Pulp writing at his best
Slumdog Millionaire or Q&A by Vikas Swarup
I loved the movie Slumdog Millionaire and always thought to read the book from which the movie was adapted. To add to that, movie’s screenwriter, Simon Beaufoy, got an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay, so that becomes one more reason to read the book.
Truth to be told, I got to know more about India (particularly about the darkness) after reading this book. Even though the book read like a collection of pulp stories with a central character, this book unearth the dark underbelly of India which privileged among of us rarely see. Yet this book is all about the survival, hope and optimism amidst of all the human negativity. The protagonist named (which is gimmick) Ram Mohammad Thomas keeps bouncing back from the rock bottom, surviving the perverts, homosexuals, abusers, juvenile homes torturers, murderers and likes of them. Overall, this novel is about stitching together stories of darkness into a story of survival, at a break-neck speed, which is by no means a small feat.
To compare the book to the movie, most of stories in the book are like completely absent from the movie narrative/plot to the level that you are watching a totally different story if you have gone there after reading the book. But the movie, what is does the best, captures the essence of the book. I guess that’s what the real screenwriting is all about, if you trust the veracity of Academy Awards. First and foremost, the name of the protagonist has been changed to Jamal Malik. The movie actually works on the template of the book but also takes inspiration from the bollywood classic, Deewar, written by Salim-Javed, as the director had mentioned it while adapting the Q&A into the movie, which in turn tells you story of two side of the same coin and how they are different. The screenwriter and director placed two brothers in the same challenging environment but both of them turn out to be diametrically different. Some of the questions were also changed to fit the movie narrative
Why you should read the book, if you have already watched the movie: the book is very unique as most stories ends with a sudden and unexpected twists, further giving this book, almost a thriller like unputdownable quality.