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Behind the Beautiful Forevers
- Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
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Publisher's summary
National Book Award Winner
New York Times best seller.
Named one of Time’s 10 best nonfiction books of the decade.
One of the 10 best books of the year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, O: The Oprah Magazine, USA Today, New York, The Miami Herald, San Francisco Chronicle, Newsday.
In this breathtaking book by Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Boo, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human through the dramatic story of families striving toward a better life in Annawadi, a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport.
As India starts to prosper, the residents of Annawadi are electric with hope. Abdul, an enterprising teenager, sees “a fortune beyond counting” in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Meanwhile Asha, a woman of formidable ambition, has identified a shadier route to the middle class. With a little luck, her beautiful daughter, Annawadi’s “most-everything girl”, might become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest children, like the young thief Kalu, feel themselves inching closer to their dreams. But then Abdul is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power, and economic envy turn brutal.
With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects people to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, based on years of uncompromising reporting, carries the listener headlong into one of the 21st century’s hidden worlds - and into the hearts of families impossible to forget.
Named one of the best books of the year by The New Yorker, People, Entertainment Weekly, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The Economist, Financial Times, Foreign Policy, The Seattle Times, The Nation, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Denver Post, Minneapolis Star Tribune, The Week, Kansas City Star, Slate, and Publishers Weekly.
Critic reviews
Winner of the PEN Nonfiction Award
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize
Winner of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award
Winner of the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award
“Inspiring...extraordinary...[Katherine Boo] shows us how people in the most desperate circumstances can find the resilience to hang on to their humanity. Just as important, she makes us care.” (People)
“A tour de force of social justice reportage and a literary masterpiece.” (Judges, PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award)
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Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years - a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung and the unchallenged rise to power of his son, Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Taking us into a landscape never before seen, Demick brings to life what it means to be an average Korean citizen, living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today.
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The man who wants to be GOD
- By Gohar on 05-08-10
By: Barbara Demick
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Serpentine
- By: Thomas Thompson
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 24 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
There was no pattern to the murders, no common thread other than the fact that the victims were all vacationers, robbed of their possessions, and slain in seemingly random crimes. Authorities across three continents and a dozen nations had no idea they were all looking for the same man: Charles Sobhraj, aka "The Serpent". A handsome Frenchman of Vietnamese and Indian origin, Sobhraj targeted backpackers on the "hippie trail" between Europe and South Asia. A master of deception, he used his powerful intellect and considerable sex appeal to lure naive travelers into a life of crime.
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Good Story / Weak Narration
- By Chandelle on 10-09-18
By: Thomas Thompson
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The Darling
- By: Russell Banks
- Narrated by: Mary Beth Hurt
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Darling is Hannah Musgrave's story, told emotionally and convincingly years later by Hannah herself. A political radical and member of the Weather Underground, Hannah has fled America to West Africa, where she and her Liberian husband become friends and colleagues of Charles Taylor, the notorious warlord and now ex-president of Liberia. When Taylor leaves for the United States in an effort to escape embezzlement charges, he's immediately placed in prison.
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Complex and compelling
- By Ellen H. Anderson on 02-05-05
By: Russell Banks
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When a Crocodile Eats the Sun
- A Memoir of Africa
- By: Peter Godwin
- Narrated by: Peter Godwin
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
After his father's heart attack in 1984, Peter Godwin began a series of pilgrimages back to Zimbabwe, the land of his birth, from Manhattan, where he now lives. On these frequent visits to check on his elderly parents, he bore witness to Zimbabwe's dramatic spiral downward into the jaws of violent chaos, presided over by an increasingly enraged dictator. And yet long after their comfortable lifestyle had been shattered and millions were fleeing, his parents refuse to leave, steadfast in their allegiance to the failed state that has been their adopted home for 50 years.
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Worth the listen.
- By SEE on 09-06-21
By: Peter Godwin
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Walking the Bowl
- A True Story of Murder and Survival Among the Street Children of Lusaka
- By: Chris Lockhart, Daniel Mulilo Chama
- Narrated by: Hlonela Ngqwebo
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Based on years of investigative reporting and unprecedented fieldwork, Walking the Bowl immerses readers in the daily lives of four unforgettable characters: Lusabilo, a determined waste picker; Kapula, a burned-out brothel worker; Moonga, a former rock crusher turned beggar; and Timo, an ambitious gang leader. These children navigate the violent and poverty-stricken underworld of Lusaka, one of Africa’s fastest growing cities.
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Amazing. Horrifying. But true.
- By Daniel W. Fox, Jr. on 03-23-22
By: Chris Lockhart, and others
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Street of Eternal Happiness
- Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road
- By: Rob Schmitz
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Modern Shanghai: a global city in the midst of a renaissance, where dreamers arrive each day to partake in a mad torrent of capital, ideas, and opportunity. Marketplace's Rob Schmitz is one of them. He immerses himself in his neighborhood, forging deep relationships with ordinary people who see in the city's sleek skyline a brighter future, and a chance to rewrite their destinies.
