Behind the Beautiful Forevers

The Prologue places the reader firmly in the middle of the action, on July 17, 2008, in a slum near the airport in Mumbai, India’s largest city. Abdul Husain, a 16-year-old garbage sorter, is hiding from the police. He and his father are accused of burning the one-legged woman, their neighbor.

As Abdul hides in his 120-square-foot garbage shed, the reader gets an overview of Annawadi, the slum where “three thousand people had packed into, or on top of, 335 huts” (xi). Animals such as goats, pigs, and water buffalo run wild; the scent of open sewage is in the air. For years, the One Leg (as she is referred to in Annawadi) and her family were separated from the 11 Husains, one of the few Muslim families in the slum, by only a sheet. As the Husains’ circumstances improved, this sheet eventually became a stack of bricks.

Abdul, the oldest Husain boy, has elevated his family’s circumstances by becoming a trader, selling garbage recycled from the wealthy areas surrounding the airport. His father, Karam, suffers from tuberculosis and cannot work. His mother, Zehrunisa, is an overbearing presence, often helping Abdul negotiate with traders. Some of the younger children are in school, but it is Abdul who supports the family, which makes it all the more serious that Abdul has been blamed for