'Slumdog' Kid Falls Sick, Search For Homes Intensifies

MUMBAI, India — The search for new homes for two impoverished child stars from the hit movie "Slumdog Millionaire" has intensified, as one child fell sick days after city authorities demolished the shanty where she lived, family members said.

Nine-year-old Rubina Ali came down with a fever Friday and spent a few hours in a local hospital, they said.

"I'm fine now, but I feel tired," Rubina said Saturday as she lay in bed, resting at her uncle's house.

Rubina's block was razed Wednesday to make way for a planned pedestrian overpass at a commuter train station in Mumbai. Last week, co-star Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail's home was demolished, part of a pre-monsoon slum clearance drive.

Rubina and her parents have been staying with relatives. Azhar, 10, and his family have tied tarpaulins and blankets around a thin wood frame for shelter in the Garib Nagar _ "city of the poor" _ slum where both families live.

After the runaway success of their film, "Slumdog" director Danny Boyle and producer Christian Colson set up the Jai Ho trust to ensure the children receive proper homes, a decent education and a nest egg when they finish high school. They have also donated $747,500 to a charity to help slum children in Mumbai.

The filmmakers have agreed to raise the amount of money they will spend on new apartments for each family from $30,000 to $50,000, a Jai Ho trustee and Rubina's father, Rafiq Qureshi, both told The Associated Press on Saturday.

Family members had worried that $30,000 would not be enough to secure decent housing in Mumbai's pricey real estate market.

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In addition, the filmmakers have agreed to give each family a stipend of $130 a month and a lump sum of $3,000 a year to support the children while they are in school, the trustee and Qureshi said.

That is substantially more than any of their neighbors in Garib Nagar make, where many bring home $4 a day as auto rickshaw drivers and maids.

"We are trying our best to finalize things as soon as possible," Jai Ho trustee Nirja Mattoo said Saturday. She said representatives of the trust took Azhar's family to look at a few nearby apartments earlier this week.

City authorities have also promised the children and some of their neighbors new homes.

The state's top politician, Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, told the Mumbai Mirror that he would expedite the process now that national elections are over.

"The elections delayed the process, but very soon we will allot them flats," he was quoted as saying.

Slum demolitions are common in India's cramped cities, and government promises to resettle slum-dwellers often come to nothing. Even when slum-dwellers are given housing, it is often in poor-quality buildings on the outskirts of cities, far from jobs.

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Rajanish Kakade and Gautam Singh contributed to this report.

Comments

[demfriend]

These kids represent a whole lot more than just themselves and it isn't the responsibility to have any filmaker pay for eveything for everyone in the film they make. We all know this it is just the media hype that keeps these two on the pages of gossips. The whole area where the kids live should be addressed just as the whole areas/countries where other kids live should be looked at. These two are not being raped, mutilated, straved or killed which actually puts them on the top of the "poor kids" heap. They have lived in the slums their whole lives and these were "illegal" places built where they were not supposed to be. it isn't like they have been forclosed on like kids in the US and the whole families live on the streets without house, jobs and healthcare. Perspective is something the media should stop and put ahead of the push for the story which isn't much when these two have far more than those they paly with waiting for them. Should these two be adopted and taken away from their families to make the media happy with where they live?

[DandyWarhol]

Shame on you, Danny Boyle, I'll never pay to see another one of your movies again.

[Oonagh]

He is a film maker not a miracle worker, he has shed light on the vast problem of the shanties and hopefully it will help in some way.

[macbabe]

Where's Madonna and Angelina Jolie when you NEED them.... surely they can adopt a few more!!

[ywcachieve]

macbabe....Let it go. That's getting stale.

Besides Angie has a partner, named Brad, they adopt together.

[ywcachieve]

And PS, macbabe... those children are not up for adoption.

[Rjchinook]

I am not sure why these actors and their families were not sponsored by the movie makers and brought to America, like other immigrates and their families. I believe this would have been more humane then trying to provide for them there.

[erincnyc]

Slumdog is a British film. Why would the kids be brought to the States? Why not the UK?

[hypnotoad72]

Because everything wrong in this world is America's fault, or so I keep hearing...

[Oonagh]

Why the USA... why not Europe..

