Showing posts with label Nirja Mattoo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nirja Mattoo. Show all posts
The rags-to-riches-to-rags story of Azhar: Slumdog Millionaire star back in slums
8:19 AM
The ground floor flat in Anurag Plaza, Santacruz West
After falling on hard times, Azharuddin Ismail, who played a young Salim in Slumdog Millionaire, sold off the flat he was given by the Jai Ho Trust to move into a 10X10 ft room
Satish Malavade and Lata Mishra (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 25, 2020)
In 2008, child actor Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail was basking in the success of Danny Boyle’s blockbuster Slumdog Millionaire. The 10-year-old rubbed shoulders with the who’s who of Hollywood at the Academy Awards held the next year, in which the movie won eight Oscars, including Best Picture. The same year, Azhar, who used to live in the Garib Nagar slums in Bandra, and his co-star Rubina, were given flats by the Jai Ho trust, named after the A R Rahman chartbuster from the movie.Cut to 12 years later – Azhar, now 21, has lost his fame and fortune and has been forced to go back to living in the slums. Six months ago, Azhar sold the 250-sq-ft flat he was given in Anurag Plaza, Santacruz West, for Rs 49 lakh and went back to living in a slum in Naupada area in Bandra East, very close to the Garib Nagar slums where Danny Boyle first spotted him.
Slum life did not suit Azhar the second time around. As he often fell ill, his mother took him to their village in Jalna to recuperate, where he has been living for the past couple of months.
Speaking to Mirror from his village, Azhar said, “The stardom is over. Now I have to earn to run the family. Mumbai is crowded and polluted. I was born in a slum but never wanted to go back there.” Azhar, who lost his father to tuberculosis a year after the movie released, added that he sold the flat in Santacruz as the family was facing financial troubles.
Azhar was selected among 300 slum kids to play the role of the youngest version of Salim, brother of the protagonist Jamal Malik. Boyle and the film’s producer Christian Colson, had formed the Jai Ho charitable trust to provide a better life and education to child stars Azhar and Rubina, both of whom lived in the Garib Nagar slums when they were selected for the roles. In July 2009, Azharuddin shifted to his new flat with his mother. The flat, which was in the custody of the Trust, was transferred in Azhar’s name after he turned 18. “Uncle Danny Boyle and Jai Ho trust have done a lot for us. We will be always grateful to them,” said Azhar.
Speaking on the financial troubles they were facing, Azhar’s mother Shameem said, “After Azhar turned 18, the Trust stopped paying monthly expenses which was around Rs 9,000 a month. It then became very difficult for us to run the household.” She also said that Azhar was not interested in studies and decided to start a small business but that too did not work. He also fell in bad company and started doing drugs, she said.
“He would fall ill often. Since the past three years I was struggling, I have spent a lot on his treatment and we had no option but to sell the house to deal with the situation,” she said.
After selling the house, Shameem and Azhar moved to a 10X10 ft room in a three-storey structure in Naupada which they share with five other people – Azhar’s sister, her husband and their three children.
The filthy conditions of the neighbourhood and the overcrowded living situation did not suit Azhar, and he fell ill many times. Shameem then decided to take him to their village in Jalna. “I would like to request Danny Boyle to help my child, he needs support and motivation,” she added.
Nirja Mattoo, one of the trustees of Jai Ho, said that after Azhar and Rubina turned 18, the houses were officially handed over to them and the Trust was closed. “Azharuddin wanted to start his own business and for financial support they wanted to sell the house. He is an adult now and I hope he will do well in the future,” she said.
The 10X10 room in Naupada, Bandra East
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Rubina Ali Qureshi, a make-up artist
Rubina Ali Qureshi, who played a young Latika in the film, has also moved out of the house she was given in Royal Court building Bandra by the Jai Ho Trust but hasn’t sold it. The 20-year-old, who is a first-year BA student, has moved with her mother Khurshid to Nallasopara while her father lives in the Bandra flat with her step-mom Munni and their five children.“I lived in the house for four years, but it became very difficult to live in the flat with eight people. So I moved out,” said Rubina. She added that even though she wants to sell the house and buy a bigger house in Nallasopara, she does not want to displace her father who is suffering from tuberculosis. “Where will he go in this condition? Right now, I just want to focus on my career,” she said. Rubina is also studying fashion design and doing a make-up course. She has also started working part-time at a make-up studio.
“Uncle Danny Boyle has done a lot for me. I was staying in a slum. I completed my education thanks to him and the Jai Ho trust, who have always guided me. Though the Trust has officially closed now, they are still in touch with me and keep helping in whatever way they can,” she said.
Nirja Mattoo of the Jai Ho Trust is happy with the way Rubina has shaped her life. “Though the trust is closed, we will always be there for any help she requires in the future. I am glad she is doing well and charting a bright future,” she said.