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Deserving of better audio
- By Rachael on 02-19-18
By: Rob Schmitz
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Tears of the Desert
- A Memoir of Survival in Darfur
- By: Halima Bashir, Damien Lewis
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Halima Bashir was born into the Zaghawa tribe, whose customs have remained unchanged for centuries, in the remote western deserts of Sudan in the region of South Darfur. Halima's father named his daughter after the traditional medicine woman of the village, and she grew up in a happy and close-knit childhood environment. Her father became a wealthy man by his tribe's standards, so he could afford to send Halima to school and university. Halima went on to study medicine, and at 24 she returned to her tribe and began practicing as their first ever qualified doctor.
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A story that takes you there
- By Justicepirate on 05-22-17
By: Halima Bashir, and others
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Wild Swans
- Three Daughters of China
- By: Jung Chang
- Narrated by: Joy Osmanski
- Length: 22 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Few books have had such an impact as Wild Swans: a popular best seller which has sold more than 13 million copies and a critically acclaimed history of China; a tragic tale of nightmarish cruelty and an uplifting story of bravery and survival.
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Accurate, moving and chilling
- By David on 12-15-12
By: Jung Chang
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Kaffir Boy
- The True Story of a Black Youth’s Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa
- By: Mark Mathabane
- Narrated by: Mark Mathabane
- Length: 18 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Mark Mathabane was weaned on devastating poverty and schooled in the cruel streets of South Africa’s most desperate ghetto, where bloody gang wars and midnight police raids were his rites of passage. Like every other child born in the hopelessness of apartheid, he learned to measure his life in days, not years. Yet Mark Mathabane, armed only with the courage of his family and a hard-won education, raised himself up from the squalor and humiliation to win a scholarship to an American university.
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Tragic yet we'll written
- By ARM on 10-07-16
By: Mark Mathabane
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In Order to Live
- A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
- By: Yeonmi Park
- Narrated by: Eji Kim
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In In Order to Live, Yeonmi Park shines a light not just into the darkest corners of life in North Korea, describing the deprivation and deception she endured and which millions of North Korean people continue to endure to this day, but also onto her own most painful and difficult memories. She tells with bravery and dignity for the first time the story of how she and her mother were betrayed and sold into sexual slavery in China and forced to suffer terrible psychological and physical hardship before they finally made their way to Seoul, South Korea - and to freedom.
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Wow. What a story!
- By Jfm on 02-01-16
By: Yeonmi Park
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Enrique's Journey
- By: Sonia Nazario
- Narrated by: Catherine Byers
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Based on the Los Angeles Times newspaper series that won two Pulitzer Prizes, one for feature writing and another for feature photography, Enrique's Journey is the timeless story of families torn apart, the yearning to be together again, and a boy who will risk his life to find the mother he loves.
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Missing Chapter 8 and Epilogue!
- By Bobby Reed on 07-01-14
By: Sonia Nazario
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Find Me Unafraid
- Love, Loss, and Hope in an African Slum
- By: Kennedy Odede, Jessica Posner
- Narrated by: Korey Jackson, Mandy Siegfried, P.J. Ochlan (foreword)
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Find Me Unafraid tells the uncommon love story between two uncommon people whose collaboration sparked a successful movement to transform the lives of vulnerable girls and the urban poor. With a foreword by Nicholas Kristof.
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A difficult and rewarding listen
- By R. MCRACKAN on 08-23-18
By: Kennedy Odede, and others
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King Peggy
- An American Secretary, Her Royal Destiny, and the Inspiring Story of How She Changed an African Village
- By: Eleanor Herman, Peggielene Bartels
- Narrated by: J. Karen Thomas
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
King Peggy chronicles the astonishing journey of an American secretary who suddenly finds herself king to a town of 7,000 souls on Ghana's central coast, half a world away. Upon arriving for her crowning ceremony in beautiful Otuam, she discovers the dire reality: there's no running water, no doctor, and no high school, and many of the village elders are stealing the town's funds. To make matters worse, her uncle (the late king) sits in a morgue awaiting a proper funeral in the royal palace, which is in ruins.
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Love King Peggy!
- By Monica on 05-01-13
By: Eleanor Herman, and others
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City of Lies
- Love, Sex, Death, and the Search for Truth in Tehran
- By: Ramita Navai
- Narrated by: Sylvia Lisle
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In today's Tehran, intrigues abound and survival depends on an intricate network of falsehoods: mullahs visit prostitutes, local mosques train barely pubescent boys in crowd-control tactics, and cosmetic surgeons promise to restore girls' virginity. Navai paints an intimate portrait of those discreet recesses in a city where the difference between modesty and profanity, loyalty and betrayal, honor and disgrace is often no more than the believability of a lie.
