image

By LILIANA GIL, 6/20/2016. “Now it poured, a stinging rain. On the high grounds of the liquid city, rich people spoke of the romance of monsoon: the languorous sex, retail therapy, and hot jalebis that eased July into August. At Annawadi, the sewage lake crept forward like a living thing. Sick water buffalo nosed for food through mounds of wet, devalued garbage, shitting out the consequences of bad choices with a velocity Annawadi water taps had never equaled. People, also sick, stamped the mud from their feet and said, “My stomach is on fire, my chest.” “All up and down this leg, all night.” The sewage lake’s frogs sang sympathetically, but you couldn’t hear the frogsong indoors. Rain banged on the metal rooftops as if slum zebras were stampeding overhead.”

Katherine Boo Behind the Beautiful Forevers 2012 117