Slumdog Millionaire was made about the people of Mumbai’s teeming slums, but it was not made for them.
In the squalid shantytowns of Nehru Nagar, where parts of the Oscar-nominated film were shot, there was little of the excitement that has swept India since the low budget film emerged from obscurity to win four Golden Globes and 10 Oscar nominations.
Many of the slum’s residents greeted Friday’s India release of the movie with indifference. Most had never heard of the Academy Awards, and the neighborhood Hindi-language theater had no plans to screen the Hindi version of the film, Slumdog Crorepati.
“We don’t even talk about it,” said Shabana Shaikh, 39, who lives in Nehru Nagar — a warren of small houses and shops built of brick, corrugated metal, cement and tarpaulins in northern Mumbai.
Shot on a modest US$14 million budget, Slumdog Millionaire tells the alternately heartwarming and horrific tale of Jamal Malik, a street orphan in Mumbai whose pursuit of love carries him to triumph on India’s version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
Directed by British filmmaker Danny Boyle with visceral cinematography and fluid edits, the film draws the viewer into the squalor but ends with unexpected hope.
Slumdog’s rattling iron roofs and sick-sweet sewers, its pickup cricket games, clucking chickens and dirty teal barbershops are all here in Nehru Nagar. There are impish boys, the constant buzz of commerce, sleeping dogs, one-eyed cats, and, up high, endless lines of tired laundry.
In real life, however, things are slower and hotter, the streets are more broken and the smells — of dirt, defecation, death — are stronger.
For the residents of Nehru Nagar, such stuff is not cinematic, it is home.
And most of them rarely go to movies.
The price of a ticket, which ranges from 60 rupees to 120 rupees (US$1.22 to US$2.44) at theaters near Nehru Nagar, is too steep.
“Will you give us tickets?” said Regina Munshi, a mother of three whose husband makes about US$3 a day as a driver. “On that money, you can’t take five people to the movies.”
When they do go, they prefer the Bollywood staples of rich guys, gangsters and big song-and-dance numbers, not the grim reality of their daily lives.
The few who are drawn to the film say it is only because they love the music of composer A.R. Rahman, who was nominated for three Oscars, and because they are fans of the movie’s two Indian stars, Irrfan Khan and Anil Kapoor.
Or, they had personal reasons.
Rafik Shaikh, a 37-year-old bus driver, said the filmmakers shot a scene in his home. He doesn’t know much about the Oscars, but he’s keen to see it.
He said he hopes to catch sight of the family dog, which died a few months after filming.
He said he was proud to show off his single room, with its chipping lime walls, neat folded blankets and rows of stainless steel pots that his bride brought as a dowry.
“I was more than happy to show off the reality here,” said Shaikh, sitting on his narrow bed with his daughters, two round-faced girls with braids. “I was happy my house would be seen.”
Bootleg DVD’s of Slumdog, which have been selling fast in more prosperous areas, have not made their way through Nehru Nagar’s tightly packed lanes of single-room homes and fly-covered garbage dumps.
Still, many are familiar with the broad outlines of Slumdog Millionaire: A child of their own streets makes it big. And this is a theme they can embrace, particularly the kids that run barefoot down small, sun-flecked alleys.
Two dozen kids stood around, grooming a dirt field for a game of cricket as the afternoon sun settled behind piles of burning garbage.
Nearby, Ajit Devender, 11, the son of a rag-picker, practiced taking brave, flying leaps off a brick wall that gives onto an airstrip behind the slum, mimicking a scene at the beginning of Slumdog Millionaire.
He saw the filming of the movie and said he would try to go to the theaters to see Hollywood’s take on his home.
“If I have money, I’ll go,” he said. “Even I would like to be a millionaire.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS