CHAPTER 3

Orientalism in both
“Q and A” Novel and
“Slumdog
Millionaire” Movie
Introduction

Which pictures do you really have in mind when you hear the word "India?" if you
have never visited the country? Perhaps a cow, a blue god, or countryside come to mind first.
For these individuals, depictions of India in the media, particularly cinema and television,
play a significant role in shaping their perceptions of the country and its identity. In
globalized representations, Edward Said's (1979) well-known concept of Orientalism has
experienced a shift. In a worldwide emotional community of homogeneity and diversity, this
kind of Orientalism effectively erases the historical and economic reasons of colonialism that
created the "other."

The term "orientalism" is used to define the relationship between the east and the west.
This relationship is based on binary distinctions and opposing dichotomies that divide the
aspects of each world and keep them in opposition to one another. Orientalism, according to
Edward Said, is built on division and separation; the distinction is generally carried out by
westerners as a matter of dominance in order to locate themselves culturally and establish
their identity. It's superiority vs. inferiority dichotomy, with superiority for the west and
inferiority for the orient.

Therefore this chapter will discuss orientalism in both the novel of Vikas Swarup “Q
and A” and its cinematic adaptation “Slumdog Millionaire” by Danny Boyle. In this chapter,
perspectives on Saidian Orientalism will be presented and explored, using examples from the
novel and film. Using contextual techniques and media, we will go through the novel and its
film in order to clarify the west's supremacy over the east. This final chapter is broken down
into three sections. Firstly, we would go through an Orientalist analytical reading of the book
and the film. Secondly, we will explain and demonstrate the counter-discourse within
Swarup‟s intentions to write the novel and finally, a full comparison between the novel of the
movie where we state the difference at the beginning and we finalize it with a critical analysis.

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1. Orientalist reading of both the novel and the movie
“One aspect of the electronic, postmodern world is that there has been a reinforcement
of the stereotypes by which the Orient is viewed. Television, the films, and all the media's
resources have forced information into more and more standardized molds” (Said, 26). Either
a novel or a movie, the goal is the same of the westerners. Said summarized in his quote the
intentions behind the movie “Slumdog Millionaire” by Danny Boyle which was derived from
the novel “Q and A” written by Vikas Swarup.

Said argued that discussing the East from a Western perspective included accidentally
participating in and carrying the weight of a centuries-old system of dominance. According to
Said, Orientalism is an intellectual and emotional platform from which the West defines itself
by comparison; as a result, this "style of thought" has been and remains to be subversive and
imaginative in Western creative culture throughout history.

Orientalism allowed the West to explain colonialism and their own self-serving history
by portraying the East as a place of severe inferiority in critical need of Western salvation or
intervention according to Edward Said, and this latter was one of the things we can notice
throughout the movie of Slumdog Millionaire (we will discuss the matter later in this chapter
with examples). For the „Oriental' subject, the West and its knowledge continue to represent
the promise of independence and liberty. The film's underlying subtext, which is Orientalist,
makes an essentialist difference between the West and the East (India).

The film strongly depicts the difference between East and West through the use of
technology; scenes of planes, motorcycles, and trains are frequently used as devices that slow
down the Oriental characters, not just physically; for example, the slum children must walk
barefoot to reach their target. But also emotionally; Lakita is abducted twice within the
incident of a train ride, and it is only after Jamal has won the money and accepted his fate that
they can rejoin at the railway tracks and embark in peace, demonstrating the Western
emphasis on money.

One of the scenes from the movie where the differences are shown and Orientalist
juxtaposition is presented in terms of modernity. Through the current technical developments
of an aircraft swooping down across the slums and disrupting the children's ball game, the
public is immediately presented with an element of globalization. The plane has important

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semiotic meanings; it signifies a World that slum children will never have contact with, an
alternative or an escape.

Planes are often linked with higher status as well as something that only the wealthy
will be able to use; there is already a perception that slum dwellers are oppressed by the
capitalist world around them. The film romanticizes the terrible reality of slum life. A
sequence of thrilling escape scenarios represents liberation via the thrill of defying tyrannical
powers. Police are depicted as morons when chasing youngsters playing cricket in the streets,
incapable of keeping up with the children or handling the environment.

