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《Behind the Beautiful Forevers》是一本由Katherine Boo著作，Random House出版的Hardcover图书，本书定价：USD 27.00，页数：256，特精心从网络上整理的一些读者的读后感，希望对大家能有帮助。

《Behind the Beautiful Forevers》读后感(一)：贫困与反抗

作者反反复复询问这样一个问题，为何穷人不反抗，为何不公平的社会不会坍塌？ why the poor don’t rise up, and why unequal societies don’t simply implode

作者的答案：贫民窟的居民具有deep, idiosyncratic intelligence这样的优秀品质，但是他们太穷了，每日为生活所迫，以至于无法团结起来反抗社会不公。

《Behind the Beautiful Forevers》读后感(二)：哪怕像狗一样卑贱的人，也有他自己的生活

在孟买的国际机场对面，有一堵墙，墙上写的是意大利瓷砖的广告词：beautiful forever，beautiful forever。。。而在这座墙和光鲜的广告背后，是巨大的平民窟。这里混杂着来自印度各地，不同种族宗教信仰的人们。几乎所有的人没有固定的工作，仅仅靠拾机场周边的垃圾为生。过着悲惨又无奈的生活。

作为世界上最大民主国家的印度，社会发展不平衡。存在的很严重的问题。这本书可看作印度社会最底层的一个缩影。而书中不同人物的遭遇，是现实的样本。

尽管作为印度最大城市和经济中心的孟买的经济高速发展，但并没有给贫民窟的居民带来任何实质的好处。贫穷，疾病，缺乏饮用水，糟糕的卫生条件和居住条件。。。更糟糕的是来自政府官员和警察的欺压凌辱。腐败夺走了政府和慈善机构的救济。没有人在乎他们的存在。

在这里，人们是多么的脆弱。也许是和邻居争吵这样的小事都会毁了一个家庭的生计。也正因为生活本已很糟糕了，一点点小事情都会让人轻易的放弃不值得可惜的生命。因为生存空间的狭小和资源的有限，在这里，人与人之间的关系，利益是首要的，而不是道义。向上爬的过程中难免会踩到其他人。

可是卑微的他们也有自己生活和希望。也许只是渴望有份体面的工作，或者得到一点点尊重和认可。他们中的有些人甚至有时候觉得自己与众不同。但这些希望在冷酷的现实面前是那么的无助,不管你多么的努力。不希望住在铁皮棚里的结果，往往是最终睡到了大街上。

读这本书的过程中反复问自己，为什么他们能够忍受如此悲惨的生活？同时也佩服他们活下来和继续生活的勇气。希望微乎其微但并不是没有。结尾处，拆迁的工作已经逐步的进行，等待他们的，又将会是怎么样的命运呢？

《Behind the Beautiful Forevers》读后感(三)：美好永远只是口号

Katherine Boo是普利策奖得主。我买这本书一是因为它纽约时报2012年推荐的年度最佳之一，二是因为题材。我对写得好的非虚构一直有兴趣，而且自从2007年的短暂印度行以来，我对印度一直保持一种有距离的好奇心。不过读这本书的过程很拖拉，总算把它结束了！

oo的文笔很漂亮，和何伟一样，赋予非虚构作品很强的文学性。她写这本书很辛苦，从2007年到2011年都在孟买机场旁边一个叫Annawadi的贫民窟里做深入调查，其间还经历了08年的那次著名恐怖袭击——说起来，那也是我离恐怖活动最近的一次。恐怖袭击的第二天，本来我该飞去孟买做展会的，而且展会就在被袭击的泰姬酒店里。恐怖袭击发生的时候，我同事已经在戴高乐机场准备要登机，临时被喊回去。

