Studying Slum-Subaltern in Recent Indian Fiction and Celluloid: The Case of Slumdog Millionaire
-- A J Sebastian sdb
Associate Professor,
Department of English, Nagaland Central University,
P B 430, Kohima 797001, Nagaland, India.
E-mail: ajsebastiansdb@gmail.com
Setting aside the controversy surrounding `Slumdog Millionaire', the fiction and the film make any right thinking citizen to be alarmed at the rate by which a planet of slums is being created, which is expected to double by 2030. Global poverty is moving to cities, leading to an urbanization of poverty. It is imperative on the part of law makers, governments and civil societies to take appropriate measures to handle the world wide growth of slums, projected to be 2 billion in 30 years. It is an ethical duty on the part of rich nations and their peoples to share their plenty with the poor to arrest global poverty and injustice. Hence, seen in the background of a planet of the slums, `Slumdog Millionaire' has its universal appeal. While efforts are being made to eradicate poverty in the slums, the book and the film also draw attention to the fact that it is only human emotions and genuine love that can sustain life for ever. The movie also remains a powerful medium to expose the injustice meted out to slum dwellers. Though Bollywood has produced several movies in the backdrop of slum-life, these have failed to draw attention like the way `Slumdog Millionaire' has done to project issues of slum-subaltern to a global audience. Vikas Swarup's book and its celluloid version have proven that if people are given opportunities, they can achieve great success. It also affirms the resourcefulness of subaltern groups, which can prove to be a catalyst in social transformation.
Introduction
Vikas Swarup has sprung to stardom as a fictionist with the publication of Q & A, set to celluloid by Danny Boyle with a fresh subaltern title Slumdog Millionaire. Swarup has inimitably introduced the slum-subaltern in fiction, and Danny Boyle has very ably captured and portrayed the subaltern spirit in the movie.
Both the fiction and the movie have been an eye opener to the pathetic state of affairs afflicting our country with its poverty, corruption, injustice and exploitation of children. In contrast to the India shining slogan in the midst of IT revolution in a globalized economy, the poor-rich divide has continued to haunt us with the reality of the ever growing slums in the country. The film's global appeal has come with the depiction of a poor slumboy like Jamal Malik, who is able to excel in life with determination and resourcefulness.
World Bank's poverty estimates show that the incidence of poverty in the world is higher than past estimates. At a poverty line of $1.25 a day, the revised estimates find that 1.4 billion people live at this poverty line or below. With such growing awareness of the poor and the marginalized living subhuman lives, it is imperative for the rest of the world community to fulfil its moral obligation to eradicate poverty and hunger. Australian philosopher and humanist Peter Singer in his recent book, The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty argues that philanthropy and giving to those who are deprived is intrinsic to living a morally good life and being an ethically good person. He points out that affluent societies have the obligation `to choose to give' a larger amount of their income to help the poor. Many international organizations and NGOs are using charity to build institutions and create job opportunities for the poor to give them independent and sustainable life. Therefore, the misery of the poor and subaltern people should not remain merely at the level of academic exercise.
This paper purports to assess the slum-subaltern in fiction and celluloid with reference to Slumdog Millionaire. Setting aside controversies surrounding the fiction and the movie, these draw attention to the reality of a global phenomenon which needs eradication.
Slum-Subaltern
`Subaltern', meaning inferior status, quality, or importance, is a term used by Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), Italian Marxist and theoretician who has made a mark in contemporary `cultural studies' and `critical theory'. In his `Prison Notes' he wrote about `subaltern social groups' which are not united and which cannot unite until they become a `state'. In the South Asian context the term `subaltern' may be applied to those groups that have been subordinated in terms of class, caste, age, gender, office and the like. Subaltern groups may be understood better in their binary relationship to the dominant group. Gramsci tried to understand the subaltern as a historically determined category that exists within particular historical, economic, political, social, and cultural contexts. He tried to know the process, development, and lineage of the subaltern: how their social conditions were developed; how some groups survived at the margins of society, and how others succeeded in their ascent from a subordinate social position to a dominant one.
Subaltern theory, based on deconstruction of Derrida, emphasizes that norms are established by those in power and imposed on the `other' who has had no voice because of race, class, or gender. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Ranajit Guha, in their interpretation of the term, focus on signifiers. They emphasize the way in which the colonialist discourse has socially constructed the signifiers from the colonial language, giving no real voice to the oppressed and colonized. Spivak makes her intellectual call to action when she opines:
The relationship between global capitalism (exploitation in economics) and nation-state allegiances (domination in geopolitics) is so macrological that it cannot account for the micrological texture of power. To move toward such an accounting one must move toward theories of ideology—of subject formations that micrologically and often erratically operate the interests that congeal the macrologies.... My view is that radical practice should attend to this double session of representation rather than reintroduce the individual subject through totalizing concepts of power and desire.
