"Slumdog Millionaire" child star sees home razed

MUMBAI, India — The 10-year-old child star of "Slumdog Millionaire" was awakened Thursday by a policeman wielding a bamboo stick and ordered out of his home. It was bulldozed minutes later, along with dozens of other shanties in the Mumbai slum he calls home.

"I was frightened," said Azharuddin Ismail, or Azhar as his friends call him, who lost his pet kittens in the chaos.

"Where is my chicken?" he asked forlornly, picking through the shamble of broken wood and twisted metal sheeting in search of the family hen.

Eight Oscars and $326 million in box-office receipts have done little to improve the lives of two of the youngest stars plucked from obscurity to star in the blockbuster. They have been showered with gifts and brief bursts of fame, but their day-to-day lives in the Garib Nagar slum — the "city of the poor" — are little changed.

"Slumdog" filmmakers say they've done their best to help the young stars. They set up a trust to ensure the children have proper homes, a good education and a nest egg when they finish high school. They also donated $747,500 to a charity to help slum kids in Mumbai.

Producer Christian Colson has described the trust as substantial but won't disclose how much it contains — not even to the children's parents — for fear of making the youngsters vulnerable to exploitation.

Trustee Noshir Dadrawala said the families were offered temporary apartments last week until permanent homes can be found, but they turned them down.

Azhar's parents said the filmmakers budgeted $30,000 to get them a new apartment, an amount they insisted is inadequate in Mumbai's pricey real-estate market.

"I don't want to take a house where life will be like a slum again," said Azhar's mother, Shameem Ismail.

Dadrawala said the trustees wrote to Colson and the movie's director, Danny Boyle, last week to see if they could get more money, but haven't heard back.

Azhar's neighbors have less to look forward to. Homeless mothers nursed their babies Thursday in what little shade they could find in the 100-degree heat. Nearby, a 98-year-old woman lay listless on a metal bed frame scattered with rags. A pregnant woman carried two large jugs of water, trying not to trip. A man on crutches hobbled through rubble littered with stuffed animals and children's shoes.

Some sang "Jai Ho," the Oscar-winning song from "Slumdog Millionaire." Others tried to cook. Children struggled with unwieldy bundles of clothes tied together with old sheets.

Many in the neighborhood had clung to Azhar's fame, hoping it would save their homes from destruction; they have nowhere to go.

Azhar and his family planned to spend the night on the muddy ground by the rubble of their shack. His 9-year-old co-star, Rubina Ali, has fared no better: Her family's shanty was flooded last month with sewage water from a backed-up drain.

Azhar was cast as the hero Jamal Malik's brother Salim, and Rubina as the young Latika, who grows up to be Jamal's love interest. Nine actors play the three lead characters in three stages of their lives. Azhar and Rubina were the only two who live in slums.

For Azhar's family, the latest problem began at 11 a.m. Thursday, when a bulldozer and about 100 men arrived in the slum to tear down 30 illegally built homes, a common occurrence in India's chaotic cities, where officials struggle to keep crowding under control.

The result is a cycle of destruction and debt few can escape.

U.D. Mistry, an official with the city's Bombay Municipal Corporation, said the latest razing was part of a "pre-monsoon demolition drive."

He said only illegally built shanties — not legally owned homes — were bulldozed.

"They were removed. That is the principle," he said, adding he was not aware the young "Slumdog" star lived in the slum.

Mistry said shanty dwellers who can prove they have lived there more than 15 years — which would include Azhar's family — will be resettled elsewhere in government housing. Such promises often come to nothing, though, and the new housing, if provided, often is in poor-quality buildings on the outskirts of cities, far from jobs.

Residents of Garib Nagar vowed Thursday to rebuild, though many have yet to pay off the loans they took out — at 20 percent monthly interest — to reconstruct the shanties they lost when the city tore them down last year.

Azhar's mother sat despondently Thursday on the stack of belongings the family managed to save.

Nearby, Azhar dodged piles of metal sheeting and debris as he rode through his destroyed neighborhood on a shiny new bike given to him by a fan from Britain.

Azhar wants to move. "I am fed up," he said.

Associated Press reporter Rajesh Shah contributed to this report.

Material from The Seattle Times archive is included in this report.