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Intoxicated Childhood: The Lure of
Drugs in Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay!
Dr Rajendra Kumar
Asst. Professor, Dept. of English,
Government PG College Chunar, Mirzapur, U.P.
Cinema is a potent tool for representing varied shades of
life: ugly and beautiful, cruel and benevolent, diabolic and
angelic, and opaque and transparent. It has revolutionised
the representation of life’s realities on the big screen. Art
cinema is above and superior to commercial cinema, for
the former portrays life with sincerity, and the latter with
the lens of charismatic glamour. Art cinema is more
theatrical, serious and lyrical in nature when it narrates life
and appeals to a larger audience. India has a rich legacy
of legendary directors and art filmmakers whose mission
has been to impart meaningful learning, deep sensibility
and a feel for life through cinematic narratives: Bimal Roy
(1909-66), Satyajit Ray (1921-20), Hrishikesh Mukherjee
(1922-2006), Guru Dutt (1925-64), Shyam Benegal
(1934-2024), Shekhar Kapur (b. 1945), Deepa Mehta (b.
1950), and Anurag Kashyap (b. 1972), to mention a few.
Mira Nair (b. 1957) can proudly be enlisted here as
immensely contributing to this rich legacy.
Mira Nair was born in Rourkela, Odisha, grew up
in Bhubaneshwar, and studied at Loreto Convent, Tara
Hall, Shimla, where she developed an infatuation with
Indian literature. At the age of 19, she attended Harvard
University on a scholarship. She graduated in 1979 with a
focus on documentary filmmaking. Before fully engaging
herself in filmmaking, Nair had the experience of acting.
She performed in the plays of Badal Sarkar. Her
performance of Jocasta character from Seneca’s Oedipus
Literary Reflections on Intoxication as a Social Curse
won her a Boylston Prize. Jama Masjid Street Journal
(1979), So far from India (1982) and Children of a
Desired Sex (1987) are her early documentary films. She
also made a TV movie, India Cabaret, in 1985. These
cinematic ventures set the stage for Mira Nair to
masterfully play her role as a filmmaker and writer. Her
creative collaboration with Sooni Taraporewala resulted
in the masterpiece Salaam Bombay!
Salaam Bombay! A Semi-Documentary Film
Salaam Bombay! is Nair’s directorial debut in a feature
film. It was released in 1988 and 1989 in many countries
and was highly acclaimed and appreciated all over the
world. It is a haunting yet achingly beautiful creation that
does more than simply document the lives of street
children of Mumbai. We feel transported into their raw,
wild and unvarnished universe with its poignant lyricism
and poetic melancholy. In Nair’s words, “Salaam
Bombay! is not a fairy tale. The reality of the children who
are denied a childhood but who survive on the streets with
resilience, humour, flamboyance and dignity is a problem
that exists not only in India. It is a problem in our own
backyards, everywhere. I believe the story could easily be
Salaam Bronx, Salaam Brixton, Salaam Brazil.” (xi) Nair
presented Bombay metropolis as a space both mythic and
merciless where survival is forged in the fires of despair,
and innocence perennially hangs in the middle space. In
such a despondent and gloomy atmosphere, intoxication
and drug addiction are the major societal issues that
challenge social harmony and order and affect and lure
many innocent lives and lead them to fated doom.
Bombay: A Metropolis of Glamour and Chaos
Metropolis is the locus of a country, a site where glamour
and chaos exist in a paradoxical state. The affluent lead a
lavish life, whereas the destitute are destined to suffer
incessantly. Among the destitute, street children
(pavement dwellers) are more susceptible. They are
homeless, nameless, parentless and invisible to the
mainstream society. They are brutally exposed to poverty,
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Literary Reflections on Intoxication as a Social Curse
physical abuse, and, most importantly, to intoxication and
drug addiction. (Chillum is a pertinent example.) Their
dreams find no ground, and their stories meet no narrators
unless a sensitive eye encapsulates their traumas and
reveals them to the majority of people with empathy and
sensitivity. This is suitably done by Mira Nair in Salaam
Bombay! by disrupting the conventional cinematic
narrative. For having authentic and realistic
cinematography, she selected real street children who
survived in the streets and were deprived of a true
childhood, “a perfect encapsulation of the life of these
children” (Muir 66). These street children were trained
and made the actors. With a cinéma vérité approach, Nair
made her characters look real and allowed the viewers to
reach deeper inside their dark, filthy and unhygienic
universe. Shot in semi-documentary style, Nair explored
the complex web of societal issues that deprived these
children of their right to survive.