Homi Bhabha, on the other hand, differs in his comment on the signifier effects of the dominant discourse. He focuses on the fact that ideas are expressed in the dominant discourse, in which the oppressed and colonized are not well versed and not skilled at expressing their validity claims. Hence, the claims of the oppressed are often expressed in poor imitation of the master discourse. And they are not given good faith hearing by those skilled in the use of the dominant discourse. The question that puzzles one is—why do the subaltern groups continue to remain perpetually thwarted? The elite groups have "remained dominant devoid of the will and ability to transform society, while the counterthrust from subaltern groups was perpetually thwarted or subalted by elite domination."
Answering the charge levelled against subaltern studies being reduced to class relations of binary division of society into `elite' and `subaltern', Dipesh Chakrabarty writes:
…the word `subaltern' in Subaltern Studies … refers to the specific nature of class relationships in India, where relationships, at almost all levels, are subsumed in the relations of domination and subordination between members of the elite and subaltern classes … the language of class in India overlaps with the language of citizen-politics only in the minority of instances. For the greater part of our daily experience, class relations express themselves in that other language of politics, which is the politics of a nation without `citizens'. It is in this realm that notions of hierarchy, domination and subordination work themselves out, as do the traditions of resistance to domination and deference towards the dominant. `Subalternity'—the composite culture of resistance to and acceptance of domination and hierarchy—is characteristic of class relations in our society, where the veneer of bourgeous equality barely masks the violent, feudal nature of much of our systems of power and authority.
In "Can the Subaltern Speak?", Spivak is critical of the efforts of the subaltern studies group, a project led by Ranajit Guha that has interpreted Gramsci's term `subaltern' (the economically dispossessed) to re-establish a `voice' or collective locus of agency in postcolonial India. Although Spivak acknowledges the `epistemic violence' done upon Indian subalterns, in her view any outside attempt to amend their condition by granting them collective speech will certainly lead to problems such as: 1) a logocentric assumption of cultural solidarity among a heterogeneous people; and 2) a dependence upon western intellectuals to `speak for' the subaltern condition rather than allowing them to speak for themselves. She further argues that by speaking out and reclaiming a collective cultural identity, subalterns will in fact re-inscribe their subordinate position in society. The academic assumption of a subaltern collectivity is similar to an ethnocentric extension of Western logos—a totalizing, essentialist mythology as Derrida might describe it, that doesn't account for the heterogeneity of the colonized body politic.
Slum dwellers constitute a unique subaltern group. Slums are urban areas heavily populated by poor and strangers living with substandard housing and filth. Slum inhabitants, living in a state of constant migration, they undergo problems due to unhygienic conditions, leading to outbreak of diseases. In brief, the slum is a crowded and disorderly urban area, marked by poverty, with very poor living conditions and where crimes thrive. Most of the child beggars in Dharavi are run by slum mafia that mutilate many of the children to appear pathetic to draw sympathy and compassion from donors. India is thus shown in a poor light with the filth in the slums encapsulated in beggary, corruption, crime, communal tension, prostitution and drug trade.
Dharavi had been ravaged by violence in the aftermath of the demolition of the Babri mosque (December 6, 1992). The riots were the outcome of Muslim anger over the incident and the subsequent Hindu backlash that ensued, aided by the police force, well orchestrated and planned by political machinations. However, despite violence, people have resumed their everyday life in the midst of collective disorder and rehabilitation work.
Roma Chatterji and Deepak Mehta have made a commendable study of the concept of `voice' to reflect on the `emergent events' that have affected Dharavi, such as Bombay riots, mass demolition and the first slum survey in Bombay. `The Voices' have been differently articulated and differentiated as individual voices and the public voice of the collective. NGOs like PROUD have articulated generalized social interest, making the slum dwellers go beyond private and selfish concerns. These are manifested in developmental schemes undertaken for common good. "Voices associated with violence are anonymous. They are not associated with speech acts but rather with sounds and fleeting utterances of anonymous faces in a mob composed of strangers. Individuals engaged in violence do not take responsibility for what they do; instead they act as Hindus or Muslims and their victims are similarly devoid of personhood."
Since Dharavi was known as a center of criminal activities in the 1970s, several measures have been taken to contain social problems through the residents organizing themselves into chawl committees and working along with the police to break up illicit distilleries and liquor dens.
The Maharashtra Slum Areas Improvement, Clearance and Redevelopment Act of 1971 was a result of the government recognizing the slums to be an answer to Bombay's chronic housing shortage rather than considering it a problem to be solved. The Slum Upgradation Program (SUP) began in the 1980s by which cooperatives were formed by groups of contiguous huts through which housing societies undertake upgradation works in the colonies. The Prime Minister's Grant Project (PMGP), begun in 1985 with a sanction of Rs. 30 cr for Dharavi by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, was a boon to the slum dwellers.
