‘Slumdog’ inspired by Hole in Wall project: Vikas

Sunday, January 18, 2009 at 11:01 am

Indian diplomat Vikas Swarup, author of the novel on which the award-winning ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ film is based, says he was inspired to write the story when he read a news report on a project in a slum where scientists had installed an Internet connection.

“Under the project called Hole in the Wall, a group of scientists had installed a computer with Internet connection in a wall in an Indian slum. When they returned after a few months, they found that the children living there had started using it,” India’s Deputy High Commissioner to South Africa Swarup wrote in The Sunday Times today.

“These were the children who couldn’t read and speak English but they were logging on to the worldwide web. It made me think that there must be an innate ability in all of us that can come to the surface,” he said.

The second inspiration was the huge success of the Indian version of ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?’, then, when Major Charles Ingram was accused of cheating on the British version, “I had my story”, he stated in the article: My Week Vikas Swarup.

“I drop off as an envoy- and wake as a Slumdog star,” he added.

He observed that his life is now to be split into two chapters: before last Sunday and after. ”As I slept in a London hotel last Sunday night, Danny Boyle’s film Slum Millionaire, based on my book Q & A, won four Golden Globe awards,” the diplomat said.

“I had gone to bed early and when I turned on the television on Monday morning, the lead story was that the film had swept the board. I felt elated,” he stated.

“Who could have imagined that would happen to a book I wrote in London in just two months in 2003? I’d never visualised it as a film; I couldn’t even visualise it as a book. I was a first-time author, my day job is as an Indian diplomat and wasn’t even sure I had a chance of getting it published,” Swarup said.

Now my Inbox is full of interview requests and messages of congratulation. The phone has been ringing off the hook and the requests are pretty varied- I’ve just been invited to attend the Miss India Worldwide beauty pageant, he underlined.

‘Slumdog Millionaire’ tells the story of a ‘chai wallah’ (tea boy) from the slums of Mumbai who becomes a contestant on ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?’ he said adding, he is accused of cheating because people can’t believe a boy without education could know so many of the answers.

“But knowledge picked up on the street is often as important as formal education in a school,” the author said. Swarup said he loved his job as a diplomat.

“India is the flavour of the season. Despite the horror of the recent attacks, there’s a sense of opportunity there. Everyone is trying to move up in life,” he added.

“You’ll find that a poor cobbler earning 1 a day is also saving up to send his children to a good school. He knows that he is a cobbler because he didn’t get an education but if his children can then maybe they can get the right breaks in life,” the diplomat further said.

Swarup, who returned to Johannesburg on Thursday morning, wrote “my eldest son (16) has told me that everyone at school wants to read my book, I think the attention has made him pretty popular”.

However, “my younger son (12) is showing an entrepreneurial streak. He read my new book ‘Six Suspects’ and then demanded an MP3 player as a reward, hinting that he might reveal the name of the murderer on Facebook if I did not comply,” he added.

The author left for India yesterday. ”I’m making an appearance at the Jaipur literary festival and seeing friends and family, however, the most important engagement is the premiere of Slumdog on Thursday, which I’m going to attend in Mumbai, the city which has recovered from the terrorist attacks but the scars remain,” the author said.

He also said “I value my anonymity. That’s the best thing about being an author, people can send you flattering e-mails but you can pass them by on the street without them recognising you. I shudder to think what will happen if the movie wins an Oscar.”

(Agencies)

( This post is from an independent writer. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not endorsed by APakistanNews.Com.)

‘Slumdog’ inspired by Hole in Wall project: Vikas

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