Prerna Dhote reviews the films in these words,
“The merciless streets of Bombay not only juxtapose the
characters portrayed into cohesive unrecognition, but also
incorporate them into sentient desire, selfishness, and
need for intoxication, all of which are impertinent for
young children. This is a darker, more revealing mirror of
the city’s sidelong yet negligent gaze that constantly
ignores the despair that breeds on its streets” (Dhote).
Though many critics and reviewers of Salaam Bombay!
have focused their attention on the neglected and
marginalised childhood, my paper will analyse the
characters of Krishna and Chillum. Rather, the character
of Chillum is more disturbing, an unending chain of
displacement, intoxication and drug addiction, a
foreshadowing of what Krishna will soon be cast into.
Chillum is a name without identity, a life without zeal,
merely a shadow of flickering existence caught in the mire
of drug dealing and drug addiction. Drug addiction in the
film is a tragic and alluring reaction to the systemic
negligence of the city, rather than just as a human
shortcoming. When framed via a child’s experience,
addiction becomes both a result and a representation of
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emotional trauma, systemic failure, and social
marginalisation.
Krishna: A Neglected Childhood
Krishna, the protagonist in Salaam Bombay! is a fatherless
boy, bullied by his elder brother and forcefully shunned
by his mother to do odd jobs in the Apollo Circus. He
cannot return home without earning 500 rupees to pay
back the cost of damage to his brother. One day, the circus
is packed to move on to the next site, leaving him jobless.
Alone and nowhere to go, he travels to Bombay (now
Mumbai), is robbed of his little possessions, follows the
thieves and street children and finds a job serving tea in
the red-light area. Chillum, a drug pusher and addict,
becomes his friend and his mentor. A few characters, like
Baba, a local drug dealer, Rekha, a prostitute, Manju, her
daughter, and Sola Saal, a girl forced into prostitution,
revolve around Krishna. Like Chillum and Sola Saal, he
loses his real name and gets his work name, “Chaipau”.
Though Krishna works hard to earn 500 rupees and to
keep his hope alive for home return, he meets the doomed
fate of multiple street children and pavement dwellers
suffering from uncertainty, exploitation, and mistreatment
in the busy, chaotic underbelly of the metropolis. This is
particularly evident in Bombay where millions of children
live, work, and frequently perish on the streets under the
long shadows of the city’s soaring architecture.
Homeless, anonymous, and frequently unseen by
the general public, these children’s tales are rarely told to
the general public, and when they are, they are frequently
sensationalised or sanitised. The street turns into a place
of violence and a perverted form of home in this situation.
Krishna makes short-term friends with people like
Chillum and other homeless children, but these
connections are frequently tainted by desperation and
exploitation. His options are limited to short-term survival
due to the ongoing danger of abuse, the lack of food or
shelter, and his fear of being abandoned. This systemic
disregard is ingrained in the very fabric of the urban
environment and is not an isolated incident. The pull of
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Literary Reflections on Intoxication as a Social Curse
escape – whether via drugs, fantasy, or death – begins to
tragically make sense in such a world.
The Urban Jungle and Vulnerable Childhood
Bombay is more than just a setting in Salaam Bombay! it
is a living, breathing thing that is teeming with life and
hostile to its most defenceless citizens. The city is a
lawless and chaotic urban jungle where the rules of the
street – rather than any moral or civic order – determine
one’s ability to survive. In the film, the camera frequently
explores the city’s underbelly, including congested alleys,
red-light districts, and crumbling pavements, rather than
lingering on its glitz. These areas are humming with
activity all the time, and the children are left to deal with
an adult world that is far too harsh and complicated for
them.
The protagonist, Krishna, is thrown into this
urban jungle after his family rejects him. His story is
representative of thousands of actual children whose
childhoods are shortened due to mistreatment, poverty, or
abandonment. Characters like Manju, a sex worker’s
daughter, provide a parallel story alongside him. Manju
holds onto a doll despite having to grow up in a brothel,
where she struggles with loneliness and confusion while
seeing her mother’s degradation. These children are made
to take on adult responsibilities in a setting that does not
support or care for them. They live their lives in a never-
ending cycle of emotional deprivation, exploitation, and
hunger. After initially working as a tea boy and later as an
errand runner in a red-light district, Krishna is swiftly
drawn into the world of child labour. He has no one to turn
to for safety or support, and he is cheated on, beaten, and
always on the run. The family, school, and law
enforcement – social organizations that ought to provide
care – are either nonexistent or involved in his suffering.
