English Blog

Kalu was a good character in the story but he is put in this story to prove a point. Kalu was a good fun-loving character but because of his situation, he became addicted to drugs and stole resources to survive. The thing that is interesting is because this character is brought up in a safer environment, then he would thrive in the world with his good personality, and how "everyone loves him" proves that he would be a great person. But because Kalu was brought up in the slums, and because of that, he plays into the system of theft and addiction which continues the cycle of the slums. The theft contributes to more theft as people will do what they can to survive. The need to live discourages kids from going to school and at that the schools are not the best quality so the odds are stacked against the low-income kids and in this case Kalu as he got addicted to drugs and will probably live the rest of his life in the slums.

     In the book Behind the Beautiful Forevers, the slums are a main part of the story and how it shapes the main characters and the characters around them. Slums are present all around the world and not just in war-ridden countries. Sums are in the US,  and like in Behind the Beautiful Forevers, they are in India. What the book is also trying to prove is that education is a second thought when it comes to surviving their situation in the slums. We see in the book that the main characters elect to not go to school to have a full-time job to support themselves. This is a problem especially in the US in how low-income families that don't get a good education because of their circumstances stay in a low economic class. When there is poverty, crime follows because people are desperate to stay alive. In the US, we try to fix this problem by over-policing neighborhoods to stop the crime. Although this is good up to a certain extent, they should also be trying to encou...