“It will not happen next time,” he promised. “I also know education makes people brighter.”
Colson and Boyle were in Mumbai this week to meet with Indian filmmakers and Bollywood megastars Anil Kapoor and Aamir Khan about several film projects, including a thriller loosely based on Suketu Mehta’s book Maximum City, a journalistic memoir about Mumbai’s seamy underworld.
They also hosted a tea party reunion at the JW Marriott hotel in a posh neighborhood at the epicenter of Mumbai’s burgeoning film industry that was attended by many of the film’s child actors, including Tanvi Ganesh Lonkar, who played Latika as a young teenager.
As Rubina and Azhar swept into the Marriott’s marble lobby — Rubina in pink Puma sneakers and Azhar in a flashy silver and red jacket — they were ensnared in a net of popping flash bulbs and aggressive TV cameramen. They began to perform for the cameras: Rubina grabbed on to the bulky biceps of a celebrity bodybuilder passing through the lobby as Azhar looked on grinning.
Asked what he wanted Rubina to be when she grew up, her father said: “She should be a star.”
Dinesh Dubey, a friend of the families who attended the meeting with Boyle and Colson, said he made a special plea.
“I said, ‘Danny Boyle, I just have a request to you sir: In the new film just give them one role,”’ Dubey said.
Colson said he and Boyle would be happy to cast the kids in a new film, as long as it didn’t interfere with school.
“Everyone can dream,” Colson said. “But it doesn’t matter if you’re Azhar or Rubina or a kid in Milwaukee: It’s a precarious dream. My advice is go to college in case it doesn’t work out.”
RSS