[...]... though Twelve of the herd of twenty-two had died, and the survivors were in intestinal distress The brothelkeeper blamed black magic on the part of the Tamils who ran the local liquor still Others suspected the goats’ drinking source, the sewage lake Late at night, the contractors modernizing the airport dumped things in the lake Annawadians also dumped things there: most recently, the decomposing carcasses... next to the station A food stall at the taxi stand served the drivers who awaited arrivals Most of the drivers qua ed their plastic cups of tea, ate their samosas, and dropped their trash where they stood This choice territory belonged to other scavengers, but Sunil noticed that not all of the drivers behaved the same Some of the taximen tossed their cups and bottles over a low stone wall behind the food... stand On the other side of the wall, seventy feet down, was the Mithi River— actually, a concrete sluice where the river had been redirected as the airport enlarged The drivers probably liked to imagine their garbage hitting the water and oating away, but Sunil had climbed the wall and discovered a narrow ledge on the other side, ve feet down By some trick of wind in the sluice, trash tossed over the wall... drivers passed before turning into the international terminal Drivers approaching the terminal from the other direction would see only a concrete wall covered with sunshine-yellow advertisements The ads were for Italianate oor tiles, and the corporate slogan ran the wall’s length: BEAUTIFUL FOREVER BEAUTIFUL FOREVER BEAUTIFUL FOREVER Sunil regularly walked atop the Beautiful Forever wall, surveying... for the market or the public toilet The One Leg’s crutches seemed to be too short, because when she walked, her butt stuck out—did some switchy thing that made people laugh The lipstick provided further hilarity She draws on that face just to squat at the shit-hole? Some days the lips were orange, other days purple-red, as if she’d climbed the jamun-fruit tree by the Hotel Leela and mouthed it clean The. .. something weird behind his teeth Across the city, gangs of young Maharashtrians had begun beating up migrants from the North—bhaiyas, as they were called—in hope of driving them out of the city and easing the scramble for jobs Though Abdul had been born in Mumbai, the fact that his father had come from the North quali ed the family as targets, and not abstractly Rioters chanting “Beat the bhaiyas!” were... beneath the labels Abdul didn’t ordinarily mind them nosing around, but these days they were fonts of liquid shit—a menace The goats belonged to a Muslim man who ran a brothel from his hut and considered his whores a pack of malingerers In an attempt to diversify, he had been raising the animals to sell for sacri ce at Eid, the festival marking the end of Ramadan The goats had proved as troublesome as the. .. the world, for that matter, he believed his own dreams properly aligned to his capacities The police were in Annawadi, coming across the maidan toward his home It had to be the police No slumdweller spoke as confidently as this Abdul’s family knew many of the o cers at the local station, just enough to fear them all When they learned that a family in the slum was making money, they visited every other... it was really her or just some other item girl, because if the manager sees you looking at the guests, he’ll fire you, take your whole pay—they told us that twenty times before the party started, like we were weak in the head You have to focus on the tables and the rug Then when you see a dirty plate or a napkin you have to snatch it and take it to the trash bin in the back Oh, that room was looking... talked The Annawadians’ deferential term for a rich man, sa’ab, was not the proper term in the city’s moneyed quarters, he reported to his friends The waiters say it makes you sound D-class—like a thug, a tapori,” he said The right word is sir.” “Sirrrrrrr,” someone said, rolling the r’s, then everyone started saying it, laughing The boys stood close together, though there was plenty of space in the . CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Boo, Katherine. Behind the beautiful forevers : life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity / Katherine Boo. p. cm. eISBN: 97 8-0 -6 7 9-6 439 5-1 1. Urban poor—India—Mumbai place, the maidan, to escape. But after the ght, and the burning of the woman called the One Leg, people had retreated to their huts. Now, among the feral pigs, water bualo, and the usual belly-down. provided further hilarity. She draws on that face just to squat at the shit-hole? Some days the lips were orange, other days purple-red, as if she’d climbed the jamun-fruit tree by the Hotel Leela