这本书可真是本悲惨之书。贫民窟里的贫民，不但每天为生计辛苦奔波，忍受着极端恶劣的生活环境，还要应付无处不在的暴力与腐败。这本书里提到的印度社会的腐败程度，真是触目惊心。你在中国呆着已经觉得很不爽了吧，去印度试试看：书中写到的贫民窟里一家人因为和邻居发生争执，邻居点火自焚了，从此他们一家陷入深深的困境。一家里好几个成员都被邻居的丈夫起诉了，在应付诉讼的每一个环节，他们都被勒索：有点权势宣称能出头帮他们平息事端的邻居、作假证的邻居、警察、公诉人……所有人都抓住所有的机会要从每一道可能的缝隙里捞钱。本来你以为一个密集的社区虽然贫穷，但人们有可能互相扶持，可其实并不是，他们有限的气力仅仅能顾着自己与家人，稍微境况好一点还要应付眼红的邻居，摆脱贫穷如此艰难，有些人就处心积虑踩着比自己更穷的人往上爬。贫穷真的只能滋生罪恶，整体上大家互相拽着一起下落。Boo甚至认为，因为穷人们的内耗，维持了社会脆弱的平衡。

oo在这本书里不试图深入讨论任何问题或者给出任何解决之道，她给自己的责任是呈现。所以，这本书里详尽叙述的，是一些小人物的命运——当然和大时代密不可分，是现实的折射和缩影。但不知道是不是叙述角度的问题，这种呈现真的颇让人绝望，让人充满无力感，也不太能深刻理解滋生问题的真正土壤是什么。诚然小人物们并不是没有希望（有些是真的没有，所以选择了自杀），他们尝试各种可能性，希望生活变得更好一点，这种期许一直都在。可是整个大环境是这么问题丛生，出路这么少。副标题里说到Life, Death & Hope，可是希望这部分真是很勉强。Boo自己也说，在贫民窟采访期间，孩子们给她的触动最大，他们最无所畏惧，最真诚，可是长大以后，他们也难免变成父母那样对在街上被车撞了流血到死的流浪汉视而不见的人。阅读时最大的盘踞不去的问题是，一个号称民主的国家，为什么腐败程度比集权国家还有过之而无不及？这真的是个在上升的社会吗？代价是不是牺牲了所有这些最底层的人？

总之这本书太虐了，我要换换脑子读本愉快的书去……

《Behind the Beautiful Forevers》读后感(四)：面对崩溃的底层，我们该做些什么

对我来说，Kathrine Boo的Behind the Beautiful Forevers不是一本容易读的书，看完之后记下了五百多个不认识的单词，这大概是自从我十多年前考完六级之后最大规模的一次词汇扩充了。不愧是普利策奖得主，文笔果然了得，这几百个生词多半是一些形容词和副词，光是描绘恶臭肮脏的意思的词恐怕就不下十个。我不是自吹词汇量多大，但这许也说明，这本书描绘的，是一个偏离在主流视野之外的世界，因此不得不用到很多主流世界里也不常用的词汇。

我曾经去过孟买五次，有四次住在机场附近的Saki Naka地区，就是书中的Abdul Husain卖废品的地方，曾住在俯瞰贫民窟的假日酒店，远远望过楼下和山坡上那一片灰蓝灰蓝的棚户区。这种联系，让我一下子觉得和Abdul很近。

这个故事，看完之后真的是让人胸闷，有那么一群人在过着那样的生活，却几乎看不到任何改善的希望，维持现状都成了问题。这是一个崩溃的底层，人退化为了动物，为了生存，日复一日地在垃圾堆为了一个瓶子、一小块铁皮而争斗，手停下来，嘴就得停下来，没有任何多余的时间和精力去想想未来。而即使是这样悲惨无力的一群弱者，除了要面对来自同类的算计和争斗，还有一群贪婪冷血的腐败官员像秃鹫一样持续盘旋于头顶上方，随时准备抓住机会进行无情的掠夺。人的价值、尊严在这样的一个世界里退化到几乎微乎其微的地步。人性恶的一面被淋漓尽致地展现，而善的一面则像风中之烛一般飘摇。腐败无孔不入、无处不在，在Boo的笔下读来那么让人气愤和郁闷，然而在那些孟买贫民看来，这就是生活的本质，每天都存在，不会因任何人而改变，就像贫民窟里污浊脏乱的环境、限时供应的水一样，除了接受这样的现实，似乎没有别的选择。但腐败对这个社会的腐蚀是显而易见的，没有人相信勤劳致富，多劳多得。Abdul一家，如果是在另外一个不那么腐败的国家，也许就能够凭借自己的精明实干和勤俭节约，通过垃圾回收的小小生意一步步改进自己的处境，花上一代人的时间脱离贫民阶层。在书里，Abdul一家也曾经看到了这样的一丝希望。然而Fatima出于嫉妒的自焚，各色试图从中渔利的秃鹫和低效无能的司法系统彻底摧毁了Abdul一家的这一个小小梦想。到最后，遍体鳞伤，回到原点。而他们仍然在庆幸还没有被彻底摧毁，毕竟，人都还在。书中唯一显著改善了自己境遇的Asha，很明白自己要什么，也很清楚该怎么做去换她要的东西，她的原始动机也是改善自己和家人的生活，但她在这个追寻的过程中，抛开了道德和良知，成功把自己改造为一个新类型的“人”。如果一个社会中只有这样的“人”可以获得成功，那么这样的社会还有什么希望可言？在这样的社会中，人的价值轻如草芥，一个一个生命悄无声息地熄灭枯萎，不会激起一丝涟漪。

