SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

1980 and 81 was the period when I stayed in a College Hostel at Trichy. Recently when I visited the college, I found the building to have dilapidated and deserted. Standing before the building for a while, my memory went back to the period when I stayed there along with 4 other boys in a room of barely 300 sq ft on the third floor corner.

There was no toilet in the building but only bathrooms. One has to go down to the the courtyard where toilets were separately located. The hostel was having 2 blocks juxtoposing each other in a fashion that it formed a perfect square and the other side detached from both the block, situated common toilets. A wall fitted with pipes and washing trough concealed the toilets from the frontside view.

Hostel gate was in the other end in between the two blocks. There were also bathing yard at the back of the hostel, where boys used to take bath in the open. Most of the boys prefer to take bath in the open as they had come from various villages situated on the banks of River Cauveri, mainly from Tanjore and Trichy districts.

A junior boy who came from a 'well to do' family from Chennai became a good friend of me. Later on, I came to know that his family was associated with the management of the college itself!

Having come from a 'well to do' family, he used to lament about the condition of the hostel, especially the toilets. We found a toilet attached to the office to be slightly better and used to frequent there on some pretexts. It was when that access was closed, we used to visit a Library situated about 5 km away...! Not for clearing our doubts but to clear our bowels!

He quit the college mainly for want of a good toilet. There were no "Shulab/pay Toilets" in those time, not even something like those we saw in Slumdog Millionaire!

Slumdog Millionaire showed some of the "pay" toilets which I have never seen before! I am really amused to see the little boy taking a dirty route to get an autograph from Amitabh Bacchan! I hope Amitabh Bacchan remembers having signed an autograph without dirtying his hands!

No other movie had made it so famous by showcasing filth, dirt and squalor than Slumdog Millinnaire! Even to carry the cameras and the crew to such locations would have posed a lot of challenge. In the process it highlighted the crimes committed by the Slumdog criminals abusing the children, selling 'mineral water' using some quick fix methods,and portrayed the possibility of a "call centre assistant" to become a Millionaire.

Now all 'Chaiwallahs' have a new designation: "Call Centre Assistant"! But in reality, and the way the film was shot, one can come to a conclusion that the "Call Centre Assistant" is having more freedom and life than the employees of callcentres who are very closely monitored and work in crowded & crammy offices.

Clearly the slumdog life seems to be more eventful!

The movie is well taken but should have given some more explanation as to why Jamal was hauled up by the police and how he was allowed to participate for the final question. Also the charactor of Anil Kapoor is not well defined. Why he went scotfree for delibrately feeding the wrong answer, especially when the police was satisfied about the innocence of Jamal?

In my opinion, Irfan Khan has a better presence than Anil Kapoor. Unlike Anil Kapoor, Irfan has never claimed credit!

Danny Boyle must have been ragpicking stories around the world and would have had no difficulty in choosing the 'most beautiful slum of the world' in the city of Mumbai!

There is a saying in tamil that the money received through selling fish will not smell.

Slumdog earnings will not smell too!