Ben Piven, a Fulbright scholar who conducted a fieldwork study of Dharavi on the convergence of caste and class observes:
Dharavi, and slums in general, should not be viewed as an overall liability to India's development, even if they are often public health and sanitation nightmares… The economic manpower and cultural essence of Mumbai reside in her masses of people who exist cradle-to-grave in this informal sector. Well over 50 percent of Mumbai's residents live in slums, and this percentage cannot decrease so long as rural migrants continue flocking to their congested city of dreams.
It is up to the authorities to transform such huge human resources available to potential economic strength of the nation.
Recent Celluloid Sensations
There have been several Bollywood films based on slum life. A cursory look at some of them will be of assistance in asserting the slum-subaltern in celluloid.
Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay (1988) depicts the plight of slum children in which Krishna, the protagonist, is a young boy who is driven out of home by his mother to make Rs. 500 for having damaged a bike. Determined to make money, he works in the slums of Bombay as a runner for a teashop. The story reveals his struggle for survival in a city replete with prostitution and drug trade. The various episodes show how unfortunate children live in the streets of Bombay. The film is marked by extraordinary realism depicting the squalor and poverty of the slums from where there is no escape. The film is a realistic portrayal of homeless children who form a considerable portion of the over seven million slum dwellers in Bombay. For survival, these children work in teashops, peddle in drugs and solicit for brothels.
Dharavi (City of Dreams) 1991, directed and written by Sudhir Mishra, won many awards including the 1992 National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi. It is set in the backdrop of India's largest slums Dharavi with stars Shabana Azmi and Om Puri in lead roles. It is the story of Raj Karan Yadav (Om Puri), a quarrelsome taxi driver, who lives in a small room in Dharavi with his wife (Shabana Azmi). He tries to eke out a living in Mumbai driving his taxi. The film portrays how he tries to breakout from the clutches of poverty and make a fortune for himself. Investing all his money in dubious schemes, which eventually blow out on him, he comes under the eye of unscrupulous politicians and local goons. However, he continues to pursue his dreams.
Chakra (1981) is a film made by Rabindra `Robin' Dharmaraj, presenting a realistic story depicting daily life of slum populace. As a typical social document it describes the subaltern concerns in the slums without wailing over their lot as victims of inequality. The story surrounds Amma who lives in Bijapur with her husband and son, Benwa. When a man attempts to molest her sexually, her husband kills him and as they flee, the husband is killed by the police. Amma (Smita Patel) comes to live in the slums of Dharavi with her son Benwa, who shines shoes for a living. Amma begins sexual relationships with Looka, a hoodlum and extortionist, and a trucker named Anna. However, both the men are unaware of each other, calling on her. As her son grows up, Looka arranges a wife for him, while Anna arranges a better shelter for her. Trouble brews when the police come looking for an injured Looka who has robbed medicine from a pharmacy. The movie follows anecdotal form examining typical social and moral life in the slums where people have to eke out a living like in a `chakra' (circle) of life.
Barah Aana released on March 20, 2009 is a Hindi movie directed by Raja Menon. It is a comic thriller on slum life set in Dharavi, narrating the tale of three friends: a stubborn but dependable driver Shuklaji (Naseeruddin Shah), a mischievous watchman Yadav (Vijay Raaz), and an ambitious waiter Aman (Arjun Mathur). Yadav unfortunately commits a crime and involves his two friends in it to make some quick money. But money corrupts them and by and by they show their true colors and are led to mutual destruction. The story renders a message on migrants' plight in the heart of slum-life.
Slum-subaltern presented through these movies express the various social concerns and evil prevalent in the slums, at the same time it exposes a vast humanity in need of social upliftment. But these Bollywood movies have remained at the level of entertainment, failing to draw academic attention. However, in the case of Slumdog Millionaire, the slum-subaltern received unimaginable global reception drawing great academic interest.
Slumdog Millionaire: Fiction and Film
Slumdog Millionaire directed by Danny Boyle was acclaimed the best movie of 2008, bagging eight Oscars, adding to its haul of various other international awards including seven BAFA (British Academy Film Awards) and four Golden Globe trophies. In the backdrop of global recession, gloom and doom, Slumdog Millionaire brings in an element of hope and optimism. Danny Boyle, the jubilant director, regards the film having a universal theme of genuine and passionate love as it ends in winning a prize money, but in love. The fairytale story of Mumbai is steeped in human emotions and humor surrounded by murder, thieving, extortion, communal conflict, prostitution, beggary and mafia rivalry.