郁闷还有一个来源，就是不由自主地把印度和中国对比。而两个国家在道德沦丧和底层崩溃这个方面所展现出的惊人相似是很多国人都能够感同身受的。我们也许比印度拥有更加干净整洁的街道，更加高效率的政府。但我们同样有与恶势力的勾结构陷无辜的警察，有只知道收钱不管病人死活的医生，有伪造材料骗取政府资金的所谓慈善组织，有爱钱胜过爱学生的老师，有骗取为穷人建造的保障房的官员和商人。我们知道这些并不是偶尔发生的孤立事件，相反它们似乎正在这个社会中蔓延开来。这是让我们这个社会中弥漫的浮躁不安、缺乏信任的气氛的来源，而这种浮躁不安和缺乏信任反过来又助长了这些事件。于是，我们嗅到了一丝危险的气息，那是我们所共有的这个社会滑向崩溃的危险信号。

该怎么做？一个清明、廉洁和高效的政府难道会从天而降么？一个充满友善、信任、强者不凌弱、弱者不绝望的社会会自动到来么？当然不会。贫穷问题不可能依靠财富的重新分配来彻底解决，而要依靠创造自由、公平的发展环境，让每个人有机会依靠自己的能力和劳动创造并分享价值。印度是一个程序上的民主国家，然而这个国家的民主只是停留在形式上，主流的价值观和思维方式并没有发生相匹配的改变，中产阶级并没有建立起社会责任感，他们所控制的舆论也没有关注弱者的自觉。Annawadi第一次走进媒体的视野居然是因为动物保护主义者关心几匹马的生存状态，而没有人对近在咫尺的人道灾难有半点关心。公民社会（据说这个词现在是个禁忌，呜呼！）的建立，要靠相对有钱有闲的中产阶级的发起，要靠每个人对于公平正义的理念的信任和坚持。从言论自由和舆论监督开始，看住政府的腐败之手。中产阶级要关心底层社会的发展，否则，没有人能够安全地享受发展的成果。政府做不好底层的启蒙、教育和发展，那就由中产阶级组织起来自发地做，一点点改变。在还有人挨饿受冻的时候，奢谈猫狗的权利保护实在是一件很弱智的事情。在中国和印度的中产阶级现在还很弱小，但他们将是社会发展稳定的内核。

我们可以聊以自慰的是，在当下的中国，中产阶级似乎正在觉醒，越来越多的人，有意识地参与到让这个社会变得更好的各种事务中去。但是我们也要看到，我们的政府和执政党似乎还没有做好准备适应这样的形势。希望他们能早点想明白，否则，Boo笔下的Annawadi也许有一天也会出现在我们身边。

《Behind the Beautiful Forevers》读后感(五)：We live like in HAVEN

One review on Amazon.com said "It’s hard book to read, but I highly recommend it." At first sight I thought maybe the reviewer meant the difficult vocabulary, the vocabulary truly is difficult, for the author choose to depict slum life in India, which makes the vocabulary unknown to us(thus difficult) because we didn’t know much of slum life. But over half-way through this book, its context struck me so much that it overshadowed the difficult vocabulary.

