Review-Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

BEHIND THE BEAUTIFUL FOREVERS: LIFE, DEATH, AND HOPE IN A MUMBAI UNDERCITY

Katherine Boo

Random House,
February 12, 2012
$28.00, Hardcover
288 pp, 978-1400067558
Genre: Non-fiction




Sixteen year old Abdul is a collector of garbage, an astute teenager who makes a success of his trade. He deals and competes for small economic gains in the Annadawi slum. Located just beyond the financial capital of Mumbai, it is owned by the Airports Authority of India, yet travelers heading toward the international terminal are greeted by a concrete wall of sunny yellow. A corporate slogan weaves along the wall, “Beautiful Forever Beautiful Forever Beautiful Forever, yet the irony is what is just on the other side. 

Abdul’s younger brother Mirchi says it best: 

“Everything around us is roses, and we’re the shit in between.” 

Katherine Boo reports the uncomfortable truth that several families must endure in the Undercity. The three thousand residents belong to all castes and sub-castes, Muslims, Hindus and the untouchables. They live in 335 huts that sit atop a landscape of slushy waste, toxic debris, unimaginable combinations of obnoxious odors, offal and filth laden with disease. Despite the pervasive dangers and keen competition, Abdul has acquired more than most, and his family’s future appears to be on the rise, but will this trend continue?

Survival is key with the hope that one day life will be better. Abdul has a theory for prosperity that speaks more to the randomness of his fate.

 “It seemed to him fortunes derived not just from what people did, or how well they did it, but 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.” 


Katherine Boo details everyday life, the repulsiveness, squirmy truth and the desperation of those who live in the Mumbai Undercity.  She shares what she has witnessed in her book as she follows the lives of several families.   Imagine living in this environment, let alone having to pay rent to a slumlord who oversees the residents small space carved out amid the detritus. The author manages to show the sorrowful sadness that divides the squalor of slum against the economic gains India has acquired as part of our borderless global community.  She is sensitive and frank with objectivity, although I imagine her subjectivity was hard to curtail. Without hiding behind the airport wall of shining yellow, Katherine Boo reveals the inhumanity and suffering that the people endure and despite the odds, somehow survive. Katherine Boo has received meritorious praise and notable awards, which as readers will discover, are well deserved Thanks to the author for writing an unforgettable book. BEHIND THE BEAUTIFUL FOREVERS,  is a reflective book with global appeal, heartfelt and insightful with a promise to linger long after the end. 




DISCLOSURE: I PURCHASED THE KINDLE EDITION OF THIS BOOK.

© [Wisteria Leigh] and [Bookworm's Dinner], [2012].

TLC Blog Tour-Miss Timmins' School for Girls, Nayana Currimbhoy

MISS TIMMINS' SCHOOL FOR GIRLS

Nayana Currimbhoy

Harper Collins Publisher

9780061997747

$14.99

June 12, 2011

REVIEW BY WISTERIA

Mystery lovers will discover this debut author’s fine skill as a mystery writer edgy and dramatic, but it takes a tenacious reader to find out. This novel had a slow beginning for me that would benefit from some serious edits. There is too much time and emphasis on Charulata’s family life with little relationship to the plot.  The beginning is wordy and requires frequent reference for translations available in a glossary at the back of the book. However, having said that I still recommend Miss Timmins’ School for Girls
because it has a dynamic second half.

Fortunately midway the pace suddenly changes with an uplifting point of view change.  Through Nanadita’s voice the author’s skill morphs into an entirely different style, adding a new spark.  Like the promise of a sunny dawn it has brilliance, color and energy that emerges with the introduction of the “Rule Breakers Club”. 

There are so many seemingly unrelated and insignificant characters as the story begins. It is hard to sort out the many characters within the school, the staff, the students and family. Names, names, names. At times keeping everyone straight is confusing.I found it hard to get to know most of the characters where I could empathize with them. However, Nanadita was my favorite student. At first she challenges Charulata but becomes her advocate as circumstances unravel. 

It is fascinating how the author begins to superimpose a multi-layered map of everyones lives that merges into a complex novel of mystery and suspicion.  “The seemingly unrelated and insignificant characters” make sense. Doubt hovers like a fine fog that settles and won’t budge. Even when the story ends you will never be too sure.  A riddle that will leave the most ardent puzzle solver hanging makes Miss Timmins’ School for Girls a worthwhile read and notable debut.  

Publisher Synopsis and Press

A murder at a British boarding school in the hills of western India launches a young teacher on the journey of a lifetime

In 1974, three weeks before her twenty-first birthday, Charulata Apte arrives at Miss Timmins’ School for Girls in Panchgani. Shy, sheltered, and running from a scandal that disgraced her Brahmin family, Charu finds herself teaching Shakespeare to rich Indian girls in a boarding school still run like an outpost of the British Empire. In this small, foreign universe, Charu is drawn to the charismatic teacher Moira Prince, who introduces her to pot-smoking hippies, rock ‘n’ roll, and freedoms she never knew existed.

Then one monsoon night, a body is found at the bottom of a cliff, and the ordered worlds of school and town are thrown into chaos. When Charu is implicated in the murder—a case three intrepid schoolgirls take it upon themselves to solve—Charu’s real education begins. A love story and a murder mystery, Miss Timmins’ School for Girls is, ultimately, a coming-of-age tale set against the turbulence of the 1970s as it played out in one small corner of India.

About Nayana Currimbhoy

Nayana Currimbhoy was raised in India where she attended an all-girls boarding school in a fairly remote hill station. She moved to the U.S. in the early eighties, and has been a businesswoman and a freelance writer. She has written books, film scripts, and articles about many things, including architecture and design, and a biography of  India Gandhi. Miss Timmins School for Girls is her first novel. Nayana lives in New York City with her husband, an architect, and their teenage daughter.

 

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© [Wisteria Leigh] and [Bookworm's Dinner], [2008-2011].

The Toss of a Lemon-Review

The Toss of a Lemon
by Padma Viswanathan

Padma Viswanathan has written an impressive inspirational journey of a fictional Brahmin family that spans three generations. Be prepared however, for diminutive details that encompass 616 pages, as the author describes life in India from 1896 to1962.

The Toss of a Lemon is based on the stories told to her by her grandmother and re-created in the character of Sivakami. This woman is widowed at eighteen with two small children, thereafter, she is subjected to the strict rules governed by her caste. Unable to leave the house, unable to be touched from dawn to dusk, unable to remarry I can’t imagine how she feels at her age. Further, she must wear white and have her head shaved by an untouchable.

What a powerful woman she is. I love Sivakami because she is such a paradox as supplicant to her caste, yet defiantly disregarding caste rules in to raise her grandchildren. In a patriarchal society this takes strength, endurance and courage. She is a remarkable character. Padma’s grandmother must be pleased and proud that her stories have new life. If you enjoy a book with a strong heroine or love historical epics this would appeal to you.

I felt the subject of the caste system was a missed opportunity for more in depth teaching. There is an assumption at times that the reader has an above average understanding of Indian social and cultural life. This would be an ideal reading group novel with a study guide. Brilliantly written by a debut novelist with tremendous talent.