The Prayas Children’s Home in suburban New Delhi is a kind of halfway house and shelter for hundreds of homeless Indian boys and young men, a large and complex institution harboring multiple distinct communities within it, factions of boys distinguished by the varying ages and conditions of the boys – some orphaned, some criminals, some merely misplaced – but united by the total poverty that they share. Gandhi’s Children makes the most of its large and extraordinary “cast,” unfolding episodes that generate cumulative, novelistic meanings and effects. MacDougall skillfully discovers a rough tangle of vibrant and absorbing storylines within the bustling house, from the grueling and enraging to the uplifting and unexpected, but always absorbing.