As many readers describe the distressed slum life and corruption as "difficult to accept", "want to scream for them", I would not spare much space to write about slum life in this book. You can go read by yourself: the author is a newspaper person and had won Pulitzer Prize and had carried deep investigation into slum life for years. So I’m sure you can feel its powerfulness.

There is the boy who wanted a iPod not for entertainment but for it could drown out neighbors’ noises and allow him to hear only what he want. There was also another boy who felt closer to people when at places high above the ground because if on the ground people would consider him staring.

Mental health and physical health both fucked: Bad lungs were a toll you paid to live near progress. As the author puts it.

It goes against what Rousseau said:" When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich." They didn’t eat the rich. They eat the more miserable people. "At the heart of her bad nature, like many bad natures, was probably envy." This probably explains why poor people eat poorer people. "And at the heart of envy was possibly hope - that the good fortune of others might one day be hers." That’s probably why they are all so desperate, though things usually don’t move in their favor.

Asha, the slumlord, the one seeking betterment though she was already way better than the slum people, still tried as many schemes as possible. " But instead of admitting she was making little progress, she invents new definitions of success." I feel like Asha, ambitious and want to do great things, but now I wonder whether I can hold straight to my goal without losing conscience, which goes against my previous ultimate optimism that I will definitely reach my goal and still be myself. Please don’t put this wrong! It doesn’t mean I won’t work hard and stay firm as hard as before but under such pace of globalization and development and so many "washed away" people, are you sure you won’t be washed away？ The cruelty of society is not we, taking so many things for granted that the slum children dream of would ever imagine. So better to hold such mindset.

Hope the publication of this book would help increase the life quality of these slum people. Also hope for better social construction by those with conscience-comes-first.

《Behind the Beautiful Forevers》读后感(六)：伟大的努力、平庸的故事

最早知道Katherine Boo是七八年前读她在《纽约客》上写的The Marriage Cure，那已经是她得普利策奖之后了，顿时对其文笔欣赏之至，从此便想凡她所写之文必读，所以之后又读其The best job in town, The churning等关于印度的文章。但近年来没再关注她，也没听说她的近作，直到上月在Fresh Air听到她的访谈才知道，她从07年起便一直深入在孟买的一个贫民窟里，而今年这历时4年苦炼而出的书终于出版，于是马上在亚马逊买到。

花了两周才断断续续把书读完。文笔一如既往的好，这也是我读得慢的一个原因，想想好好学学。 但还有个原因就是，此书并不引人入胜，更谈不上扣人心弦，每次读都得费点力气才拿得起来。书中所讲的是孟买机场边上一个叫Annawadi的贫民窟里一帮人的生活。她为此书所下的功夫绝对是令人折服的。一个金发美国白人女子，深入到全球最艰苦的地方生活整整四年，做无数次访谈、查阅无数政府资料，终于把贫民窟里穷人生活中的艰苦、希望、挫折、斗争等、以及底层政治的腐败揭示于人。但是这种Narrative non-fiction相比于真正的小说来说，有个先天的缺点：它有时会缺乏完整的故事情节，而容易变成繁密的细节的堆砌。而我对贫民窟中那些吃喝拉撒的琐事并不是太关心，知道他们生活苦就可以了。

在此书中，Boo已经在尽力从生活琐事中发现出有起伏、有高潮的情节来，并以此来组织全书的材料（可以想像，她所搜集的原始素材要远远多于她所选择在书中讲述的）。此情节就是书中用来开头的The one leg被烧死的事件，并在总体上以此事件的发展为线索来组织叙事：在介绍人物之后，她重新回到这个叙事上，细讲此事之缘起、在警察局的发展、Abdul一家被、直到最后官司打完、审判结束；而其他人物的生活中的事件（比如Asha一家的事情和另外两个拾荒少年的故事）则作为支线穿插其中。

