by Madeline Cook (IAC)
In Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, the women of the 2015-16 Women’s Leadership Program were introduced to the slums in India, otherwise generally unfamiliar territory. When assigned as the required summer reading, the book entered the consciousness of the 83 women, delving into Katherine Boo’s journalistic documentation of an impoverished slum swallowed by corruption in India.
In her October 1, 2015 conversation with the WLP women, we began to understand the intense motivation and investment within Boo’s emotional novel. She revealed to us a deep passion for the people who inhabit the lowly huts crowded in the slum. Boo shared her compassion for populations in poverty all over the globe, emphasizing that “injustices must be challenged” and accountability must be held.
Boo told us she began writing her novel after abruptly arriving in the middle of the Annawadi slum, equipped with a translator and prepared to immerse herself completely in the local population. The slum exists in painful contrast to Mumbai’s multi-million dollar Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport and the five star hotels that surround it.
Explaining a desperate situation, Boo told a story of public officials extorting families earning less than 5 USD daily for sums much larger than that. Another, of people in Annawadi dying from tuberculosis, a disease cured decades ago. Yet, Boo stressed the hope for a better life that exists in every young Annawadi’s heart, and how they need the ability to realize their dreams.
After her talk, an excited question and answer round ensued. Boo told us of the current hopeful situations of those she wrote about. She educated us on her own journey as an investigative journalist, and passed advice onto us as humanitarians. And finally, Boo gently handed each of us the responsibility to make a positive impact on the world, just as she has.
This weekly symposium was also covered by the GW Hatchet.