The fiction and the film reflect life in Dharavi, Asia's largest slum of about 520 acres, existing at the heart of Mumbai. NGOs such as SPARC (Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centers) and PROUD (Peoples' Responsible Organization for a United Dharavi) have estimated the population from 700,000 to 1,200,000, comprising of 30% Muslims and 65% Dalits. It is known for its vibrancy with entrepreneurial activities that generate between $50 to $100 mn annually. The slum dwellers have also organized themselves into cooperative societies that provide basic facilities and protection to residents. "Dharavi is an economic success story that the world must pay attention to during these times of global depression.… Dharavi's messy appearance is nothing but an expression of intense social and economic processes at work. Most homes double as work spaces: when morning comes, mattresses are folded, and tens of thousands of units form a decentralized production network rivalling the most ruthless of Chinese sweatshops in efficiency." Dharavi in recent times has been observed differently by international organizations, state policy makers and NGOs who have come to acknowledge the residents of the slums as consumers and future taxpayers and propertyholders. It is not a slum occupied by poor people, rather by income earners whose rights to housing need to be addressed.
The film is an eye opener to the global phenomenon of displaced populations as "it (film) communicated across boundaries of culture, geography, economy and language. It shone a light into the heart of characters from Mumbai, but in so doing it taught everyone who saw it—from Mumbai to Milan, from Bangkok to Brazil, and from Lagos to Los Angeles, something about themselves and their immediate world."
Many do not consider Dharavi as a dreaded place full of beggars and criminals. Instead, it is a slum bustling with commercial arteries and is a lively part of an incredibly industrious city. People have been very creative in setting up a highly functional recycling industry. Dharavi's resourcefulness has been proven in the past 60 years of its growth from a small village in the marshlands to become a million-dollar economic miracle. It has been built by immigrants fleeing rural poverty, political oppression and natural disasters. Its economic success is an inspiration in the midst of global depression.
In the novel Q & A, Vikas Swarup, a diplomat by profession, has been unique in his portrayal of characters living impoverished lives and yet share the deep-felt human emotions where the subaltern attempts to speak to the rich and powerful. It also probes into basic human predicaments.
Swarup opens the novel with a prologue:
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. They broke open my door, handcuffed me and marched me off to the waiting jeep with a flashing red light.
There was no hue and cry. Not one resident stirred from his hut. Only the old owl on the tamarind tree hooted at my arrest.
In the movie, Danny Boyle, presents the episode through a very powerful scene of the constable puffing cigarette smoke onto Jamal Malik's face as he begins torturing the young man to get a forced confession out. It is a symbolic presentation of the boy's dream of becoming a millionaire going into smoke.
Falsely implicating slum dwellers in criminal cases by police are a common feature. For example in 1995 during the danga (riot) policemen broke open a certain Dina's house and bundled her husband into a van and assaulted him with the rifle butt. He was charged with homicide. Though the case was later disposed off, he had to report to Dharavi police station every week.
In keeping to the story-line of the novel based on the TV quiz W3B? (Who Will Win A Billion?) which became a national obsession a few years back with Kaun Banega Crorepati hosted by Amitabh Bhachchan as quiz master, the film begins with the captions:
Jamal Malik is one question away from winning Rs. 20 mn. How did he do it?
A) He cheated. B) He's lucky.
C) He's a genius. D) It is written.
For a better appraisal of both the novel and the movie version, it is important to make the list of central characters and the differences between the text of the fiction and the screenplay version of the film (Table 1).
In the recent past, writers have been exposing the ever widening poor-rich divide in India in the backdrop of its blooming economy. In the program "You Ask the Question", replying to a query on poverty, internal unrest and terrorism in India, Aravind Adiga is reported to have opined:
These problems have been brewing for a long time. The causes are complex, but one common theme I find is the heightened tension within the country that's caused by the growing gap between the rich and the poor. The flare-ups can often take the form of ethnic or regional protests, but the underlying grievances are often economic: "those people who live over there are doing much better than we are." Fixing the economic disparities has to be part of any attempt to address India's growing unrest. The country's intelligence and police agencies need to be reformed and modernized; right now they seem way behind the terrorists.
Likewise Vikas Swarup, in his novel, wanted to prove how even an uneducated slum-kid could prove his worth as knowledge is not the monopoly of the educated elite. Through a series of episodes the novelist tells the story of modern India through a quiz program.
I read a newspaper report that street children in India have begun using the mobile net facility. That gave me an idea. They had intuitively understood technology. You normally don't expect street children to surf the World Wide Web. We think they are uneducated people who do not go to schools. How can they think about the Internet? Here it was a reality. I thought, why not have an unlettered person appear on a quiz show, where difficult questions are asked and through his real-life experiences he answers them all.
Jamal introspects on the trap he has fallen into by overstepping his limits by taking part in a quiz program meant for the educated lot: "There are those who will say that I brought this upon myself. By dabbling in that quiz show, they will wag a finger at me and remind me of what the elders in Dharavi say about never crossing the dividing line that separates the rich from the poor. After all, what business did a penniless waiter have to be participating in a brain quiz? The brain is not an organ we are authorized to use. We are supposed to use only our hands and legs."