Following the plane's progress, the children are encountered by their own men chasing
them down on their motorcycles, exposing the film's juxtaposition of globalization and
Orientalism, they are survivors of both the capitalist society that chases them down and their
own people who haunt them with their absolute potential on these motorcycles. As if we are
the advanced as usual, westerners with planes, but you are only Orientals with the strongest
mobility engine you have won‟t catch the slum kids.

Also, with tourists from western countries flooding to the Taj Mahal, we are swamped
with English language around the youngsters. Globalization here confirms India's
colonialism; we witness British influence across the country, and the widespread use of the
English language demonstrates the dominance that westernized civilization possesses over the
whole country, even amid their magnificent palace symbols of culture. The kids defrauding
money and shoes from Western visitors imposes conventional notions on Orientalism viewers
and implies the method in which Indians do business which totally hard to accept.

Later in the movie, an American couple is forced to hand over a $100 note to Jamal
after he is assaulted by an Indian guy. Jamal claimed that this is the real India that western
visitors came to see. The Americans reply by declaring that they will show him the real
America by handing him US cash. Shortly after, this dollar note assists him in answering one
of the TV show's questions. The Indian belief in 'Karma' highlights an oriental component of
this section of the story. Jamal sends the money to his lost blind musician buddy as a gesture
of charity, and his fate rewards him by allowing him to win the question by obtaining the
wisdom given to the blind child.

The apparent globalization implications are also present here, as seen by the Foreign
assistance offered, and the viewer is reminded of America's continual efforts to help poor

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countries. Their gift, however, reflects the Western value of monetary gain, which Jamal, the
Oriental, does not value; he exchanges his own money for the sake of a good act and
friendship.

Slumdog's rescue theme is based on the concept of "the other," or the process of
changing a preconceived other, defined by difference, into "one of us," defined by similarity.
Jamal is the other, the hybrid, the third space that the west created in order to serve as the
white hero male who always save the his true love and ends the suffering, but this time the
protagonist is an orient with a brown skin in the shoes of a colonizer. While Jamal and Latika
represent purity, innocence, love, and kindness, every adult the children encounter is cold-
hearted, including the instructor, the show's host, the crowd, the Sikhs on the train, and the
cops. The white men and the Indians are the other primary dramatization of contrasts.

Only two sequences in the film feature Western men: the American and European
visitors at the Taj Mahal. The only adults who are sympathetic to the lads are the white
visitors, who are shown as innocent, even-tempered, kind, and compassionate. Whereas the
European tourist is aware that Jamal is making ridiculous claims about the Taj Mahal, he
remains patient and tolerant. In the other scenario, the Americans rush to Jamal's rescue,
covering him from the driver's fists and presenting him with a $100 note in the name of
"American justice."

The "slumdogs" are publicly demeaned in India's cultural discourse, which reinforces
this socioeconomic system. When Jamal informs the host of " Who Wants To Be a
Millionaire" that he works at a call center and serves tea, the host describes him as a
"chaiwalla," eliciting sarcastic laughs from the crowd. Because of his slum roots, he is
instantly "otherized" from middle-class Indian culture, allowing the WWBM audience to
laugh at his expense. The film then compares and contrasts the lower class in India with the
underclass in the West. Although the sequence employs a standard Orientalist tactic of
juxtaposing the uncivilized and civilized, it also exemplifies how global cultural and
economic capital comes throughout the film to “save” the hero.

In terms of religion, "Slumdog Millionaire" depicts sad historical events, including the
Hindu rebels' destruction of Jamal's village, which includes the murder of his mother. Without
adequate context, this scenario would connote simply the illogical and barbaric character of

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Oriental faiths to many viewers. However, this isn't the first time that Western movie has used
Hinduism as a primitive and strange practice to create exoticism.

