's point is.
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
Here's a preview of the rest of Shortform's Behind The Beautiful Forevers PDF summary:
PDF Summary Part 1: The Residents of Annawadi
...
- An area with small, one-room huts, often with shared walls. It was built near a sewage lagoon fed by public toilets.
- Another area with poorer housing, built by Dalits, members of India’s untouchables caste.
- A road where there was no shelter and the poorest of the poor would sleep atop bags of trash they had picked to keep them from being stolen.
The slum’s sewage lagoon was filled with garbage and pollutants. Airport construction workers also dumped waste there in the middle of the night and one time, something in the lake dyed the bellies of animals that slept near its shores blue. Some people living in the slum made so little money that they had to supplement their diet by catching rats and frogs living near the lagoon, or eating the grass that grew at its edges.
People suffered air-pollution-related ailments, like asthma, as well as tuberculosis and other diseases.
In the Shadow of Wealth
A large concrete wall stood between the slum and main drive to the international terminal of the airport. On the wall, cheerful advertisements hawked luxury items to the “overcity,” or upper classes. One advertised Italian tiles, with the slogan, “Beautiful Forever,”...
PDF Summary Part 2: The Husains’ Conflict With Fatima
...
As Abdul was trying to install the cooking surface, he accidentally bumped the wall, knocking mortar dust into a pot of rice Fatima was cooking. Fatima was upset and went outside to confront the Husains. Zehrunisa met her outside and they began shoving each other. People gathered to watch as the women hurled insults at each other. Fatima demanded they stop doing the work on the wall or Zehrunisa’s family would pay for bothering her, but Zehrunisa contended the Husains had built the shared wall and had a right to do work on their own home. She also said that if they had waited for Fatima and her family to build a wall, both of their families would still be seeing each other naked. Abdul broke up the argument and took his mother by the neck back into the Husains’ hut.
Fatima went to the police to file a complaint, saying Zehrunisa had beaten her, but the police largely dismissed the incident as too minor a squabble for them to deal with. Zehrunisa went to the station later to tell her side of the story, and the police officers asked for bribes—technically, the Husains didn’t have a business license for their trash operation, but the police let them keep working in...
PDF Summary Part 3: Marriages and Deaths
...
Though Asha had liked the man, and he was somewhat wealthy, her husband objected to the marriage because he believed army men tended to be heavy drinkers. This was despite the fact that he himself, though not in the army, was a heavy drinker.
Manju hoped to marry someone who wouldn’t take her away from her life in Mumbai. When she and Asha returned to Annawadi, they spent some time trying to improve their appearances and building their social networks. Asha hoped that this would expand Manju’s marriage prospects and prepare them to fit into high-class society.
Their tactics included changing their appearance, including wearing jeans and saris outside of the house rather than house dresses. Manju also trained to become an insurance broker. Manju and Asha thought that these activities would help them network with people in higher classes and bring in more money to the family.
Continuing Education
Manju had continued to teach elementary school for two hours each day, but Asha finally insisted she scale back her hours. Even though Manju wanted to be a teacher after finishing college, her mother thought that teaching took time she could be using to widen her social...
What Our Readers Say
This is the best summary of Behind The Beautiful Forevers I've ever read. I learned all the main points in just 20 minutes.
Learn more about our summaries →PDF Summary Part 4: Recession and Trial
...
Once, Sunil was caught searching for metal and was beaten by a constable. He worried about being murdered like Kalu if he weren’t careful. One place he frequented for metals was an under-construction parking garage. He liked watching the people of higher classes coming to and from the airport from the roof of the garage. Though he used to think that he might surpass his current socioeconomic status and join a different class of people in Mumbai, he wasn’t so sure now.
Occasionally, he and Abdul talked about their quality of life. Both boys agreed that even if they had a bad life, there was still value in being alive. Abdul learned this when Zehrunisa beat him once: He realized that even if she continued to beat him every day, he would still have a life.
Sunil thought that if he, like Kalu, were to die, it wouldn’t matter to people in the higher classes in Mumbai. However, he thought that valuing his own life counted for something, even if others didn’t value it.
Political Motivation and Reform
The terrorist attacks had demonstrated that people in higher classes were just as vulnerable as anyone else to violence. For example, during the attacks, police officers...
Why are Shortform Summaries the Best?
We're the most efficient way to learn the most useful ideas from a book.
Cuts Out the Fluff
Ever feel a book rambles on, giving anecdotes that aren't useful? Often get frustrated by an author who doesn't get to the point?
We cut out the fluff, keeping only the most useful examples and ideas. We also re-organize books for clarity, putting the most important principles first, so you can learn faster.
Always Comprehensive
Other summaries give you just a highlight of some of the ideas in a book. We find these too vague to be satisfying.
At Shortform, we want to cover every point worth knowing in the book. Learn nuances, key examples, and critical details on how to apply the ideas.
3 Different Levels of Detail
You want different levels of detail at different times. That's why every book is summarized in three lengths:
1) Paragraph to get the gist
2) 1-page summary, to get the main takeaways
3) Full comprehensive summary and analysis, containing every useful point and example