Overhearing the conversation between the organizers of the quiz program and the Commissioner of Police, Jamal comes to know that the trap was laid by them to continue a TV gimmick:
"You see, Commissioner, Mr. Mikhailov is not in a position to pay a billion rupees right now", says Johnson.
"Then why did he offer it in the first place?"
"Well ... it was a commercial gimmick"
…
"I want your help to prove that Thomas cheated on the show. That he couldn't have known the answers to all twelve questions without an accomplice. Just think. He's never been to school. He's never even read a newspaper. There's no way he could have won the top prize."
"Well ... I'm not so sure.'' The Commissioner scratches his head. ``There have been cases of boys from poor backgrounds turning out to be geniuses in later life. Wasn't Einstein himself a high-school drop-out?"
As they begin to bombard Jamal with a number of questions, he answers them all wrong, convincing them that he had cheated like the British army Major who won £1 mn with the assistance of his wife and a college lecturer. He was convicted in April 2003 for fraud. Swarup hit upon the plan of writing his story on an ignorant tiffin boy from the slums of Mumbai, on the verge of winning Rs. 20 mn, but accused of cheating.
As the novel progresses, the Commissioner becomes practical by prompting the organizers to pay Ram Mohammad Thomas some money and force him to withdraw from the quiz. After several hours of torture with different instruments, he is told to sign a confession statement:
I, Ram Mohammad Thomas, do hereby state that on July 10, I was a participant in the quiz show Who Will Win A Billion? I confess that I cheated. I did not know the answers to all the questions. I hereby withdraw my claim to the top prize or any other prize. I beg forgiveness. I am making this statement in full control of my senses and without any undue pressure from anyone. Signed: Ram Mohammad Thomas.
The protagonist's ordeal in the novel ends when a young woman lawyer named Smita Shah comes to his rescue. The rest of the story is recounted through his confession to the lawyer built around 13 questions of the quiz show.
"... I got lucky on the show."
"You mean you just guessed the answers and by pure luck got 12 out of 12 correct?"
"No. I didn't guess those answers. I knew them."'
"You knew the answers?"
"Yes. To all the questions."
"Then where does luck come into the picture?"
"Well, wasn't I lucky that they only asked those questions to which I knew the answers?"
Jamal is tortured in the police station through different inhuman methods to get the forced confession that he cheated at the show. The Inspector of Police suspects that he has been wired up with some network to get the right answers. He cannot come to believe that a slumdog without any formal education can answer questions which Professors, Lawyers, Doctors, General Knowledge Wallahs never answer.
Every question Jamal answers has its history of episodes in his life at various stages. The flashback technique is very aptly employed in the film with energizing musical scores and pithy dialogues. When the question is asked—"in depictions of the God Ram, he is famously holding what in his right hand? Is it: A) A flower; B) A scimitar; C) A child; D) A bow and arrow?".
Jamal recollects his childhood traumatic experience after his mother was killed in a local riot. While escaping with his brother, he observes a three year old boy in a doorway, painted in blue holding in his hand a bow and arrow. That gives Jamal the clue to answer the question. He expresses his bitter pain: "I wake up every morning wishing I didn't know the answer to that question? If it wasn't for Ram and Allah, I would still have a mother".
Both constable Srinivas and Inspector of Police are unable to get the confession out of Jamal despite all tortures. The Inspector becomes a psychologist, interpreting Jamal's stubborn resistance saying: "Well, well. The slum dog barks. Money or women. The reason for most mistakes in life. Looks like you got mixed up with both…". This is the core issue in the movie where Jamal continues to sustain his yearning to win money for the sake of his love for Latika.
Scenes of atrocities on children prevalent in orphanages through gangs that exploit them, are portrayed vividly through Maman, Punnose and their men. Salim is promised to be made a leader and a professional in the trade.
Maman: The time has come to choose, yaar. The life of a slum dog or the life of a man. A real man. A gunfighter, Salim. Your destiny is in your hands, bhai. You can be me. Or nobody. Understand?
Salim sees them take out the eyes of Aravind to make him a pathetic looking beggar. When Jamal is called in to be blinded, Salim flings chloroform on to Punnose and escapes with Jamal and Latika. However, Latika fails to get on to the speeding train engine.
Displacement is often found in Dharavi by which people keep moving into a different neighborhood within the slum. Some leave Mumbai and migrate to other places. The episode portraying Salim and Jamal atop a train, admiring the distant Himalayas, makes the latter reminisce their migrant life in the slums: "We criss-crossed the country from Rajasthan to Calcutta. Every time we were thrown off we got back on again. This was our home for years. A home with wheels and a whistle." The slum life, being one of struggle for survival with no future insight, makes the inmates live by a do-or-die principle. Hence, slum-subaltern is often led to speak through anti-social activities.
