Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

by Katherine Boo

“Just people drinking and dancing and standing around acting stupid, like people here do every night.”

Being terrorized by living people seemed to have diminished his fear of the dead.

Kasab seemed lucky to Abdul. “They will probably beat him lots in the jail,” Abdul said one day, “but at least Kasab knows in his heart that he did what they said he did.” That had to be less stressful than being beaten when you were innocent.