The title gets attention, and the book should, too. This book immerses the reader in the lives of the ultra-poor Hindu and Muslim inhabitants of a slum in Mumbai, India, next to an international airport and several luxury hotels. The author got to know intimately many of these marginal people over the course of four years, and she reports their lives in novelistic fashion. It's a great work of reporting, no holds barred and non-sentimental. The people behave just as well and badly as people do, regardless of income. The gulf between them and someone like me can be understood through her reporting, though of course not experienced. It's impossible, reading it, not to be struck by the influence of privilege, not to see how these people lack nothing, in terms of native abilities, that would make them just like "us" if they had been born in our circumstances. It does take a village, but if it's a dirt-poor village right next to a sewage lake, the village will doom most of its inhabitants to misery. This is especially true when police and authorities are so thoroughly corrupt that they prey on these powerless people. Even the anti-poverty industry preys on them.

The title, by the way, refers to a wall that was constructed along the road from the airport to shield the slum from view. It was plastered with adverts for a luxury brand of Italian floor tile, promised to remain "Beautiful Forever."

Very captivating title! I wasn't expecting it the story inside would be so touching. Good read I must say - so sad it got me really thinking.