Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Chapter 8 Summary & Analysis

The rains come again as July turns into August and sewage floods Annawadi. Sunil once heard that the rains wash the mean out of people, but he only sees the rain washing his profitable garbage away. The Husain family also suffers, as Mirchi tries to take Abdul’s role but is not as adept at judging the worth of the trash. Zehrunisa is too busy begging her family for Abdul’s bail money to help. She can get nothing because she has no collateral to offer for the bail bonds. All the Husain’s possessions are in Karam’s name alone.

Karam is desperate and angry every time Zehrunisa visits him because his health is failing in the crowded cell. To make matters worse, Officer Thokale is furious that Zehrunisa told people in Annawadi that he took a bribe to protect Abdul and Karam. Zehrunisa babbles that she never told a soul, unsure what she has said in her grief. She second guesses everything she did, wondering if she should have paid Asha in the first place now that the Husains are facing a very expensive trial.

The only choice Zehrunisa felt good about was paying the officers to try Abdul as a child. She thinks Abdul is 17, but she truly has no idea exactly how old he is; her only clue is that Saddam Hussein was killing people while Zehrunisa was pregnant. Thanks to a false school record claiming Abdul is 16, Abdul is sent to a juvenile detention center in Dongri.

Dongri is in a thriving middle-class Muslim neighborhood. On his way there, Abdul notes the people in the street living happy, peaceful lives. The detention center itself is a pleasant, moss-covered stone building built by the British in the early 1800s. Abdul is given a uniform and sent to a large room full of other new arrivals. The wardens are almost kind, as they have been frightened by a recent newspaper article that had caught the attention of human rights activists who declared conditions in Dongri cruel and unusual.

While Abdul waits to be called by a warden for inspection, he looks at the portraits of famous Indians on the wall. After Abdul is registered, a muezzin calls for evening prayer, calming Abdul though he is rarely clean enough to go through this ritual at home. Abdul’s faith in Allah is purely economic: if rich people spend money to worship Allah, he must be real. At first, Abdul resists the daily baths at Dongri, clinging to his dirt as a reminder of his old life in Annawadi. But after three days of getting no breakfast without washing, Abdul gives in.

Abdul’s days at Dongri follow a regular pattern. He and the other boys (who are mostly Muslim, a group overrepresented in Indian prisons) have mandatory exercise in the morning then spend their days doing nothing. The boys tell stories and complain about their charges. Most have been detained for breaking child labor laws, which Abdul thinks is an unfair punishment for people who are already so poor that their children have to work. He finds himself forming the odd opinion that the young boys should be “free” to work. As Abdul has time in Dongri to rest and think about things other than work, he becomes much more sympathetic to the troubles of other boys.

One morning, Abdul has a hospital inspection to see if he is really a minor. The doctor examines him, then tells Abdul that he will be 17 if he pays 2,000 rupees and 20 if he does not. Abdul is furious, prompting the doctor to explain that he has to take bribes in order to make enough to feed his family. Eventually, the doctor relents and declares Abdul 17 without pay. Abdul is surprised to find he feels bad for the doctor, who also has a hard life.

Another afternoon, the Dongri boys are sent to listen to a man called The Master. The Master, a pudgy Hindu man, tells the boys a sob story about what happens to disobedient people who end up in jail. The master cries as he describes the reform and redemption that await the boys who abandon their criminal ways. Almost despite himself, Abdul cries with The Master and exalts in his newfound inspiration to become a refined and honest man.

Abdul assesses his life so far and decides that he has been mostly virtuous already, but he could be better. He decides he will never again buy stolen goods. He intends to remember these moral judgements even when he is released back into the corruption of his world.