I don’t read a lot of non-fiction, but when I do, I like the book to tell me a good story. When I heard about Behind the Beautiful Forevers, the title made me curious and the fact that it was set in India even more so. Mumbai – vast, with many hidden corners – that is the setting – or rather, Annawadi, a neighbourhood where very poor people live in the vicinity of bustling Mumbai airport. The author Katherine Boo spent three years with the people we get to know in the book and witnessed their joy and their pain – well, it’s mostly pain with a glimpse of hope here and there. Corruption is one big theme and while I was reading the book, I almost despaired of all the injustice, the tedious criminal law procedures and the unfair medical treatment of the very poor. But above all, there was a sense of the very familiar – the squabbles of neighbours, the suspicious looks at somebody who is different, the girl struggling for a better life through education. The kids dream the universal dream of a better life. May at least some of them find it!