The Observer (Kampala)
Martyn Drakard
18 June 2009
book review
Book: Slumdog Millionaire (First published as Q&A)
Author: Vikas Swarup
Publisher: Black Swan Books
Volume: 382 pages
In this year's Oscars' ceremony Slumdog Millionaire swept the board with eight awards. Based on the novel Q&A by Indian diplomat, Vikas Swarup, it is the rags to riches tale of a former Mumbai street orphan, now waiter, who gets onto a TV quiz show to win one billion rupees, against all odds. The hero tells us in the order of questions the incredible adventures that led him fortuitously and unbelievably to the correct answers. He tells his story to a sympathetic lawyer who has rescued him from the police station where he's being tortured on charges of cheating.
It's an unlikely story in the true picaresque tradition of likeable rogues and the rejects of the Mumbai slums battling against the mean and powerful of this world, through trickery, cheek and sheer luck.
Danny Boyle, the movie director, played the story for charm and humour without covering up the misery and shame of Asia's biggest slum, nor fearing to show the ruthless exploitation meted out by child-traffickers and the big city mafia. But the main character -Ram Mohamed Thomas in the book, Jamal in the movie- is pitched differently in book and film.
The book brings out all his boyish tricks, honest and deceitful, to survive, but with a touch of bitterness at how life has treated him. There are no really good characters in the novel; everyone is blighted in some way, except Shankar, the mentally-retarded orphan. We are induced to feel compassion or admiration for someone, such as Bahwant Singh, the undecorated soldier hero, or Neelima, the actress known as the Tragedy Queen, only to have our hero and heroine knocked off their pedestal, their reputations shattered by disgrace.
The film version exudes optimism; that in the midst of such terrible squalor, exploitation, vice and crime clean green shoots can spring up, almost unsullied by the filth around them.
The film modifies or omits altogether some of the more brutal, seedy incidents, which gives it a lighter touch. The book spares us nothing and in this sense is more realistic, graphically realistic to the point where we cringe, and ask ourselves: surely the author is overstating his case, even to the point of questionable taste. All the seven capital sins are paraded in their naked ugliness and brutality, with only occasional light relief.
It is a tough, powerful and angry book, and at times unnecessarily sensational. Swarup doesn't save his anger at the plight of slum-dwellers and the wealthy who ignore them and the unscrupulous who exploit and divide them. Whereas the picaresque characters of Dickens, such as Oliver Twist, or of Mark Twain, such as Tom Sawyer, win our hearts, we end up with divided feelings over Ram Mohamed Thomas, and wonder if he really "deserved" the billion rupees after all.
The style is chatty and fast-paced. But if the film left you with a warm glow, the novel will leave some bitter taste in the mouth.
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