但即使如此苦心经营，此故事仍不足以撑起一个引人入胜的narrative来，毕竟此故事情节简单，基本没有起伏、悬念，最后也谈不上什么高潮，起码我是一直没能提起兴趣来追下去。相比起来，《蛇头》一书中所讲的萍姐的故事，则千头万绪、错综复杂、起伏跌宕、悬疑四起、而且从金色探险号触礁到萍姐被捕，高潮不断；同样是narrative non-fiction，但那里的narrative就真是连最好的小说家都未必想得出来了。而此书中的故事情节及其中之人物，显然没有足够的张力，撑起这么大一场戏来。另外有一个更有悬念的故事─贫民窟中多起有人被暴徒杀死之凶案，本是更好的叙事主干，但大概因为她也没有明确的答案，只好做个零星点缀。

除了故事情节的娱乐性之外，此书还应该对社会科学所思考的诸如关于社会不均、贫困、基层治理、市场化等话题能提供些见解。但在这一点上，此书也做得不够。首先，这当然是因为这不是本社会科学的专著，是在讲故事，不是在发议论。但即便是讲故事，如果有好的研究问题的话，也可以用所讲的故事来为那些问题提供答案。或许是因为我并不大了解这方面的文献，但起码我并没有发现太多可以帮助我解答问题的材料。对于我来说，最感兴趣的问题有两个：一是不同的政治体制对基层的政治运作的影响（这是印度对所有人提出的一个难题：为什么民主制度能在基层产生出如此顽固、普遍、而猖狂的腐败来？）；二是贫困社区里的社会关系到底是什么样子。这第二个问题，按她在后记中所说，也是她想解答的问题。对于这两个问题，从书中都而是可以找到思考的素材的，但不够集中、全面，起码我未从中获得什么新想法（这大概怪我）。

先说民主与腐败。印度的腐败跟中国的腐败看来还有本质不同。中国的腐败是在做事过程中的腐败，而印度政府则是完全不做事、只搞腐败：基层政府，尤其是针对贫困人群的基层政府，基本上已经没有什么服务性、管理性功能，而是完全在攫取、敲榨。中国农村三农问题严重的时候地方政府的攫取掠夺也很厉害，但攫取之资源，固然养肥了日益臃肿的官僚机构，但多少还是为地方提供了些服务的，这就是为何农业税废除之后，地方公共物品的供给反而倒退的原因。

这种腐败跟民主制度多少有些关系。因为政府从选举中获得了合法性，所以它完全不必再操心在政绩、服务、发展上做什么事情来巩固其合法性；而政党之间的竞争，理论上虽然可以通过为民服务来进行，并从而改善治理，但更实际的办法是通过patron-client ties, 通过小恩小惠的收买，通过为强势群体服务，通过竞选手段的操作来展开，这远比真正改善民生要容易。而基层政治的腐败又造成政府无能，进而使精英阶层失去对政治及公共服务的信赖与兴趣，并选择退出公共领域，依靠自身经济实力和市场来获得本来由政府提供的公共物品：比如在印度无处不在的私人的发电机、净水机、保安、私立学校、医院等等。这样一来，下层社会成了民主政治的主要参与者、却不是获利者，因为他们虽然投票，却无法掌握政治权力；而民主不仅没能遏制腐败，反倒使精英群体退出政治，使而职业的政客团体─或者说官僚阶级─能通过民主既获得国家权力与合法性，又可以不受约束地使用手中的公权力来压榨整个社会。这里表现的实际上是民主制度（更准确地说是通过投票选举领导人的制度）的一个先天的缺陷：获得选票与为投票者利益服务在很多情况下都是不相干的两回事。而在中国的现行制度下，不需要民众选票而获得政治权力的官员，有时候倒是还多少要为民众的利益服务一下的。

另外，印度民主所表现出的问题还跟贫困社会的生存方式─亦即上述之第二点─有很大关系。贫困社区在物质生活及人际关系上反倒可能是各阶层中最理性化的，因为他们必须理性地算计一点一滴，否则一不小心就没饭吃。这种理性化彻底到人际关系中已经没有道德约束或精神追求存在的空间。当两个拾荒者面对着一个可乐罐，谁捡不到谁今天可能就吃不饱，这时候是不大可能有温良恭俭让的，有的只会是丛林法则，弱肉强食。所以，印度贫民窟里的社会关系跟今天中国农村的amoral familism还不大一样，前者是因为利益斗争而摧毁了道德，后者是因为缺乏经济分工、社会整合，而使道德衰落。

