Former child star Rubina Ali on life after leaving Mumbai streets ten years ago to attend the Oscars when the film went on to win eight awards
Daily Mirror (BOMBAY TIMES; February 20, 2019)

On Oscars night next weekend, all eyes will be on Olivia Colman, the 45-year-old British actress being tipped for Best Actress glory for her role as Queen Anne in The Favourite. It will be a remarkable night for Colman, but nothing compared to Rubina Ali’s experience on the Hollywood red carpet ten years ago.

Slumdog Millionaire star Rubina was ten, when she left India and her tiny shack of a home in the Mumbai slums, to go to the 81st Academy Awards in Hollywood, where all eyes were on her as Danny Boyle’s film won eight Oscars.

A decade on, instead of rubbing shoulders with the stars in LA next Sunday, Rubina, 20, will be watching it on TV in her one-bedroom flat in Bandra West, just across the railway line from the Bandra East slum where she was born.

Rubina says, “The Oscars was just unforgettable. It was one of the most amazing days. But sometimes it feels like a dream — I was so young. I was very happy to meet all the Hollywood stars and to experience the red carpet. I never imagined that would happen in my life.”

Wide-eyed Rubina played the young Latika, who falls in love with Jamal, played by Dev Patel. Recalling her trip to LA, Rubina, now a student and part-time office worker, says, “I remember I didn’t like the US food. Dev Patel used to feed me with his hand — pizza and burgers — but I like Indian spicy food, I didn’t like the continental food.”

‘SLUMDOG STOLE MY CHILDHOOD’

Rubina was living in a tiny brick-and-corrugated-iron hut in the slums with dad Rafiq, stepmum Munni, two brothers and two sisters, when a friend heard that US film producers were looking for slum children for a Hollywood film.

Rubina, whose biological mother, Khushi, had walked out of the family home when she was four, was paid an upfront fee equivalent to around £624 now, a huge figure compared to her father’s £110-a-month wage as a carpenter.

Danny Boyle later formed the Jai Ho Trust to help Rubina and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail — the only other slum kid in the film — and pay for a good education and a flat for each of them.

She says, “Uncle Danny has been wonderful. He has supported me so much. He paid for my education and came to visit me every year. I’d go to visit him at his hotel and he’d ask me about my life. He has helped me a lot. He is very kind and loving to us. I love him too.”

The two children went to an English school in plush Bandra West, and when they turned 18, they received an undisclosed sum from the trust plus the deeds to their flats.

Speaking to the team as she revisits the slums where she once lived and where the movie was filmed, Rubina says, “I grew up much quicker because of Slumdog, though. The film stole my childhood. My mother and father didn’t know much, they’re not educated so they had no idea how to handle the fame and attention. It was too much for them.”

She says the film also brought her ‘fake friends’ as she found herself to be a target for opportunists, who tried to take advantage of her success. She and her family were offered free food and clothes, but when the interest in the film started to subside, so did the offers. Rubina says, “Everyone wanted to be my friend after the film. People would buy me gifts and clothes and feed me, but then they disappeared. Before Slumdog there was no one, then there were so many people and then, there was no one again. They wanted to be famous because I was famous.”

‘SOME PEOPLE STILL RECOGNISE ME, BUT NOT AS MUCH AS THEY USED TO’

Rubina’s 15-minutes of fame took a toll on her already-strained family. There were stories of her mum fighting with her stepmum, she fell out with her father and even moved in with her aunt and uncle for a while. Rubina says she saw a lot of ‘deceit’, but refuses to elaborate. Her brush with Hollywood fame has left her guarded, struggling to trust people.

She says, “Now I live a simple life. I don’t have many friends and I don’t drink alcohol. I saw a lot of fake people soon after Slumdog, so I am very wary of people. I don’t like being with a lot of people, I’m not very trusting. I’m alone quite a lot and I quite like that. I don’t want people to use me and harm me.

“Some people still recognise me, but not as much as they used to. Soon after the film, everyone used to call my name and sing Jai Ho at me, but not as much these days.”

It’s a sad statement for a young woman of 20. But Rubina has been on a rollercoaster few could imagine.

Her first home in the slums was destroyed to make way for a railway line the year the film came out and her second home was burned to the ground in 2011, the fire destroying all her Oscar memorabilia and the baby blue dress she wore on awards night.

She moved into the flat at the age of 13, where she now lives. Many of her family still live in the slums, and as she shows us the area where she once lived, she admits that, despite the atrocious conditions, she misses the community spirit she once shared.

Rubina says, “I often go back to the slum to see my uncle and family. It looks different now, so I don’t feel emotional when I go there, but it was once my home. I miss how it was, the home I had. I loved my neighbours and close family nearby. We were a close community —everyone was so nice, but it’s gone now.”

Of course, the film has given her plenty of opportunities, too. She now studies art and literature at Mumbai University and works parttime in an office.

‘I LIKE BOTH HOLLYWOOD AND BOLLYWOOD, BUT I DON’T WANT TO LIVE OVERSEAS’

Rubina, who was a runner on the 2013 movie Belle, still wants to be an actor and insists that, overall, the Slumdog experience was wonderful. She says, “It’s my dream to be an actor and I want to make it come true. I know my family is very proud of me.”

She says, “I like both Hollywood and Bollywood, but I don’t want to live overseas. I want to stay in Mumbai, so I guess Bollywood will be my future. If I become a successful actress as an adult, I now know to be careful with people. I’m prepared for the fame now. Once you get attention, people appear out of nowhere.”

She wants to share the same advice with other young stars, like Sunny Pawar, who was 11 when he went to the Oscars after starring with her old friend Dev Patel in Lion (2016). Rubina says, “I’d tell Sunny to make sure his family have guidance to make the right decisions and make the most of the opportunities. All the fame, that world, it’s very different from our normal lives.”

Rubina had a lot of that support from Danny, a lifeline she will always be grateful for. But while she still looks forward to his visits, she admits she hasn’t seen Slumdog in a while. Speaking of the film that changed her life, Rubina says, “I don’t watch it, it’s embarrassing. I play the role of a beggar, so it’s quite embarrassing to watch. I laugh when I see myself.”

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)