“ ‘The big people think that because we are poor we don’t understand much,' she said to her children. Asha understood plenty. She was a chit in a national game of make-believe, in which many of India’s old problems — poverty, disease, illiteracy, child labor — were being aggressively addressed. Meanwhile the other old problems, corruption and exploitation of the weak by the less weak, continued with minimal interference.

In the West, and among some in the Indian elite, this word, corruption, has purely negative connotations; it was seen as blocking India’s modern, global ambitions. But for the poor of a country where corruption thieves a great deal of opportunity, corruption was one of the genuine opportunities that remained.” A passage from Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo.