June Book Lunch (behind beautiful forevers, Entry 3)

1 1/2 minute video of Annawadi, click here

Asha

Ladies,

My head is spinning.

Quite the crowd for June (10 of us), quite the enthusiasm for conversation, quite the food (thank you Jackie and WPRC), quite the Book Lunch (thank you everyone!)

behind the beautiful forevers is definitely a book I am glad to have read.

As the book's cover said, it was life in a slum of Mumbai. It was death. Many kinds of deaths.

None of us saw the "hope" as mentioned on the book's cover.

We tried to look for it, maybe saw it for a season in Sunil or Manju, but not when you looked at their entire lives.

 Hope in Abdul when he chose to stop selling stolen goods. He wanted to be something better.

A great passage:
“...and maybe because of the boiling April sun, he thought about water and ice. Water and ice were made of the same thing. He thought most people were made of the same thing, too. He himself was probably a little different from the corrupt people around him. Ice was distinct from - and in his view, better than - what it was made of. He wanted to be better than what he was made of. In Mumbai's dirty water, he wanted to be ice. He wanted to have ideals.”


This conviction to take the high road disappeared as he saw he couldn't afford to feed himself and his family. “I tell Allah I love Him immensely, immensely. But I tell Him I cannot be better, because of how the world is.”

A moment of hope at the end,  when Boo mentions that, in this cesspool of Annawadi, what's remarkable is that there are any moments of goodness. And there are. They shine like the stars in the sky over the steamy, black water.

What to do to help people climb up out of poverty? First of all, ensure there's a structure in place free of corruption so they are able to climb up.

Some beautiful paragraphs.

We feel very lucky we live in the USA.

Cynthia brought a NYT article on Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi). She is another side of India, a side of hope and love.  Unconditional love  “Love is our true essence. Love has no limitations of caste, religion, race or nationality. We are all beads strung together on the same thread of love.” —Amma

So for July, no book chosen. Many discussed.

The date, July 5 or 12. Email me to tell me if you could come to either July 5 or 12.. I will (tomorrow) email out the count of which date gets the most attending. Here at my house. Brown bag lunch style (I will provide water/iced tea.)

Stay cool and dry ladies...
love ya sara