Slumdog Millionaire: Giving Hopes to Homeless

Slumdog Millionaire: Giving Hopes to Homeless

The slums houses of the slums are spread all around Mumbai in which about 40% of the city’s inhabitants who still live there are living without water and electricity. Today in Mumbai there is about 60% of the slums in which equates to 7 million people. These slums face many difficult problems like: health challenges from the growing of poverty, natural disasters, manipulation, and poor hygiene. The slums who live in the streets of Mumbai shows their everyday living difficulties, without suitable food for days with lost hopes and horrified dreams. But even in these rough positions, for some their life is vivid and they are happy with full of hope and they still continue to retreat their optimistic vision and one of this illustration is portrayed from Slumdog Millionaire.

“In June 2005 Mumbai, Maharashtra was devastated by flooding after the heaviest rains in Indian history. More than a thousand people died and 60,000 were left homeless” (Mumbai - Culture & History). This was one of the biggest devastation, for people living in Mumbai, especially for homeless people. They had to face their life without water and electricity for days and for some, they had to sacrifice their own lives. “But there is no dignity in the footpath and we need a shelter” (Dreams meet reality in the slums of Mumbai). Yet still no difference, today the conditions in the slums are terrible and the slums are still growing. At present “the slum growth rate is actually greater than the general urban growth rate” (Slums). The city is continuing to cure the slum problems of Mumbai especially “poverty.”

In order to reduce poverty nowadays, it is very critical for policy makers to understand how environmental factors affect the well-being of the poor. The Environment and Poverty research module will provide arguments and instances to support the use of environmental factors as indicators for measuring poverty in India. Regarding the poverty issue on income and food security in India, factors like environmental degradation should play a key role. The lack of education and the hopeless poverty among the people have caused ideal conditions for an authoritarian government. “The people who live in Mumbai are from very different type of society when compared to the other democratic nations of the world. They are a very agricultural people and not very industrialized” and that is why most of the people who are slums don’t have any work to do unless they fight for the need of work so they can earn money and feed themselves and live freely (Life in Mumbai).

Poverty is a major problem in Mumbai today. Mumbai’s poverty is examined as an “economic condition in which people lack sufficient income to obtain their basic needs for food, housing, clothing, health services, and education” (The Real Message of “Slumdog Millionaire”). In other words poverty in Mumbai is hopelessness, a require of depiction and freedom and this is why it is a big issue that not just Mumbai but also poor people from other parts of the world have to face it everyday in their life. “Poor education can be either a cause of poverty or an effect. Young people who drop out of school may be poor because they lack the required skills needed to get good jobs, therefore adding to
a system that forces them to only be able to live in low-income, economically starving areas” (Life in Mumbai). In the last couple of years Mumbai’s poverty has been growing rapidly and one of the top reason for growing poverty in India is education.

Young ages of children are still breathing without their treatment of diseases and for some their talents are getting limped at their early ages. “In India and many other developing countries, more than 70% of teenagers do not even enter high school because it is too far or too expensive, or because they are woefully unprepared to compete” (The Real Message of “Slumdog Millionaire”). Poor people, who try to find jobs, can’t get a job because they need to have some type of education permit or certificate showing their knowledge of education they have obtained. But, they haven’t gone to school because they don’t have enough money and this is the reason for their lack of education and opportunity, even though how smart and hardworking they might be. For example, Amartya Sen says, “It is hard to participate in the expansionary process of the market mechanism (especially in a world of globalized trade) if one is illiterate and unschooled, or if one is weakened by undernourishment and ill-health” (The Real Message of “Slumdog Millionaire”). As a result, they walk around the streets everyday with begging bowl and looking for money; amongst all of these poor people there are only some who succeed in their life which is only because of their fortune.

One of the significant needs is the supplying of information in Mumbai where the slums live. “Institutions providing reliable career-related information-such as counseling centers, employment exchanges, college guides and vocational centers-simply do not exist within poorer communities, so people remain unaware of what they can aspire to become” (The Real Message of “Slumdog Millionaire”). Since there is no information about any sources around these places the slums don’t acquire the ideas of what is going around their city or country. They won’t be able to read or write because they haven’t gone out and seen various types of unknown things. They will also not be able to watch the TV because they can’t afford to have it or computers. In the means of this there has to be a way to get this slums out of there and awarding them a better life by providing them education and new houses.

At present, there are only two developments created which are trying to protect the poverty, the education and the economical growth. Education has been very helpful to prevent poverty in terms of giving free education to the slums living in Mumbai. By this help of education many of the slums want to learn something from it. It is very useful for them in the need to get their education from the different types of subjects of teachings which could help them to make their life shape in an improved vision. Education in Mumbai is also willing to serve for their free living in their “AVSAR” or “Ashrams” known as hostels or dorms which includes free food, living, and education (Life in Mumbai). Through this lifestyle the poor children will be able to discover the right manners to live the lifestyle of an average working/business or a middle class person.