[GoodFeathers]

If this kid lived in USA, she would've been a multimillionaire by now after the publicity she got from the movie. Hey, this is the country where a low life like Octamom can by a home worth $500,000 after exploiting her pregnancy.

[hypnotoad72]

Agreed. In the USA, hard working people are treated like discardable cogs.

[TLThomas]

Whatever happened in the story where the girl's father was trying to sell her to the highest bidder? There is definitely something wrong with the mindset of people of that part of the world.

[MikeRdg]

There is a mindset wrong in many families, which exploit a family member to get ahead, don't think it is only there, it isn't.

[notconfindtweenhatnboots]

Keep in mind that that story was "exposed" by one of Murdoch's "reporters" who basically entrapped the father into meeting with him. Murdoch also owns the rights to the Movie and is the one who has profited from it the most. IMHO, Murdoch did that to discredit the family and/or try to get Rubina off of the front pages (maybe if the father had sold Rubina to the "reporter" the reporter would make it so no one would ever hear from or see her again, therefore no more bad publicity for Mr. Murdoch).

[The Ghost]

This brings a much needed spotlight to the systemic abject poverty in India. How can they treat their own citizens so shamefully?

[DubyaGump]

So now you are an expert on India, because your brother worked there for a year, knowledge transferance,?

[andj]

you dont have to live in South Africa to know that there is something inherantly evil about discriminating on the basis of race or skin tone.

[DubyaGump]

Insteading of b#tching, donate some money and yes, go to India and be a volunteer:
http://www.dalitnetwork.org/

[andj]

giving some money to people is not going to change the apartheid in the caste system -and the injustice in the society.

I am doing my bit by informing people about the evil in the religion. Its a small start.

How can you defend it? You should be informing and trying to change it so people can be free.

Apparently when indians have converted to Christianity to excape from the caste system they have be persecuted by the Hindus.

[andj]

its called a caste system - its not apartheid.

if you have more b lack genes then you have less rights.

[notconfindtweenhatnboots]

It's the same thing. There is no way to escape the caste system in India... Even adopted children are asked what their "born caste" was, as people have no care for what the "social caste" is of the parents who raised them.

[andj]

weel said

[Mixpixlix]

What happened to this kids is just one more example of GREED that has infected every industry in every country. To send those kids back to shantys after giving them a look and feel of a different kind of life borders on cruel and inhuman.

It's interesting that the movie makers donated about 3/4 million to "charity" but didn't make sure that the kids from the movie enjoyed a better life. While I understand that sometimes negotiations like this can be tricky, parents with nothing may ask for the world, still I feel the movie producers should have made sure these kids enjoyed long term benefits from their acting that include a decent place to live.

[doublewhammy]

Unbelievable the use of these children for financial gain. Someone making this movie really did not do cause and effect, means to an end...how this story would turn out. Oh, the term Ugly Americans at its best. Most people that you talk to have no idea what is going on with these kids. I have always dealt with dog adoptions, not kids, you do not pick up a stray on the street, feed it well and let it sleep in comfort, then put it back on the street and say well at least it had a one nice week. How do these folks sleep at night and know this is going on. No follow up, no completion except again the bank account for those involved with the success of the film. Shame.

[TheBlackCat]

well, first off this was a British film.

Secondly, you have just decribed the American foster care system. My parents did foster care and I plan to as well. They only ended up keeping custody of one child, all the rest were returned to their families, and in most cases they were returned to very depressing conditions. DSS SUCKS, and more often then not parents got custody back and the kids despite the fact they were still abusive, neglectful, etc, and add abject poverty into that mix as well.

By your standards, my parents are horrible people for having done foster care. They are loving, nurtruing upper middle class people. Many of these kids were a million times better off with my parents then they had been anywhere else. It would cause my parents great distress when an inept DSS system put these kids back in bad conditions, but they comforted themselves by saying "at least we could provide them with a respite from their suffering. At least we got a chance to give them some manner of safety, love, and security, even if it was only temporary."

Your comment suggests that no one with a good home should do foster care, because after all, all you are able to do in most situations is give these kids "one nice week" or month of a couple months.

Good job demonizing any decent foster family who has ever tried to help a child in need.