The rest of the story takes the brothers to Taj Mahal and their experience as tourist guides, stealing and pick-pocketing. Simon Beaufoy adds an element of humor to the story-line, depicting at the same time the smartness of the slum boys in dire need for survival. They fabricate stories bluffing tourists:
Jamal: The Taj Mahal was built by the Emperor Khurram for his wife Mumtaz who was maximum beautiful woman in the whole world. When she died, the Emperor decided to build this five star hotel for everyone who wanted to visit her tomb.
The tourists are confused as they fail to find any such details in the guide book. The boys, however, continue their explanations with further concocted stories like Mumtaz died in a `road traffic accident.'
Later resurfacing in Mumbai, the brothers work at different places and at a restaurant. But Jamal's love for Latika continues to motivate him to find her. Salim discourages his brother from the wild goose chase trying to track her in the midst of 19 million people in the city. But Jamal doesn't give up searching for his first love. He chances to meet his old pal, the eyeless Arvind, who tells him of his pathetic story after being blinded by Maman's men. While conversing, Jamal confesses how his love for Latika impelled him to escape Maman's dungeon. Arvind is upset with his futile search as he would be captured by Maman's gang.
Jamal: I owe Latika … Please. Is she alive?
Arvind: Alive? Oh, she's alive alright. It's your life, Jamal. Pila Street. They call her Cherry, now … I will sing at your funeral, yaar.
The brothers find her being trained in music by Maman in a brothel. Maman recognizes them both and refuses to let Latika go. The brothel scene presents the child prostitution prevalent in slums.
Maman: You really thought you could just walk in and take my prize away? Have you any idea how much this little virgin is worth, bhen chod?
The State of the World's Children 2008 on Child Survival, calls on decision making bodies worldover to work together to ensure that mothers, newborns and children receive quality essential services and place the survival of children at the heart of global efforts to advance humanity (www.unicef.org). The Oscar-nominated and Academy-award winning documentary Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids released in 2004 depicts very powerfully child sex exploitation and prostitution.
At Maman's refusal to let Latika go free, Salim straightens up his gun and shoots Maman telling him that he couldn't take the risk of sparing his life. The three escape with the money they get.
As a sequence to this first crime by the young boy Salim, the original screenplay presents a superb scene at Chowpathy Beach at dusk, showing their sense of lost innocence in contrast to children at play: "Children are splashing in the sea, flying kites, digging sand, laughing. Salim, Latika and Jamal are crouched on the shore watching the sun sink into the sea. Latika is going through Maman's wallet, Salim is fingering the pistol, admiringly and Jamal is staring out to sea. They are in their own world, yet sharing swigs from a bottle of Johnny Walker." It is a symbolic sunset of their innocent lives—from stage of innocence to the stage of experience: Salim has become a slum-killer and admires his pistol; Latika has tasted a life in the brothel and searches Maman's wallet craving for the money; Jamal stares out to sea, dreaming of his love and passion for Latika.
Though Jamal has rejoined his girlfriend, Salim's passion for her drives out Jamal at gunpoint. They are once again separated. When they meet again we find Salim working as a hit man for Javed after having had killed Maman. The sequence shows how mafia groups function. Javed was happy to employ him now saying, "My enemy's enemy is my friend."
It is while calling for the operator to join the contest, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, that Jamal gets in touch with his brother Salim.
Salim: Jamal? Is that you? Brother? Where are you, man?... I thought you were dead or something … we had to go, Jamal. Maman's guys. They were searching the hotel…
The sequence of the TV quiz show focuses on Jamal at the studio as he is into a `rollercoaster ride all the way' making all right answers contesting for five million rupees:
Prem: A few hours ago, you were fetching tea for the phone-wallahs. Now you are richer than they will ever be. What a player, Ladies and Gentlemen! What a player. For Rs. 5 mn, my friend: who invented the revolver? Was it A) Samuel Colt; B) Bruce Browning; C) Dan Wesson; or D) James Revolver?
Once again his familiarity with his brother's gun culture makes him give the right answer. He had witnessed Salim shooting Maman and had experienced Salim hold his pistol to shoot him in a row over Latika.
When Salim and Jamal meet, they sit on the verge of a building observing their Mumbai city. Salim speaks of his accomplishments after having joined Javed's gang. He boasts of his rags to riches story, becoming the center of all criminal activities. They observe that the multi-storied apartments have replaced the old decrepit structures, giving the impression of urban mobility and transformation. Dharavi is the ultimate user-generated city as each of its 80-plus neighborhoods has been incrementally developed by generations of residents updating their shelters and businesses according to needs and means.
