Chapter 1 - "The First Night"

Summary of the pages 15 - 25:

Balram Halwai, which still writes the e-mail to the prime minister and tells about his life, describes within these ten pages his village, Laxmangarh, mentions the rural lifestyle there, talks about his dad and his work as an rickshaw-puller.

At first, Balram talks about Laxmangarh. This village is in the district of Gaya that is famous because of its national history. Some people say Buddha walked through that little village which is in the near of Bodh Gaya - the place where Buddha got his Enlightenment.

Electricity poles and water tap didn´t exist where he grew up. He tells of his house and their buffalo, which the women of his family obvious were feeding more regularly than cooking their man´s dinner. He then tells us of his morning his dad woke him up to take the buffalo to a morning bath. Referring to the poster mentioned in the first 15 pages, he´s saying that he didnt wear the clothes hes accused of having worn.

Next, Balram talks of his dad, how he did an exhausting work as a rickshawk-puller instead of the rural work most of people did, of four men, known as "the animals", who were controlling this area.

Mr. Halwai writes of the employees which rushed into trains and buses to find sufficiently jobs in Delhi, Calcutta and other big cities.

At last, he lets Mr. Jiabao know how his father were reacting when he heard of his sons missing in school. He totally reacted angry and upset. His son, in which he had a lot of expectations, fainted in school for the second time in his life and never had gone back to school since that day.

Personal impressions:

When I read the part in which he describes his father and his job, underpayd and absolutely exhausting, I nearly thought of the poorness of those regions like Laxmangarh. I almost feel a bit sorry when I think of the satisfaction of western people opposed to people like Balrams dad.

http://de.academic.ru/pictures/dewiki/72/Handheld_rickshaw_puller.jpg

So I chose a picture symbolizing this situation for people without any serious problems, which rarely get notice of other ways of life.