Review: Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo

Reporter Katherine Boo travels to Annawadi, a slum in Mumbai, and chronicles the lives of some of its residents. Is it more poverty porn? Would you not be better off reading Aravind Adiga's collection of stores entitled Between the Assassinations? I mean, poverty is poverty is poverty. And let's face it: We don't like seeing, hearing or talking about it. We want our soap operas to feature corporate intrigue and disputes over vast properties, like Dallas or Dynasty, not schmucks needing payday loans to keep the water on and pay rent. We want our superheroes to be self-funded billionaires like Bruce Wayne (Batman) and Charles Frances Xavier (Professor X). We don't even hear about poverty from our news outlets.

Documentary: These Birds Walk - A Portrait of Poverty Relief in Pakistan

Promo from the movie website:

In Karachi, Pak­istan, a run­away boy’s life hangs on one crit­i­cal ques­tion: where is home? The streets, an orphan­age, or with the fam­ily he fled in the first place? Simul­ta­ne­ously heart-wrenching and life-affirming, THESE BIRDS WALK doc­u­ments the strug­gles of these way­ward street chil­dren and the samar­i­tans look­ing out for them in this ethe­real and inspi­ra­tional story of resilience.

You can read a review at PBS.org.

The movie also has a Facebook Page and a Twitter account.

Watch the movie on iTunes or Google Play.

You can follow the director Omar Mul­lick on Twit­ter and check out his website. You can follow the other director Bas­sam Tariq on Twitter and check out his website.

Also, check out my review of Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo. It's about poverty in Mumbai, India.