The dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking story of families striving toward a better life in one of the twenty-first century's great, unequal cities. In this fast-paced book, based on three years of uncompromising reporting, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human. Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees fortune in the recyclable garbage of richer people. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a rural childhood, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption. And even the poorest Annawadians, like Kalu, a fifteen-year-old scrap-metal thief, believe themselves inching closer to good times. But then, as the tenderest individual hopes intersect with the greatest global truths, the true contours of a competitive age are revealed.--From publisher description.

Prologue : between roses -- Undercitizens. Annawadi ; Asha ; Sunil ; Manju -- The business of burning. Ghost house ; The hole she called a window ; The come-apart ; The master -- A little wildness. Marquee effect ; Parrots, caught and sold ; Proper sleep -- Up and out. Nine nights of dance ; Something shining ; The trial ; Ice ; Black and white ; A school, a hospital, a cricket field.