在这种极端贫困的情况下，行为者是没有远见、没有计划的─这就是经济学上说的穷人显著的future discounting：远见和计划都没用，谁都保不准你能活到那一天。在这种行为逻辑下的选举政治，必然被clientelism和小恩小惠所主导：谁能带来实惠，哪怕是蝇头小利，就投谁的票；地头蛇让我投谁我就投谁，因为得罪了地头蛇，吃不了兜着走，而得了地头蛇的宠，小恩小惠才能分着些。在这种理性的利益算计高过任何政治理念的情况下，政党之争不可能是政治纲领和治理能力的竞争。所以，我党的说教还是有一定道理：经济落后的情况下搞政治民主，适得其反。缅甸很快就要出大问题。

民主有很多可能的发展路径，如果开始得早了（比如在经济贫困的情况下），它将走上一条腐败与低能的道路，而日后想脱离此路要比从集权制度转型还难，因为变革的政治动力已经没有了、民众的斗争工具也没有了，有的只是一张无用的选票。当然，在印度这样的贫困社区中，真正有选票的也未必是多数。

oo在后记中总结到：the most underacknowledged effect of corruption ... is a contraction of our moral universe. 这个道德空间的缩减，的确是贫困社区中的大问题，但腐败是不是其根源却难说。我以为，说到底，根源还是贫困。贫困滋生腐败：只有腐败才能获得一点点逃离贫困的机会，如一直努力想做slumlord的Asha的作为。而在印度，腐败又借选举制度而繁衍，使下层民众无法脱离贫困。这时能起作用的只有是外来的力量，比如说有行政能力、有改革方略的政府，只不过在印度的选举制度下产生不出这样的政府和政治领袖。

总的来说，虽然不是最好读，但这仍是本极难得的好书。何时中国才能有新闻记者下这样的苦功夫，揭示一下社会底层的面貌。以前看过本赵铁林写的讲海南开放初期形形色色人物的纪实，他的材料也还不错，但思考和写作的水平跟Boo差得岂止十万八千里。这一点上不得不佩服美国好大学里的教育。当然，她能做到这些，也是因为社会富裕了，有《纽约客》和MacArthur基金会给出钱养她。

《Behind the Beautiful Forevers》读后感(七)：集体行动与NGO都到哪里去了？

转自 http://kafila.org/2012/04/08/review-behind-the-beautiful-forevers-by-katherine-boo/

y MITU SENGUPTA

In a remarkable book about slumdwellers in Mumbai, Katherine Boo brings to light an India of “profound and juxtaposed inequality” – a country where more than a decade of steady economic growth has delivered shamefully little to the poorest and most vulnerable. But though indeed a thoroughgoing and perceptive indictment of post-liberalization India, the book fits into a troubling narrative about the roots of India’s poverty and squandered economic potential.

This is a beautifully written book. Through tight but supple prose, Boo offers an unsettling account of life in Annawadi, a slum near Mumbai’s international airport. In Boo’s words, this “single, unexceptional slum” sits beside a “sewage lake” so polluted that pigs and dogs resting in its shallows have “bellies stained in blue.” It is hidden by a wall that sports an advertisement for elegant floor tiles (“Beautiful Forevers” – and hence the title). There are heartrending accounts of rat-filled garbage sheds, impoverished migrants forced to eat rats, a girl covered by worm-filled boils (from rat bites), and a “vibrant teenager,” who kills herself (by drinking rat poison) when she can no longer bear what life has to offer.

Though the book reads like fiction, it is not. As Boo explains, in the author’s note towards the end, everything is real, down to all the names. Boo’s inimitable novelesque work of non-fiction is the product of years of methodical observation and research, a journey that began ten years ago, when she “fell in love with an Indian man and gained a country” (the man in question is Sunil Khilnani, a well-known academic and author of The Idea of India). Boo has chronicled the lives of Annawadians, with photographs, video recordings, audiotapes, written notes and interviews, with several of the children pitching in, upon “mastering [Boo’s] Flip Video Camera.”