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Impossible to Put Down
- By Leonard on 10-19-14
By: Ramita Navai
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Joseph Patrick Kennedy - whose life spanned the First World War, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, the Second World War, and the Cold War - was the patriarch of America’s greatest political dynasty. The father of President John F. Kennedy and Senators Robert and Edward Kennedy, 'Joe' Kennedy was an indomitable and elusive figure whose dreams of advancement for his nine children were matched only by his extraordinary personal ambition and shrewd financial skills.
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When Hisham Matar was a 19-year-old university student in England, his father was kidnapped. One of the Qaddafi regime's most prominent opponents in exile, he was held in a secret prison in Libya. Hisham would never see him again. But he never gave up hope that his father might still be alive. "Hope," as he writes, "is cunning and persistent." Twenty-two years later, after the fall of Qaddafi, the prison cells were empty, and there was no sign of Jaballa Matar. Hisham returned with his mother and wife to the homeland he never thought he'd go back to again.
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Touching memoir. Consider hard copy
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What listeners say about Behind the Beautiful Forevers
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- LSR
- 04-02-12
Beautiful Story
This was such a gripping account, I had to keep checking references to ensure that it was not fiction, or even based on a real story. The book is told in the third-person but such deep observations and presence that you even feel like you are right there, and the author must have been onsite more frequently than not, over the years. It was such a fascinating way of life to be told. Surprisingly, I did not have pity or disgust for the poverty and the way the families live in this common slum but, just the opposite. Most of the studied characters I could see rising upward, at least relatively speaking. They were enterprising, tireless, tried to pursue their education and advancement. It was really a fascinating study which made me wonder if this was really a necessary step in the evolution of developing countries and their people.
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- K.T.
- 06-04-12
See What Life is Like in the Slums of Mumbai
Would you try another book from Katherine Boo and/or Sunil Malhotra?
Probably not at this time.
Did Sunil Malhotra do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?
Excellent job!
Do you think Behind the Beautiful Forevers needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?
No.
Any additional comments?
If you want to learn about a realistic view of life in the slums of Mumbai, then this selection is for you --- a true and well-researched account of the lives of those living there. Listen to this Audible selection knowing that this is not a funny feel-good type of tome, but you will definitely appreciate the life you have after finishing it! Imagine what you would do to survive a life filled with oppression, hunger, corruption and desperation!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Lisa M. Ide
- 01-23-16
Powerful
I started this book in hard copy, but when life kept getting in the way of my ability to find time to curl up with a good book, I turned to Audible to fill my commute hours with this masterpiece. (The narration was fantastic.) I actually started this book without knowing it is a work of nonfiction, and only realized it when I listened to the author's afterword. The most fantastic parts of this book, for me, are the respect the author shows for the characters and her restraint in how she describes the contrast of their lives from our lives and the lives of the people coming and going from the airport. She describes the lives and ambitions of each individual from a neutral place, without a hint of the patronization which could so easily and subconsciously pervade any depiction of lives in extreme poverty by one who is not. One of the most powerful moments in the book is when she takes a brief break from describing the tragedy that has turned two families against eachother to "listen in" on a Disney park executive's comments about how he just can't bring himself to visit a Universal theme park to check out the competition because he just can't stomach the idea of giving a penny to his competition. The author returns to the story of the families to describe how, despite the tragedy that has turned them into adversaries, they come together to help eachother fulfill a religious obligation. The contrast she creates with that brief snippet is so profound and moving, it haunted me for the rest of the book. Powerful read.
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- Anna Karenina
- 12-05-13
Absolutely awesome
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes. The book is incredibly enlightening as well as engrossing.
What other book might you compare Behind the Beautiful Forevers to and why?
A Fine Balance, the novel by Rohinton Mistry. Only this is all real.
Have you listened to any of Sunil Malhotra’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I haven't listen to any other, but he's fantastic on this audiobook.
What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?
There are no "tidbits"--everything is important! The most eye-opening parts of the book are about corruption, which is ubiquitous.
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- Abro
- 09-20-16
Fascinating Tale of a lovely and superstitious people.
Such a fascinating culture. I spent a week in Mumbai and this book has given me some greater insight to the people that I fell in love with.
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- Alison Willette
- 05-23-16
Realistic portrail of Mumbai slum
I loved the story. At times I found it difficult to follow all of the different people and personalities within the story. I think that if the reader could have had more variations in his voice it would have improved the flow and the understanding of individuals in the book. Aside from that I found it to be moving. I am motivated to improve impoverished nation's because of my job, but this book made me wish that I could share those experiences that were the most demanding of their fortitude with them.
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- Inga's Adventures
- 11-11-18
Well written
This is a well researched and tight story that will entertain but also make you think. It's not always easy but it's an authentic story.
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- Cynthia Hall
- 03-08-15
A Must READ!
Any additional comments?
I am so lucky to be born in the USA!!!! Such a sad life for so many people.
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- Lisa Carnes
- 03-07-21
astonishingly real
a true accounting and an in depth look at the lowest level of an impoverished society and how people cope. fascinating.
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- Sandra Petterson
- 11-18-23
Sad
It’s sad and a great insight to see that India has such a corrupt government in the slums.
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