If my family had stayed together, I think my life would have been even better-Rubina Ali
8:12 AM
Thanks to Danny Boyle's Jai Ho Trust, Rubina Ali has a shot at a better future, even if the past still bristles
Tariq Engineer (MUMBAI MIRROR; March 5, 2017)
Nine years after Slumdog Millionaire, Rubina Ali is just catching her breath. Since being selected from over 300 slum children and cast as the young
Latika, Rubina has won an Oscar, had a biography written about her and
travelled to Los Angeles, Paris and Hong Kong. Before that, she'd never
left Bandra. She continued to live in a slum but then her house burned
down in 2011 and she lost all her Oscar memorabilia. She moved to a new
house with her father Rafiq and stepmother Munni. There were reports of
another movie but nothing happened and she still doesn't know why. Her
father allegedly tried to sell her. She distanced herself from him and
moved to Nallasopara to live with her birth mother, Khurshid. They
didn't get along and she left again. Now she lives independently and is
studying Arts in her first year of junior college.It's enough to make anyone's head spin and yet Rubina seems to have her head screwed on just fine. We met her at a McDonalds in the suburbs a few weeks after she turned 18. Dressed in a white top and blue jeans and sporting dark glasses, she looked every inch a modern young lady. The only thing that hasn't changed about her is her smile. It is still as bright and charming as it was in all the pictures in which she is clutching her Oscar. The movie business is replete with stories of child actors who have succumbed to the pressures of fame, but Rubina has escaped that fate, though there has been collateral damage.
“When they [my parents] were in my life, they did not look after me so well,“ she says. “They would fight over me and whatever I was getting. They would pull me this way and that way. I have told my family, you are happy in your lives, let me be happy in mine.“
She is able to be independent thanks to the Jai Ho Trust, which was set up by Boyle, or Danny Uncle, as Rubina calls him, to provide for her and Azharuddin Ismail, her fellow Garib Nagar slum resident. It was through the trust that Rubina was enrolled in school. “The Trust has supported us in a very good way,“ she says. “It seems like they want the best for me. They think mostly about my education because even if I don't make it in acting, education means I can do anything in life.“
The importance of education has been drilled into her by Boyle, who comes to visit the two of them about once a year. Rubina has told him she wants to act in movies and asked him to cast her in his next movie. According to her, Danny Uncle has agreed but he has told her that for now she needs to think about her education first. “From my heart, I can say Danny Uncle is like a father to me,“ Rubina says. “He has given me so much. Even my own parents have not done so much for me. Normally, once a movie is over, people forget about you. I think if it was anyone else, none of this would have happened.“
Boyle also arranged for the Trust to buy her family a flat, though her dad and stepmother currently occupy it and are refusing to leave, something that bothers Rubina. “If it is in my name and I am not living there, then you need to leave,“ she says. Danny Uncle has been an influence on her attitude here too.When he found out about her family trouble, she says he told her, “`if your family is like this, you don't become like that. You stay positive and don't think negatively. Even if someone does something bad to you, stay positive. If you start thinking negatively, it will overwhelm you and you will become negative too. You are not like that so don't become like that.'“
Rubina talks wistfully about the time immediately after Slumdog, when she drew worldwide attention to Garib Nagar. It's clear that she misses the adulation. “If Slumdog hadn't happened, nobody would be interested in me and nobody would be saying Rubina, Rubina, Rubina,“ she says. “That time there was such a big crowd. When I left the house, everyone would know. Now, of course, it has cooled off but people still recognise me and know about me. That makes me feel very good. When I know people are talking about me, it is a different kind of feeling.“
The other constant in her life has been Islam. She performs namaz five times a day, reads the Koran and fasts. “I want Islam and my lifestyle,“ she says. “It can't be that I will give up namaz to do a movie or that I give up movies for namaz. I can manage both. I don't like the idea that one should only live a particular life. Everyone should be free to lead their own lives. Why should anyone judge anyone else?“ She's also glad to be independent, even if she didn't expect it to happen so young. “It feels good because I am doing things on my own and nobody is there to judge me and tell me not to do something. I have learned a lot over the last few years about how to manage things in my life and to read people.“
Before you think she sounds too grown up, Rubina reveals she is obsessed with selfies. So much so that it is the only feature on a cellphone she cares about. In fact, she wants to upgrade to the latest model of her cellphone because it takes better photos. “My friends tease me a lot, especially when I post photos on Instagram because all I do is take selfie, selfie, selfie and upload them,“ she says with a laugh.
In hindsight, the fire that burned down her house in Garib Nagar foreshadowed her clean break with the past. She even lost all the copies of her biography, which was published in 14 languages. She thought about asking for more copies but says “I don't have that much interest in reading my own story so why get more copies?“ Now that she has turned 18, Rubina's portion of the Trust will be dissolved in a few months and the money handed over to her. When that happens, she will be completely independent for the first time in her life. Nirja Mattoo, one of the Trustees, believes Rubina is ready to take control. “We have been counselling and mentoring her all this time and now she has become very strong emotionally,“ Mattoo says. “Nobody can shake her up and take her for granted.“
While Rubina's future appears brighter than she could have imagined, and she has plenty of friends, there is still a part of her that craves what she has lost. “If I am honest, then there is a little part of my heart that feels the absence of my family,“ she says. “When I see other families who are happy, then I wish my family was like that. If my family had stayed together, I think my life would have been even better. But there is nothing I can do. I can't change my life.“
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