Jayden's Online Journal

During this essay I will be discussing 3 different perspectives of Mumbai. Mumbai is one of the many slums in the country of India. The 3 different perspectives of Mumbai come from 3 different character; Abdul, Asha and Sunil. I’m going to analyse each of there views of the slum, Annawadi. The first person we are introduced to is a young man by the name of Abdul, he is a garbage seller. Next we meet a middle aged lady called Asha, she wants to become the ‘Slum Lord’ (the person who controls the slum.). A little later in the book we meet Sunil a young boy who has now begun to steal rubbish then sells the goods on, Abdul then sells it to make disposable money. These are the 3 different perspectives we have of Annawadi. Everyone has a different point of view due to the jobs they do, or how they think of Annawdi; good or bad?

When we begin to read the book we are introduced to Abdul, Abdul is about 15, he is a garbage trader he buys and sells rubbish to make a profit. Abdul is his families breadwinner. As we look deeper into Abdul’s perspective we come to the realization that he thinks of the world as a place where you can’t trust anyone. For evidence to support this statement we can see from the following statement made ‘the better I know you, the more I dislike you.’ I believe this shows that the people of Annawadi are not the people they are portrayed to be. From this we can also take it as Abdul likes to keep himself to himself coming across as a quiet character. All though we have all this evidence can this all be true or just an act?

Further on in the text Abdul states ‘even goats eyes were heavy with sleep.’ This statement could suggest that Abdul looks at the slum of Annawadi as a place that doesn’t rest. I think that the reason Annawadi dont rest is due to the fact that the people only think about there work and when they do not engage in working they have no other way to pass the time, from all the work they’ve done they will be very restless from a lack of energy. The goats are not sleeping shows that the people are loud, to loud for the animals to sleep. This is shown when Abdul says ‘besides, this was the gentle-going hour in which he hated the most.’ We can draw another image of the slum being the most quiet hour of the day, but even the animals cannot sleep so how would the rest of the day be? Is it worse than this?

Later on in the story we are introduced to Asha. Asha is a big woman and has set a goal to become the slum lord of Annawadi. Asha has to children one named Manju, the other named Rahul. This woman is rich in taste and likes to invest her money into expensive things such as patterned napkins. We can see this when we are taken to her house. Asha goes by mindset and her mindset is ‘Money over Matter’. This shows us her persona from the very start of the story due to the fact that we know she would like to become slum lord, because of this she will do anything to become the highest role in the slum.

‘She had by now seen past the obvious truth that – Mumbai was a hive of hope and ambition.’ I believe that this could mean once she believe in Mumbai to be a good place and the place of which everyone could do well, but we have now seen that she know how Annawadi has ‘really’ become. I believe that the author is trying to illustrate the point that everyone is stuck in one place like bees, if this is the case then it could also refer to the queen bee. This is because all the bees worship the queen bee and the people of Annawadi and Mumbai all look up to one person which could be the slum lord, Asha wants to be a slum lord so this statement could show she is soon to be the one everyone will look up to.

Finally we meet a young boy called Sunil. Sunil is the youngest person we have met, but he sees the world in a more grown if so called sophisticated way than his many peers. He could tell that his friends would get ice cream when the photographers came round was only to butter them up so they could appear to think that ‘Annawadi is the worst place in the world’. If only he could see what was on the television, what all the rich people thought of ‘the shit inbetween’. However young Sunil was still very young poor child who believed that if he stayed in the background a woman from television would ‘take’ him for being ‘different’ to the many other children.

‘For here it would be dark like the back-end of evening.’ I like the way the string had been described here, this is due to the fact it’s using narrative language to create the effect that this is the darkest part of the city. The image of darkness is then thrown into the picture as the ‘back-end of evening’ is when the sky is dark almost completely black. The image of darkness can also refer to this being the worst part of the city, home to criminals, where most of the crime happens where there would be multiple brothels and prostitues to choose from showing you that this is not the place you want to be.

In the first section of this chapter one man is fatal beating another man on main road which the maid sees from her window. This leaves the maid in so much shock she faints. The murder weapon lays there next to the victim. “The murderer was gone long ago, but there lay his victim in the middle of the lane, incredibly mangled.”

Continuing on into the chapter we are told Mr Utterson goes to identify the body of the victim. He identifies the body as Denver Carew. The also question the maid to find out what she saw and to describe what Mr Hyde looks like. “Particularly small and particularly wicked-looking.” Mr Utterson and the Maid go and look inside Mr Hydes house and search.

Remember this, cuz: don’t roll in the mud,                                   Remember this, cuz: you bleed real blood,
Remember this, cuz: bare man have guns,
Remember this, cuz: you should stick to your drums,
Remember this, cuz: streets ain’t fun,
Remember this, cuz: this poem ain’t done

Remember this, cuz: don’t chop off your thumb,
Remember this, cuz: them things ain’t fun,
Remember this, cuz: don’t fall down them stairs,
Remember this, cuz: you should eat more pears,
Remember this, cuz: you should sit on chairs,
Remember this, cuz: don’t wear horse hair,
Remember this, cuz: this poem is done,
Do you remember this cuz?
You should it’s written down cuz.