Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo, Random House, 2012. 

Bombay Slum

The author spent three years living in the Annawadi slum near the Bombay airport. The slum had about 3000 residents, almost none of whom had jobs in the formal economy. The author describes how the children supported their families by scavenging what tourists in nearby hotels threw away. Most of the husbands were lazy drones, so the women and children had to take care of the themselves.. The police were more interested in bribes than justice. A Hindu nationalist party in Maharashtra called Shiv Sena had much political power in Bombay, including Annawadi. The author goes into great detail about several particular families and what happened to them during the three years she lived with them.