Slumdog Millionaire child stars, Azharuddin and Rubina Ali are back from Los Angles after the Oscar ceremony and are finding it difficult to adjust back to the slum’s life. Daily Telegraph from UK has done a story about post Oscars on them.
The families of the two child stars have said their children are not readjusting to life back in the slums after five days of glitz and glamour in Los Angeles.
Mother Shameem Ismail said: "It has all become too much for him. He is very ill and has not recovered from going to America and all the media interest since we got back."
Rubina’s father Rafiq Qureshi said. "Getting used to life back here in the slum again is proving tough for her and she has not wanted to see her friends since she got back. She just wants to spend all her time away from the slum now and I just hope we get the flat that has been promised to us."
Azhar, cuddling his new pet guinea pig, said: "I am very sad. I feel sleepy, hot and sick all the time. I can’t get to sleep here – there are too many mosquitoes and it is so hot. I just wish I was in America still."
"I don’t want to live here in the slum anymore," Rubina said, wearing the dirt stained ball gown that she has not wanted to take off since Oscars night. "I don’t want to sleep on the floor anymore. I want a proper bed and live where the air does not smell of poo. I have seen what it is like in America. Here, there is garbage everywhere, people get angry, swear and shout. I have realised how bad life is here. I just want to get out."
India’s Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhary is "appalled" at the beating that Azhar took at the hands of his father on Friday. Azhar was thrashed for saying he wanted to sleep rather than talk to a journalist who had offered money to his father.
Their lives are never going to be same again. That’s what living is – there’s seldom any going back. Mostly I feel its about them seeing themselves as they are in a world context. What they do with it is really ultimately up to them.
Seeing the world as it really is, at a very high level of materialism – 5 star hotels in Los Angeles – alerts them to the realities of the world. Culture shock is tough on adults, of course it’s going to be hard on kids. I only hope they manage to move on from the experience, but I suspect it will be hard after having experienced not only the "ordinary" western lifestyle, but the "extraordinary" lifestyle of the super rich they experienced while attending the Oscars.
I’m sure that sending them to America for the ceremony was good for publicity, but was it good for them?
A Taste of Life 