This intimate view of life in Annawadi is embedded within a larger concern, about the government’s role in “the distribution of opportunity in a fast-changing country.” In these uncertain times – an “ad hoc, temp-job, fiercely competitive age” – has the government made things better or worse？ In a bid to answer this question, Boo has consulted more than three thousand public records, obtained through the Right to Information Act, from government agencies such as the Mumbai police, the state public health department, public hospitals, the state and central education bureaucracies, electoral offices, city ward offices, morgues, and the courts.

The verdict, chilling in its details, is that there is a deep rot at the heart of the Indian state. The utter callousness of government officials is matched only by the utter vulnerability of the poor, who must daily navigate “the great web of corruption.” Police officers batter a child, aiming for his hands, the body part on which his tenuous livelihood depends. Doctors, at a government hospital, alter a burned woman’s records to absolve themselves of blame for her gruesome death. A school, meant for the poor, is closed as “soon as the leader of the nonprofit has taken enough photos of children studying to secure the government funds” (in contrast, a school funded by a Catholic charity, “takes it obligation to poor students more seriously”).

Unlike her husband, Sunil Khilnani, who reserves a measure of affection for the Nehruvian project of state-led development, Boo keeps none. In Boo’s rendering, the state is not only incompetent – failing to provide the basics of a decent life to vast numbers of citizens – it is wholly predatory. As people learn to survive the blows and betrayals of this rapacious state, their expectations as well as “innate capacities for moral action,” are altered. Boo tells us that in Mumbai, a “hive of hope and ambition,” there is no dearth of young people who believe in “New Indian miracles” – that they can go from “zero to hero fast.” In Annawadi, however, a series of encounters with greedy, ruthless government officials ensures that such dreams are crushed, even the modest one of “becoming something different.” A boy, wrongfully accused of murder, is reconciled that the Indian criminal justice is a “market like garbage,” where “innocence and guilt [can] be bought and sold like a kilo of polyutherane bags.” His mother, exhausted by her tussle with a “justice system so malign,” is one of the many adults who keep walking “as a bleeding waste-picker slowly dies on the roadside.”

If Boo’s aim is to shatter the smugness of those who still believe that India is “shining,” she succeeds (as she should). But in a country where corruption, poverty and inequality are the subjects of heated and continuous debate, what are the politics of this powerfully written and slickly produced book？ Where does it fit, in the larger conversation？ Surely, the question is a fair one of a book that makes such a strong claim to rigorously documenting the lives of the poor？

An evening with a family friend served up a clue. In the midst of complaining about the government’s flagging commitment to reforms and our waiter’s lazy ways, this friend, an ex IMF official based in Washington, delivered a rave review of Boo’s book. I was taken aback, as much as I would be if Mamata Didi suddenly declared a love of Prada shoes. I pushed him on why he had liked it. His answer, quite simply, was that it was beautifully written (which it is), and that he had learned a lot about Annawadi from the book. It was tempting to take these words at face value. It was perhaps wrong of me to expect purism. In the face of brilliant writing, surely even a doctrinaire IMFer could make peace with what the book makes obvious: that “trickle down” has not worked. Yet the incident opened a window to what I has sensed as troubling about the book, and my nagging discomfort with the near-unanimous praise it has elicited, especially for its its courage.

The truth is that it is no longer terribly risky to challenge the idea of a “shining” India. When my late father, Arjun Sengupta, released a report suggesting that 77 percent of Indians live on less than Rs. 20 a day, he was duly punished, albeit relatively mild Government of India style. The commission he chaired was not extended for a second term, his phone calls were not returned, and he spent the last months of his life distressed that his work was being ignored, even by the press. But the country’s mood has changed considerably since then. After more than three years of sagging growth, massive corruption, shrinking investment, and shockingly poor records on health and education, only a handful of ideologues will insist that India is still doing brilliantly (and my father’s report – once dismissed by Mr. Chidambaram as a “myth” – is back in circulation, even within the government). For the garden variety neoliberal, the argument has shifted quite noticeably, from celebrating India’s “shining,” to cataloguing the causes of its all-too-palpable dulling. The lead story in a recent issue of The Economist, titled “How India is Losing its Magic,” is but one indicator.