Salim: Can you believe it? This is our slum. We lived just there, huh? Now it is business, apartments, call centers…India is at the center of the world, now, bhai. And I am at the center of the center, Jamal. This is all Javed-bhai's.
Jamal: Javed Mehta? The gangster from our slum? You work for him?
Salim: Who else would protect us from Maman's gang, huh?
Jamal shows no interest in Salim's exploits. His only interest is to know the whereabouts of Latika. When he enquires of her Salim answers slyly: "Still? She's gone, Jamal. Long gone. Now go. Quick." Salim cannot understand the depth of sincere and passionate love Jamal has for the girl.
Jamal comes to know that Salim works for Javed as a hit man. Following his track, Jamal observes Latika on the balcony of Javed's fortified bungalow. He pretends to be the new cook. But the door keeper gets confused and lets him in taking him to be the dishwasher. Latika recognizes her long lost lover. Meanwhile they could overhear TV commentary on millionaire program and the conversation gears up on it, turning attention on the secret of happiness. The sequence is a reflection on slum-subaltern yearning for happiness through riches.
Jamal: Why does everyone love this program?
Latika: It's the chance to escape, isn't it? Walk into another life. Doesn't everyone want that?
Jamal: You have another life. A rich one.
Latika: Who'd have thought it possible? A slumdog, with all this.
Jamal: Are you happy?
Latika: I have five star food, five star clothes. I sleep in a bed, not on the street from where we come from, Jamal, that is happiness.
Jamal: You don't look happy with a black eye.
Latika: You turn up here out of nowhere, telling me I'm not happy: how dare you?
As the duo are in embrace Javed returns to find the new cook and dishwasher. He yells telling him to get out. Jamal asks her to escape with him to freedom.
Jamal: Come away with me.
Latika: … Away where? And live on what? What can you provide? What have you got, Jamal?
Jamal: Love.
….
Latika: Love, that will feed us, will it?
Jamal: It won't buy you a new dishwasher, but it might make you happy.
…
Jamal: You and me. That is the real world. Come away with me.
…
Latika: You are crazy.
Jamal: Salim will help us.
Latika: Salim? You still believe in Salim? ... You want to do something for me?
Jamal: Anything.
Latika: Then forget me.
Jamal: I'll wait at VT station. 5 o'clock everyday until you come.
Jamal keeps his promise and waits for her daily at VT station at 5 o'clock in the evening.
The final quiz show for Rs. 20 mn is on for Jamal. Everyone focussed on TV sets. In Javed's bungalow Salim persuades Latika to drive out to see the live show. He gives her his mobile. The show begins with the final question on Alexander Duma's book The Three Musketeers. Jamal confesses he doesn't know the answer and is asked to dial a friend. He calls Salim's mobile and gets Latika online after much delay as she left it on the car seat. As Latika introduces herself on phone there is a first real smile on Jamal's adult life, indicating his final achievement in getting in touch with her. Though she is unable to help him with a clue, Jamal guesses the right answer and makes history winning Rs. 20 mn.
Meanwhile at Javed's bungalow Salim fills the bath tub with rupee bills and lies in it and guns down Javed who comes yelling at him for having let Latika escape and have her appear on TV show. Salim is shot by Javed's men and dies uttering `God is good'. The film ends with the scene of Jamal waiting for Latika at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus gazing at the VT station as commuters file past. Their love being genuine, Latika comes in search of him. He forces himself through the crowd and reaches out to her.
Latika: I thought we would meet again only in death.
Jamal: I knew you'd be watching.... This is our destiny.… This is our destiny.
The movie climaxes in the typical Indian style with the hit song `Jai Ho' bringing warmth to the frigid audience. The film has been acclaimed as well as decried by critics. Though most find it very realistic in portraying slum-life based on Swarup's novel. Danny Boyle has rendered it a superb celluloid sensation. He has not intentionally presented anything that would undermine Indian ethos. It is indeed a shocking presentation of our slums whether one likes it or not. However, certain dehumanizing scenes are disgusting to any cultured audience like the way the young Jamal dives in through the septic hole and wades across the mire fully covered in human excrement. Coining the word `slumdog' has been offensive too in a world where affirmation of human dignity is given prime importance by virtue of human rights of individuals. The slum dwellers may be the poorest of the poor, but they are to be respected as persons in a world where there is an ever growing awareness treating with respect every living organism. Amitabh Bachchan rightly reacted when he wrote, "if SM projects India as [a] third-world, dirty, underbelly developing nation and causes pain and disgust among nationalists and patriots, let it be known that a murky underbelly exists and thrives even in the most developed nations."
However, the novel and the movie have a universal appeal as the characters are representative of everyman in every age. It has been pointed out by Prince Charles that the Mumbai shanty town featured in the film should be a model for urban planning as the west has much to learn from societies and places which, while sometimes poorer in material terms are infinitely richer in the ways in which they live and organize themselves as communities.
