Did Slumdog Millionaire Exploit its Slum-Dwelling Child Actors?
Their parents seem to think so. The mother of Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail—the 10-year-old who plays the lead character’s brother, Salim, in the Oscar-sweeping film—still lives lives with her son in a hovel made of tarps and blankets in Mumbai’s Behrampada shanty, where rats roam and sewage runs untreated. “He’s supposed to be the hero in the movie, but look how he’s living,” she told Australia’s Herald Sun. “We need money and help now. It is hard living like this. I am worried that after the Oscars are over they will forget us.” And then there’s the movie’s other slum star: Rubina Ali, 9, who plays the young version of Latika, the film’s heroine, lives nearby. Her shack is brightly coloured but an open sewer runs close by. Her father, Rafiq Ali Kureshi, a carpenter, broke his leg during filming and has been out of work since. “I am very happy the movie is doing so well but it is making so much money and so much fame, and the money they paid us is nothing. They should pay more,” he said.
