A million dreams

Even before its release in India, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, the story of Jamal, an underdog from the slums of Mumbai who becomes a millionaire, has won accolades at many a film festival, writes Ranjita Biswas

Living in a slum and earning millions? Whom are you kidding? Well, if it’s a plucky kid like orphan Jamal who grows up in abject poverty in the slums, but still makes a million, you have to believe it. Because that’s how typical rags to riches stories are churned out by Bollywood with the mandatory happy ending with the ladylove in tow.

But suppose this Bollywood story theme is adopted with a twist by a well-known British filmmaker Danny Boyle, what do you get? A winner like Slumdog Millionaire that wowed the audience during its official launch at the 33rd Toronto Film Festival. So much so that it won the Cadillac People’s Choice Award indisputably.

Boyle turns a Mumbaikar’s story aspiring to rise above the circumstances into a funny, sardonic, tragi-comic narration moving at a break-neck speed through the travails of Jamal. Boyle’s earlier films like Trainspotting on a group of heroin-addicted youths, 28 Days Later, a sci-fi film, among others, made him almost a cult figure. Slumdog Millionaire adds another feather to his cap.

For an Indian audience, the format of the film is instantly recognisable: the extremely popular television game show sometime ago, Kaun Bonega Crorepati, the Indian version of UK’s Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The screenplay is loosely based on diplomat Vikas Swarup’s debut novel Q & A. In the book, Ram Mohammad Thomas (18) is arrested by the police on a complaint by the producers of the game show. As they reason, how come a mere waiter from the slums could answer all the questions correctly and hit the jackpot? He must have cheated. Swarup begins his book tellingly: "I have been arrested. For winning a quiz show. They came for me late last night, when even the stray dogs had gone off to sleep. There was no hue and cry. Arrests in Dharavi are as common as pickpockets on the local train."

In the film, Jamal, a chaiwalla, is the prototype of Ram Mohammad Thomas. He and his brother Salim get orphaned during the Mumbai riots and become street urchins, the slumdogs. His long journey to survive in the metropolis and outside might seem unreal to an audience familiar with the Taj Mahal (it features in the film too), Gateway of India or the glittering lifestyle of the modern Indian city. But to us, it’s not so strange. The world of slums and poverty, the adulation for stars like the Big B in this scenario, the desperation to survive against huge odds, in short, portraits of the underbelly of ‘shining’ cities, is not too far from our consciousness.

The film’s strength is in looking at life with a lot of humour, and saluting the resilience of the human spirit.

Slumdog Millionaire is shot in the real locale of India, uses local colour, has an all-Indian cast, and displays an understanding of local nuances. And it works. Youngsters like Dev Patel, Madhuri Mittal, Freida Pinto stand their ground with veterans like Irrfan Khan and Anil Kapoor (the host of the show). Above all, it is a look at life in the multi-hued country without being judgmental, as happens sometimes with filmmakers from the West. — TWF

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