I also watched Slumdog for the first time last night. I liked the way the questions on the quiz show all related neatly to incidents - some of them harrowing - in the hero's young life. The sneering condescension of the host was brilliant, too. Slumdog went from being a socially reviled chai wallah (tea boy) to hero - the shots from one-tv slums to well-fed modern, upper-caste families all watching, rapt, was superb. The younger players were, I believe, recruited direct from the slums and probably didn't need too much tutoring in scooting round them at speed.
I think Kevin McCloud (of 'Grand Designs') is off to India soon for the Beeb, and the same - or at least similar - child scavengers of the rubbish tips will feature at some point, along with the beauty of India. It's a country where such broad social juxtapositions still exist among the most exquisite landscapes and architectural magnificence. Slumdog didn't, however, play too much on that theme - the disparity between high-caste Indians and those at the lowest end of the scale wasn't pushed much. It was, in the main, a feel-good film where boy does eventually get both riches and the girl.