In fact, the major disagreements today are not over whether something has gone wrong, but about why it has gone wrong. Of course, neoliberals have a ready diagnosis: “governance failures” are destroying the effects of sound economic policy and youthful, entrepreneurial drive. (The Economist makes this point with characteristic self-assurance. India is “losing its magic” because of “the country’s desperate politics,” and “the state, still huge and crazy after all these years.”) Examples abound of floundering government-funded social programs and botched anti-poverty schemes. Even corruption, now undeniable in its mammoth presence and disastrous effects, is seen as a vestige of the old state, a stubborn ancien regime that has refused to keep pace with the liberalizing economy. The attendant preｓｃｒｉｐｔions are to be easily deduced: scale back the state as much as possible, dismantle its unworkable social programs, and slap on an Ombudsman to keep wayward civil servants in line.

To be fair, Boo offers no “solutions.” A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist knows better than to swat the reader with an overt “message.” Yet with its exclusive preoccupation with government failure – Boo does not sift through the public records of international organizations or large corporations, after all – the book’s subtle alignment with the neoliberal narrative is unmistakable. For a globally feted work that does in fact offer a sensitive portrayal of the aspirations, disappointments, and “deep, idiosyncratic intelligences of the poor,” this is most worrying. Some of the most pressing struggles today, for the poor, and more importantly, by the poor, are to increase public funding for health and education, to universalize the reach of social security measures, and to expand the ambit of the legal system in order to secure recognition and entitlements from the state.

One can understand why Boo is eluded by this. Given her preoccupation with documenting “poor on poor crime” – the reasons why, in these competitive times, the poor work against each other and have little capacity for collective action – she overlooks the many empowering instances where they do successfully organize, and even win. One may argue, of course, that a single book (or film or documentary) can never do everything, and that the scale of responsibility of an individual author should always be viewed as limited. Yet I find it astonishing that in the 250-odd pages of this otherwise insightful book, there are no examples of sustainable and constructive political relationships, among the residents of Annawadi, or between the residents of Annawadi and the outside world. How odd, for this is Mumbai, a city famous for its vigorous housing rights movements, sex workers’ unions, and small vendors’ associations. For a “single, unexceptional slum,” Annawadi seems exceptional indeed.

This brings me to my final concern about the book. Boo’s work is part of a larger genre, of films and writings on the urban poor, that has exploded in popularity in the last decade. While the reasons for the proliferation of such works are many, the chief one, surely, is their relative ease of production. It is not difficult or expensive to obtain access to the poor. There are no razor-wired fences and gun-toting guards to contend with, and one need not bother with bribing maids or hacking laptops. In contrast, how much do we know about the bed-hopping, drug-snorting, verbally abusive ways of the rich？ And what do we know – Shobha De’s Socialite Evenings comes to mind – is not the stuff of assiduous videotaping, interviewing, and rummaging through public records, but of semi-autobiographical observations that can rarely lay much claim to authenticity. Aren’t the lives of the poor already an open story？ When does a work that scrutinizes the lives of the poor so unsparingly become exploitative？ And doesn’t the ease of access to the marginalized enlarge the author’s scale of responsibility, to leave absolutely no stone unturned？

Again, to be fair to Boo, her book is a cut above the standard fare on the subject. If turned into a film, it will most likely be superior to the heavy-handed Slumdog Millionaire, or even the more nuanced Salaam Bombay. There is a good deal to be learned from the book. “Ribby children with flies in their eyes” may never be seen in the same light again, and one may be pushed to care more about a waiter’s meager wages than whether he dished up our soup on time. These are certainly possibilities. But there is another one, not so laudable: that the neoliberal establishment will find substance, in Boo’s book, for their wider narrative of why the government can only ever fail, and why retracting the already-thin cover of publicly funded programs remains the best bet for getting India back on track.