After the Oscar Awards ceremony, the A-list crowd moved on for a long night of expensive celebration and public back-slapping. Some 9000 miles away, another kind of celebration was taking place in a tiny, pink shack in the Dharavi slums of Mumbai. Munni Qureshi, watched the Academy Awards as her three other children slept on the floor next to her and her 9 year old daughter Rubina Ali beamed proudly from the TV Set, among a huddle of “Slumdog Millionaire” co-stars on the world’s most glamorous stage.

Ali and her neighbor, 10-year-old Azharuddin Ismail, were plucked from these slums to play the young versions of the protagonists in the film. All nine kids ( though not all of them from the slums) were flown in to participate in the glittering ceremony.

Even as early as last Wednesday, they were still supposed to watch from afar as their co-stars won award after award. On Thursday, their parents decided at the last minute to let them go. Screenplay winner Simon Beaufoy was apprehensive about this decision too. “We were so worried about bringing them over in case it seemed at all inappropriate because it’s the most lavish awards ceremony. They’re completely cool about it…they’re all running around having a laugh about it. It was absolutely the right thing to do to bring them over.” Soon the kids were scrambling for visas, riding around Mumbai shopping for the trip. Friday and Saturday were spent in travel, their first time in an airplane. By Sunday afternoon, they were walking the red carpet. Disneyland is in the works for today.

Long after you have seen this movie, the honest faces of these young real-life survivors of Mumbai slums are what haunts your memory and tugs at your heart. Once the hype of the last night fade, we fervently hope that their lives will seriously change for the better with better education prospects, as the movie’s director Danny Boyle has promised to ensure.

Via : Associated Press