[elephantsneverforget]

I don't think the two cases are synonymous. Good foster parents are indeed a blessing. But the filmmakers' intentions were not the same as a foster parent's. The filmmakers exploited these children and their difficult circumstances for profit. If they could have gotten out of paying and caring for them during their work on the film, they would have done so. That's a far cry from a good foster family's altruistic desire to provide a warm, welcoming respite from abuse and poverty. I think that was the point of the comment from "doublewhammy." Not that the work of foster families is a disgrace to humanity.

[seachild]

this is utter DISGRACE...hiring them then putting them BACK in filth!...when they KNOW that ALL THAT MONEY MADE from the film could help the children of the entire community live better...and wouldn't put a dent in their pockets...

talk about selfish greed...

[pipetoe]

Why didn't they just hire actors. They probably wouldn't be paying them this much... This is a little wild...

[notconfindtweenhatnboots]

If they had just hired (upper caste) actors to portray the lower caste, this would be extremely offensive. This would be the same morally as having white actors put on blackface to portray poor blacks in America.

[pipetoe]

Actors are just that,,,act­ors...Ther­e are child actors.

[MikeRdg]

“Here are a couple of number:
Budget $15.1 million[1]
Gross revenue $343,468,709”

Yes, all of our American actors live in the slums. These children did not receive a percentage of the profits. Some of the comments are an excuse for greed. Exploiting people is a national habit.
Shame, shame shame………..there are a lot of post where justification is being done.

[notconfindtweenhatnboots]

Rupert Murdoch's Fox Studio's is the entity that made the largest cut of that money. I doubt the producer even got a percentage. FOX has the distribution rights for this movie in the USA and therefore profitted well off the unexpected success.

Do you really think that Rupert Murdoch is going to ever do anything to help the poor or even lower middle class of ANY country?

[PhDiva]

Of course, the producer got a percentage. Don't be ridiculous. That's why the producer would agree to a low budget film, to make money on the back end. All of the Europeans had agents and lawyers to protect their interests. These children had no one protecting theirs.

[praxitas]

more 'pretend' concern.

[varran]

The whole story about these unfortunate slum kids is not well understood.The poverty of world over is very complex and complicated, and there are no easy answer in developed or third world country, if we find homes for these two kids ,would poverty, slums in Mumbai or anywhere else vanish? What has caste,karma, reincarnation anything to do with poverty,sl­ums,welfar­e,health care and other social ills of India or any other country in the world.Pove­rty,inequa­lity,tyran­ny,exploit­ation , wars ,genocide,murder, mass killing and injustice and lack of fair distribution of wealth always existed and will exist for forcible time,we forget communism, capitalism,french revolution, American revolution and all the wars did not end or begin poverty, we better understand the nature of this so called notion of all are equal and have equal chance, opportunity is so full of bolony that we ever believed in it ,it is our naive'te not fact of nature or facts..we like to think that way so that we can sleep every day, and not think the world is so ugly and that makes life less painful. These two kids are not cause but symptom of a dose of reality, the sooner we realize it better we will be, all we can do to work hard in our own individual way.sorry sounds selfish,if it is ,so be it. IT IS WHAT IT IS.

[MikeRdg]

No, but two kids would be help, otherwise there are two more kids who are not helped. Money was made by them too.

[screenyme]

In my educated opinion, I would like to differ with your statement that 'poverty, inequality, tyranny, exploitation, wars, genocide...mass killing...always existed'. These kinds of social phenomena have very likely only existed since the beginning of urbanization, say 10.000 years ago. I agree that these days, under the circumstances that we have created for ourselves as humans, equal opportunity is indeed an untruth.

[notconfindtweenhatnboots]

Ah, I see SOMEONE here has actually taken Sociology 101. Thanks for clearing things up for all those who haven't.

[mathme]

Here are a couple of number:
Budget $15.1 million[1]
Gross revenue $343,468,709[1]

That's only about $318Million in profit. That's hardly enough to go around. If those kids have to be homeless, starving, and sick in order for the execs at fox searchlight to maintain all of their homes, then that's the way it has to be. Cocaine and hookers aren't free, either.

[MikeRdg]

Your figures do put a light on the issue.

From one who knows what is like to be exploited, and close to homeless, due to corrupt people.

[PhDiva]

Yes. I do think out of three hundred fifty million dollars, they could spare a little something to keep these children from being homeless.

[elephantsneverforget]

Those are just box office grosses. That number does not include the other profits the film has raked in for the producers.