Words: 875
There would be the same queue for water in the morning, the same daily struggle to make it to the seventeenth local in time. They wouldn’t even bother to find out the reason for my arrest. Come to think of it, when the two constables barged into my hut, even I didn’t . When your whole existence is ‘illegal,’ when you live on the brink of penury in an urban w Eastland where you jostle for every inch of space and have to queue even for a sit, arrest has a certain inevitability about it.
You are conditioned to believe that one day there will be warrant with your name on it, that eventually a jeep with a flashing red light will come for y oh” (2). Within the first few pages of Sward’s we learn that impoverishment ha s put Indians like Ram Mohammad Thomas in a miserable situation -?? the poor are completely outcast from society. Like in the days of the Hindu Caste System, they have truly have become me pariahs who are assumed to participate in at least one felony in their lifetime. In this p reticular section of the book, the reader is first associated with the theme of the effects of pop retry.
The newness of Ram’s tone as he presents the facts urges the reader to sympathize e with those being mistreated. By using more personal terms like ‘You” and ‘ ‘your when d ascribing the scenarios, he drops us into the action with horrifying clarity. Through his dicta on, Ram portrays the monotony of today life and the unfruitfulness of being take n away by the police. The reader gets a sense of pity as they understand that these horrors have become a natural, necessary part of living in the slums. “We especially like watching the films on Sunday. These films were about a FAA antsy world.
A world in which kids have mothers and fathers, and birthdays. A world in which h they live in huge houses, drive in huge cars and get huge presents. We saw this fantasy w oral, but we never got carried away by it. The most we could aspire to was to become o nee of those who held power over us. So whenever the teacher asked us, ‘What do you want to become when you grow up? ‘ no one said pilot or prime minister of banker or actor. We said cook or cleaner of sports teacher, or, at the very best, warden” (75). In this paragraph, Ram depicts that even as a child, he and the other orphans ere certainly aware of the role they played in society.
He forms simple statements to explain n this situation. The tone remains relatively unattached, yet knowing, as though his future is Ia id out obviously before him and is full of turmoil. When Ram describes the movies he watches, he mentions the things average people take for granted as if they are gifts from above. It is clear that his lack of a family and a stable income creates a hopeless mindset. Ram and the other children can only look forward to adding on to the maneuvering chain by getting into a position of rower like those in charge of them.
They are aware they will not receive any great sums of money, and must become what they hate instead. Power is revealed to be a major theme of Q&A. “O’Hare will we go? What will we do? We don’t know anyone in this city. ‘ ‘l know where we will go. Remember that actress Amelia Kumara that Redhead told us about? She needs a servant. Have her address, and I know which local train goes the ‘How about going to the police? ‘ ‘Are you out of your mind? Haven’t you learned anything since Delhi? Whatever r you do, wherever you go, never got to the police. Ever'” (98).
The exchange in this passage is between Ram and his friend Salami as they far initially debate an escape from Amman. Ram’s moving words end the scene with a bit of a SSH sock, invoking a lot of thought from the reader. The finality evident in his statement is proof the at this fear of authority is generally accepted and bred into the children raised in the slums. The conclusiveness of his warning shows just how corrupt the government in India a. Salami and Ram must fend for themselves simply because they were born into poor family ices, living like criminals though they have committed no real crime.
From here, the reader try Lully understands the message delivered in the prologue Of Q; no matter their intentions for t heir lives, no matter their contributions for society, anyone penniless in India is barely cons tiered human to those ranking above them. Money and authority become synonymous. “Sashay refuses to believe me. He challenges me to show the money, and the prospect of impressing him is too tempting. You should have seen Sashays eyes. They literally popped out of their sockets. It was a victory to be savored for eternity.