Freeze frame

I can’t quit thinking about Yakub. In my purse I have a print clipping that includes a photo of the 12-year-old boy staring into the camera with a copy of Steve Jobs’s biography held high over his head. I pull it out from time to time and imagine Yakub at work.

Yakub sells pirated English-language bestsellers on the streets of Mumbai. According to Sonia Faleiro, Yakub works on the edge of Mumbai’s busiest streets. He stands at the edge of the traffic snarls until a stoplight hits red, then races out among the vehicles brandishing a book in his hand and calling out its English title. If he’s lucky a car will stop. Then a sedan window rolls down, a puff of cooled air escapes, and a hand reaches out with rupees in it. Yakub takes the money and hands over Fifty Shades of Gray, Steve Jobs or the latest book in the Game of Thrones series. 

After darting in and out of traffic for a day, he reports to his “seth” (boss) and hands over his earnings. His seth pays him about $2 per book (100 rupees) for an average of three books sold each day, and Yakub heads home to the slum dwelling that he shares with his parents. Because he makes more than his father, who’s a plumber, and because the book job is a “plum” for a kid from the ghetto, Yakub will likely never be persuaded to give the job up and go to school—and so he will never be able to read the books in his hands.