The ideal environment for the lure of drugs is
created by this vulnerability. The instant numbness
provided by drugs becomes a risky but reasonable haven
when necessities like food, shelter, and love are not
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Literary Reflections on Intoxication as a Social Curse
satisfied. In the “Introduction” of his edited book, Fiona
Hutton writes, one uses “legal or illegal drugs to alter
one’s state of consciousness, whether visible to others or
not” (4). So is the case with the drug-addicted performer
Chillum who exposes Krishna to this fact. Krishna is
introduced to a world through Chillum where medicines
temporarily relieve the burden of survival and numb the
pain of abandonment. In the graveyard scene in the film,
Chillum and Krishna share their painful life journey and
everlasting suffering. Chillum morbidly utters:
Chillum: Kabhi kabhi to dil bolta hai ek 20 pine
ka, and last time so janne ka, all the
end. (Sometime my mind says, take an overdose,
and get a long nap, all the end.)
Krishna: Tu chod kyu nahi deta. (Why don’t you
leave this?)
Chillum: Tu nahi samajhega. (You won’t
understand.)
(Chillum sings) Lagi nahi chhutte Rama chahe
jiya jaye, chahe sala mara jaye. (“Salaam
Bombay Full movie” 00.23.30-00.30.13)
This dialogue reveals Chillum’s pain as particularly
vulnerable to addiction and as a form of emotional escape
because he finds it difficult to fill the emotional hole left
by trauma, neglect, and societal failure.
The psychological terrain of Bombay’s
children— fractured, uncertain, and in need of care— is
ultimately reflected in Nair’s depiction of the city as a
harsh landscape. Instead of romanticising street life,
Salaam Bombay! highlights how childhoods are engulfed
by the metropolis, leaving only scars and survival
instincts. Drug use in such a setting becomes more than
just a vice or habit; it is a sign of a more serious social
ailment and a means for children to temporarily regain
control over a world that has otherwise left them helpless.
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Literary Reflections on Intoxication as a Social Curse
Chillum as the Gateway to Addiction
Chillum, one of the tragic characters in Salaam Bombay!
is both a warning and a mirror; he is a representation of
purity eroded by despair and a glimpse of what Krishna
could turn into. A young street performer with a drug
addiction, Chillum has a precarious life on the periphery.
He appears to be a guy who has been shattered by the very
society that Krishna is now entering, as seen by his messy
appearance, unpredictable behaviour, and regular drug
use. Nevertheless, Chillum is not shown as a simple
parody of addiction in spite of his evident difficulties.
Rather, he is portrayed by Mira Nair as a profoundly
human character who is weak, broken, and capable of
momentary tenderness. He is both a victim of the same
structural neglect that ensnares Krishna, and a reluctant
transmitter of that cycle of suffering.
The bond between Chillum and Krishna is both
endearing and perilous. He initially acts as the younger
boy’s unofficial mentor, assisting him in traversing the
perplexing rules of street life. He creates a fictitious
brotherhood based on mutual marginalisation by
providing company and occasionally even affection. But
this intimacy also serves as a channel for more serious
malfeasance. Krishna gradually comes to accept
Chillum’s frequent drug usage, which is depicted as
desperate and everyday rather than glamorous. There is
never a dramatic moment in the movie where Krishna
consciously decides to get addicted. Rather, Nair
highlights the gradual deterioration of resistance and the
pernicious normalisation of medicines in a society where
pain is ubiquitous, and alleviation is infrequent. Krishna
is not under any pressure from Chillum; instead, his
addiction becomes ambient, a terrible way of life that is
absorbed through imitation and closeness. The decline is
made more dramatic and plausible by this subtle,
encroaching impact.
Chillum is symbolic of the embrace of despair and
the destruction of innocence. In sharp contrast to his adult
burdens of addiction, debt, and approaching destruction,
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Literary Reflections on Intoxication as a Social Curse
he exhibits infantile traits such as playfulness, reliance,
and goofiness. He reflects the forced early adulthood of
street children by existing in a liminal space, neither
wholly child nor fully adult. As the movie goes on,
Chillum’s condition deteriorates until he overdoses
himself, which is a shocking emotional blow to both
Krishna and the spectator. His passing signifies more than
just the demise of a character; it also signifies the demise
of a shaky hope that, despite the harshness of this world,
some form of atonement may be achievable. The passing
of Chillum marks a somber turning point in Krishna’s life
because it signifies the loss of his best friend and the most
obvious indication yet of where his own path may take
him.
In many respects, Chillum serves as a living
metaphor for the journey of the street children in Salaam
Bombay! which starts with naive optimism and ends with
hopelessness. His appearance in the movie perfectly
captures the primary idea that addiction is a result of
institutional failure, long-term trauma, and abandonment
rather than being a standalone sin. Chillum is more than
just a supporting character; he represents the story’s
cautionary tale, the embodiment of a desire postponed and
eventually dashed. Through him, Nair portrays addiction
as a tragic submission to a reality with no other options
rather than as a moral failing.