Vikas Swarup has been satisfied with the change of title from Q & A to Slumdog Millionaire as it gives it better sense. He also agrees to the innovative ending of the film by which the hero is arrested on suspicion of cheating on the penultimate question, and not after he wins as in the novel. In the film friends are made into brothers. The lead character's name in the film is changed from Ram Mohammad Thomas to Jamal Malik. This removes the original notion Swarup had of projecting his hero as an Indian everyman with a Hindu, Muslim and Christian name. In the film Jamal is a Muslim whose mother is killed by a Hindu mob, rendering it more dramatic. The novelist has appreciated screenwriter Simon Beaufoy's creativity in rendering the film beautiful with a plot riveting with the breathtaking child actors. However, Swarup has reservations on public reaction to communal riots portrayed as people are very sensitive in India.
The various episodes in Jamal's life draw our attention such as: 1) His witnessing his mother being killed by communal mobs; 2) His begging career with the slum mafia; 3) His escape with his brother from the slum mafia; 4) His involvement in thefts and duping foreign tourists at Taj Mahal; 5) His return to Mumbai and being employed at the restaurant and searching for his childhood sweetheart; 6) His determination to save Latika from prostitution and tracking his brother involved with the mafia; 7) His participation in the TV quiz show more for Latika's sake than for the prize money; and 8) The final `Jai Ho' episode that climaxes the movie in the typical Indian style bringing warmth to the frigid audience with the union of lovers.
The film has a perfect storyline with 18 year-old orphan, Jamal Malik, just one question away from becoming a millionaire bagging Rs. 20 mn in the TV quiz, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Misfortune strikes Jamal as he is picked up by police on suspicion of fraud. They build their suspicion on his slum background being an uneducated slumdog.
In the novel he unfolds his story to Smita Shah, the lawyer. As she reviews the footage of the show to build the case, Ram tells heart wrenching stories from his life and the mystery unfolds. Ram Mohammad Thomas narrates his life story in 13 controlled, quick paced episodes, that link into each quiz query.
In the film the police inspector shows the videotape and after each question Jamal narrates his life-story: his childhood with his brother Salim, his crush for Latika and their fight to survive on the streets. Guided by his common sense and past experiences, Jamal is able to give right answers to all questions.
Conclusion
Slumdog Millionaire is indeed a thrilling account of an orphaned poor slum boy's quest for identity, dignity and love through winning a TV quiz show. It is undoubtedly a superb picaresque story in very simple language in which Jamal rises from rags to riches winning his long lost love. India comes alive in this modern day parable where we encounter our teeming millions with their resilient spirit. It is a wonderful fairy-tale in which genuine love and wisdom conquers evil. The story narrated in episodic flashbacks with three sets of actors of three different age groups from the real slums, renders it a powerful presentation in the film. It revolves around love, friendship, betrayal, poverty and hope. Boyle has remarkably achieved his artistic perfection bringing together tears and laughter, comedy and thrill, in the true spirit of Aristotelian poetics.
The movie with its characters from the slums of Dharavi has given it a greater appeal to the audience. Little wonder media gave much attention when the father of Slumdog kid Rubina Ali was arrested for allegedly trying to sell his daughter for 200,000 pounds. Rubina's biological mother filed a complaint accusing her ex-husband and his new wife for trying to cash-in on the nine-year-old's fame.
According to a United Nations report, population growth and urbanization are veritably creating a planet of slums, which is expected to double by 2030. The slums in the cities of Africa and Asia are growing by more than a million people every week. The report states that the growth of cities will be the single largest influence on development in the 21st century. As former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has stated, global poverty is moving to cities, leading to urbanization of poverty. Without concerted action on the part of the municipal authorities, national governments, civil society actors and the international community, the number of slum dwellers is likely to increase in most developing countries. And if no serious action is taken, the number of slum dwellers worldwide is projected to rise over the next 30 years to about two billion.
Nobel laureate Mother Teresa's statement on the plight of the poorest of the poor provokes any honest mind to probe into the lot of the poor and those academically labelled as subaltern groups: "I was asked why I did not give a rod with which to fish, in the hand of the poor, rather than give the fish itself as this makes them remain poor. So I told them: The people whom we pick up are not able to stand with the rod. So today I will give them fish and when they are able to stand, then I shall send them to you and you can give them the rod".
In the final analysis it may be noted, whatever be the effort made to eradicate poverty in the slums, we should not be under the wrong conception that, `poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty'. This undercurrent which runs through the fiction and the film proves that it is only human emotions and genuine love that can sustain life for ever. Meanwhile, Slumdog Millionaire remains a powerful medium to expose the injustice meted out to slum dwellers. The fiction and the movie are a proof to the resourcefulness of the teeming millions who need empowerment as they form a vibrant section of India's human resources.
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