Another help issue which has been valuable to poverty is an economical development. The economical development has been useful to the slums for giving them new jobs/work. For hiring them to work they will be able to learn new important things including some in the fields of education. In this matter the slums will be able to earn money for them and could also afford to buy their own food, new house, new car, and other beneficial belongings. In fact now there is a glimmer of hope for the slums living in Mumbai because the Gov. of Maharashtra has presented a proposal for the slums to provide jobs by the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA). “All the established businesses and manufacturing units have been encouraged and provided with modern technical and economical strategies for sustainable developments” (Slum Rehabilitation Authority). In addition there will be water, electricity, and telephones available for the slums plus the Government of India’s World Bank are providing help to the poor people so, they can work and try to get out of poverty and also receive essential healthcare requirements which will help them from the diseases spreading from the toxic wastes.

Garbage contamination crisis near slum houses has to come to an end now! Numerous of the slums have been getting sick through the causes of the diseases spreading due to the garbage wastes near their houses. In fact some of these slums pick up this garbage and bring it to the waste area and earn some money. The slums aren’t aware of these types of diseases because they don’t have any information about these situations so we are the ones who have to take care of them. But now the changes are improving as the “BMC Garbage Control has divided the 27 civic administrative wards into six zones so that an official in charge of each zone is able to implement the segregation of garbage efficiently” (Times of India). These changes are necessary for the slums living there and we should help them so can’t get infected to those diseases. In these cases there should also be medical treatment provided for all these slums. If these problems are resolved for them than there would hardly be any slum living in Mumbai, they will all be getting new jobs and gaining various in education fields.

Looking at the slums in Mumbai Ahire says, “If you have talent, nothing can stop you; you can get out of the slums” (Dreams meet reality in the slums of Mumbai). Once Ahire belonged to the slums when he was young, he had to go through his life without food for days and experience the life of slums until one day he realized his dream to become a doctor. Finally, he did become a doctor and now he is happy and trying to help other people get out of the slums. Another example of this is Johnny Lever who was born amongst the slums and raised in Dharavi, Mumbai where the movie Slumdog Millionaire takes action. He grew up as a child acting the acts of the movie stars with no education and used to “spoke the street slang of the slums,” (Dreams meet reality in the slums of Mumbai) but his impressions of his dance and song brought an attention to the Bollywood and today he is on of the Bollywood Star. Then looking back at what Ahire said is really a great point for slums to bring their dreams alive in the streets to go further and beyond in the life and finally getting out of the slums.

The film and the novel “Slumdog Millionaire” has been published all around the world so people can learn about the life of homeless people in Mumbai. This movie gives hope to the homeless people in Mumbai to move forward in life and gaining something special in their life. For example, in this narrative Jamal Malik is the homeless person in Mumbai who wins a millionaire price for playing on the game show “Who wants to be a Millionaire?” He wins it because of his luck which helped him answering the questions in which the answers were related to his life that he has lived in his past. “He and his brother grew up together on the road, of the cruel stumbling upon with local gangs, and Latika (the girl he loved and lost). Each chapter of his tale reveals the key to the answer to one of the game show’s questions” (Slumdog Millionaire Film Discussion Guide). Each chapter of Jamal’s ascending layered story reveals where he learned the answers to the show’s impossible questions. It shows us the difficult life he has been through, pointing the view of the slums and even for him the big factor is coming on the show-“Who wants to be a Millionaire?” Which in this case is a great opportunity as a homeless person. “Despite all the attention currently being paid to this film, most residents of Mumbai slums are themselves oblivious to the popularity of ‘Slumdog,’ which offers a glimpse into the people and the lives lived there” (Slumdog Millionaire Film Discussion Guide). This movie and the novel in Mumbai has show a “doorway to hope,” to many slums because of the story’s focus on the poverty in Dharavi, Mumbai.

Today, the existing slums in Mumbai have long way to go but not if the progress of improving health care and schools is instigated. I hope people have gained something from Slumdog Millionaire, which is a wonderful film plus a novel that merges into a “flawless poverty and wealth despair and hope greed and generosity, blindness and vision” (Duke News & Communications). It gives hope to homeless people who have been living with no food and water for days and now turning in to an inspiring and achieving their dreams towards their better futuristic life as “if you are not one of the faint hearted and are determined to survive in Mumbai, you have to learn your way around” (Life in Mumbai City).