I Think It's This Congenital Problem With

Everyone In Annawadi Talks Like This: 'oh, I Will Make My Child A Doctor, A Lawyer, And He Will Make Us Rich'. It's Vanity, Nothing More. Your Little Boat Goes West And You Congratulate Yourself, 'what A Navigator I Am!' And Then The Wind Blows You East.

There's Some Way In Which We Would Prefer Not To See Very Clearly The Immense Gifts And Intelligence Of Some Of The People Who Live In Our Most Abject Conditions. Maybe There Are Some Things At Work In Deciding Who Gets To Be Society's Winners And Who Gets To Be Society's Losers That Don't Have To Do With Merit.

But If Writing About People Who Are Not Yourself Is Illegitimate, Then The Only Legitimate Work Is Autobiography; And As A Reader And A Citizen, I Don’t Want To Live In That World.

...much Of What Was Said Did Not Matter, And That Much Of What Mattered Could Not Be Said.

One Thing That Was Very Clear To Me Is That The Young People In A Place Like Annawadi Aren't Tripping On Caste The Way Their Parents Are. They Know Their Parents Have These Old Views.