In this section, we get a sight of both the medical and legislative systems in place for the citizens of Annawadi.
For Fatima, she lays dying in a hospital bed, and not only that, but there is no medicine at this hospital, and her husband is forced to comb the streets and seek people willing to sell him the medication needed to help his wife. She doesn't make, and dies in the hospital.
For Abdul, he is sent to a juvenile prison rather than a mature prison thanks to his mother's work. Zehrunisia spends this section rushing about, crying, yelling, visiting her husband and son who are incarcerated, and begging both slum dwellers and Asha alike for help and money. She barely receives any.
In class the other day, our professor brought up the idea of presentation, and how Boo may have represented India in a slightly skewed light. As her book is written, we get an idea that India is a place where corruption is king and the rich/the system abuses the poor to no end. We get no perspective from the other side, of those who live in the city, who have made it. I think this is one of the few sections of the book where we get a glimpse into the world beyond Annawadi, but it's a very slim glimpse, and it really only strengthens the idea that corruption is the only currency of modern day India (Mumbai, at least). Abdul and the father are beaten mercilessly for a crime they did not commit. Abdul is pressured to confess his crimes, because that is the only way to make it go away. It is not about reaching a verdict, it is about making it go away. The police force is not depicted as a tool for justice, but a tool for keeping the poor fearful and obedient no matter what the cost. I wonder what a story would look like from the perspective of someone within one of these systems (medical or legislative/police force), and if it would at all add to the story/the depiction of what modern India is like.
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