Real slumdogs clamours for a piece of the actionRhys Blakely in Mumbai

The TimesFebruary 24, 2009
With its mounds of burning refuse and throngs of filthy, giggling, half-naked children, rubbish-munching goats and stray dogs, Garib Nagar hardly boasted the glamour quotient of the average Oscars party. But yesterday hundreds of residents of this Mumbai slum crowded around its few television sets to follow the Academy Awards with bated breath.

The town is where the British director Danny Boyle discovered Azharuddin Mohammed, 10, and Rubina Ali Quereshi, 9, the actors who play the youngest incarnations of the lead characters of Slumdog Millionaire. Among their neighbours, each of the film’s eight Oscars was met with whoops of joy and Bollywood-style dancing more raucous than anything witnessed among the glitterati assembled at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, 9,000 miles away.

“We are so proud,” a smiling Rafiq Asghar Ali Quereshi, Rubina’s father, told The Times as he stood astride the oozing open sewer that runs past the tiny family home. “My family and our neighbours watched every moment of the ceremony, from 3.30am. Our daughter has made all of India proud.”

Rubina, who was flown to Los Angeles for the ceremony, had been awed by the spectacle of Hollywood in full party mode, but loved the frock she was given by “Danny Uncle” to attend the show, Mr Quereshi said. She and Azharuddin will return to their slum in a couple of days, after a visit to Disney World.

Inside their tiny, pink-painted shack, the Quereshis fed each other sticky sweets to toast Slumdog’s success.

Amid the carnival atmosphere, some local people hoped that Slumdog’s success would lift the area’s fortunes. Abdul Sheikh, a neighbour of Azharuddin’s family, said: “We prayed to the Almighty that the movie would do well at the Oscars. Now we hope it will brighten the future of these children.”

But there are also fears that the child actors will suffer when their fame passes. Boyle has said that he almost did not cast slum children after asking himself whether it would distort their lives too much.

Mr Quereshi said that Boyle had promised to buy his family a better home. The money his daughter had earned from the film had seemed a large sum, “but having seen its success,” he said, “now I’m not sure.”