Behind the Beautiful Forevers

It's easy to forget this isn't a work of fiction and instead represents over 3 years the author spent in a Mumbai slum interviewing its residents. Unlike a typical journalistic novel, Boo disappears from the narrative and lets the people speak for themselves.

The slum dwellers live in the space nearby the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, walled off from it's clean terminals and opulent hotels by a large billboard for floor tiles that over and over promise to stay Beautiful Forever. They scavenge and live off the detritus travellers leave behind. When a spiteful, one-legged prostitute sets herself on fire and falsely accuses her neighbours, it sets in motion a series of events. Beyond notions of guilt or innocence, everyone sees it as an opportunity to line their pockets from the police to the neighbours. Despite their bottom rung status there is still jockeying for position and notions of hierarchy.