Addiction and Emotional Trauma: The Cycle of
Despair
Addiction is not treated as a separate problem in Salaam
Bombay! rather, it is positioned within the emotional and
psychological landscape of children who have been
continuously abandoned, mistreated, and let down by all
the institutions that are supposed to protect them. For
Krishna and millions like him, emotional trauma and the
pressing desire to dull pain, rather than free will, pave the
way for substance use. The film painstakingly builds this
decline, demonstrating how unhealed emotional scars,
particularly from infancy, can lead to a risky susceptibility
to addiction.
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Literary Reflections on Intoxication as a Social Curse
The symbolic association between Krishna and
Chillum is used to further analyse the link between drug
usage and emotional deprivation. Chillum also suffers
from emotional disintegration, and his drug use turns into
a coping strategy for his unsaid inner suffering. We get a
taste of the long-term ramifications of untreated trauma in
Chillum’s unpredictable behaviour, abrupt mood swings,
and pitiful moments of vulnerability. As Krishna observes
this closely, he starts to take in the emotional state that
motivates the behaviour as well as the behaviour itself.
Furthermore, the emotional trauma is ingrained in
the social fabric of the children’s environment rather than
being restricted to personal experiences. Manju, for
instance, has to deal with the humiliation of her mother’s
sex business every day as well as the emotional lack of a
parent figure. While playing with a doll, she is compelled
to grow up too quickly and must continually balance the
conflicting needs of survival and innocence. Her attempts
to build relationships with Krishna, her abrupt outbursts,
and her silence are all signs of underlying inner turmoil
and longing. Untreated and unacknowledged emotional
tensions provide an environment that is conducive to the
emergence of self-destructive behaviour.
Thus, Salaam Bombay! exposes the cyclical
nature of trauma and addiction: abandoned children grow
up to be traumatised adults, and trauma breeds coping
strategies like substance abuse, which further exacerbates
feelings of loneliness, marginalisation, and misery. There
is no way out of this loop in the system. The organisations
that could provide psychological support or rehabilitation
are either nonexistent or unconcerned. Addiction thus
turns into a closed circuit that traps children like Krishna,
acting as both a symptom and a cause of emotional
suffering.
The film’s emotional authenticity depends on
Mira Nair’s refusal to sensationalise or moralise drug
usage. She portrays addiction as a natural reaction to
intense emotional pain— pain that society refuses to
acknowledge, much less treat— rather than as a moral
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Literary Reflections on Intoxication as a Social Curse
flaw. Salaam Bombay! provides a profoundly
compassionate depiction of substance usage among street
children by emphasising trauma as the underlying cause
of addiction. This forces viewers to look past the outward
signs and face the invisible traumas that motivate them.
Conclusion: The Unheard Cry of Childhood
The terrible lives of the street children in Salaam Bombay!
provide a potent critique of a society that does not care
about the suffering of its most vulnerable citizens. The
way that substance addiction is shown in the movie as a
symptom and a result of social marginalisation, emotional
trauma, and urban neglect draws attention to a systemic
failure that still affects millions of children in India and
other countries. Mira Nair depicts in a moving and
unapologetic manner how social neglect and emotional
desertion can imprison young lives in a cycle of
hopelessness and addiction through characters like
Krishna, Manju, and Chillum. As a victim of addiction
and a reluctant role model, Chillum further exemplifies
this process by showing how substance abuse and
emotional anguish are normalised on the streets.
Understanding how addiction spreads —through the slow
deterioration of moral boundaries and emotional fortitude
rather than via overt coercion— requires an understanding
of Chillum’s connection with Krishna. The film is a call
to action – an appeal to look critically at our social
structures and implement significant reforms that will
guarantee a better future for the children who are currently
being abandoned by the systems that are supposed to
safeguard them.
Works Cited and Consulted
Dhote, Prerna. “Salaam Bombay! A Film That Unpacks the
Experience of Being ‘Othered’ In Big Cities”. Posted
onOct11,[Link]://[Link]/2021/10/11/s
alaam-bombay- film- mira-nair-review/ Date of
Access. 05-05-2025.
[26]
Literary Reflections on Intoxication as a Social Curse
Hutton, Fiona. “Introduction” in Cultures of Intoxication: Key
Issues and Debates. Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.
Muir, John Kenneth. Mercy in Her Eyes: The Films of Mira
Nair. Westland Books, 2006.
Nair, Mira. Salaam Bombay! Penguin Books, 1989.
“Salaam Bombay Full Movie (1988).” Youtube uploaded by
Movie & Music Guru, 08 November,
[Link]://[Link]/watch?v=pvGViDOf9g
&t=1627s
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