Furthermore, when Muslims are shown in the film, violence, hostility, and
stereotyping are taken to an extreme. Jamal's brother, Salim, is presented as an Islamic icon.
Salim is presented as a faithful and devout Muslim, yet he has elements of an extreme terrorist
and a fanatical Muslim. While Jamal and many of the other actors in the movie are Muslims,
Salim is the only one who uses Arabic words such as Allahu Akbar (which means "God is
Greatest") or "O Lord forgive me, for I have sinned," as he's the only one who is shown
praying in the film.

By selling Jamal's autograph of Amitabh Bachchan, which was so precious to Him, or

by letting go of Latika's hand in the railway scene, the movie illustrates how he is terrible in
heart even from an early age. Salim is a gangster, a mobster, a gambler, a murderer, and most
of the time alcoholic, and he is the major reason of Jamal and Latika's breakup, making him
the film's antagonist. He is a devout Muslim who kills without regard for morality or
compassion, as well as committing himself in a bath tub full of cash while killing the other
gang leaders. Salim is shown as a typical Western-style fanatical Muslim and terrorist in this
movie. The film not only generalizes and labels the people and classes, but it also lacks any
kind of dynamic. All of the labor performed by the impoverished or residents of the slums is
shown in the film as either petty hustling or criminal actions. No one is working on something
useful or important.

The policemen, who the youngsters go to for assistance, are playing cards and chasing
them away. The youngsters are shown, probably days later, living among rubbish dumps in
homemade tents, surrounded by mosquitoes, after being forced to survive on themselves.
When Maman's partner brings them to his "orphanage," where he educates youngsters to sing
devotional songs and beg to earn a living, their bleak circumstances lead to their abuse.
Maman blinds the children to acquire more money, despite the fact that this looks to be their
salvation from a life of suffering. Although these pictures of poverty in Mumbai's slums are
unfamiliar to Western audiences, they nonetheless build an Orient that the audience is
comfortable with from earlier depictions.

The story promotes the widespread idealistic concept that with love everything will be
better as seen by Jamal's determination to win Lakita rather than the cash. Lakita's inferior

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position, in which she is forced into domestic servitude and has no control over her future
until Jamal saves her, represents Oriental women as helpless and fragile, is an example of
considered Orientalism. Lakita also puts her life on the line to flee her abusive, oppressive
owner and rush to Jamal when he wants her the most. Characters with decent hearts and moral
integrity triumph, but Salim is condemned for his eager pursuit of monetary gain, for which
he would go to any lengths, and meets an unfortunate end at precisely the same time that
Jamal wins the entire sum of money in the show.

Spectators either male or female are established as certain privileged attention seekers
from where they may view the Oriental female as an exotic and sensual display; to take
delight in their privileged superiority over her helpless and mistreated figure. This technique,
in which male characters arrange and dominate the film's narrative, turns the novel's dynamic
female characters into the passive filmic Latika, who conforms to the audience's expectations
of and enjoyment in quiet ladies from the East.

By attempting to control the Oriental subject, resolving the temporary experience of

the film's foreignness with general audiences and perceptual frameworks, and preserving the
Oriental subject as intelligible to Western subjectivity, this process of "the other" certainly
makes the pleasure of watching the "other" more pleasant. Colonial legacies are omitted by a
more universal ideal of obtaining riches and romance, which absolves the audience of any
accountability for the colonial legacies that created the present realities.

Furthermore, trains play an important role in the story; aside from the children's
appearance atop the Taj Mahal, when they flee Maman, they are only seen as shadows
produced by the sparkle of lights from the train they are fleeing and the flames carried by the
pursuers. Salim and Jamal bounce over trains and shout with delight against a gorgeous
backdrop of rolling hills and blue skies while climbing upon those roofs of trains and looting
for their lives. Train travel is portrayed as glamorous and liberating. These images then show
how the experiences of the Indian lower class are regenerated, seized, and modified for the
goal of establishing a new global culture that is free of responsibility for colonialism's
continuous action in the past.

The harsh conditions of the slums are further improved by Jamal's closing of the
economic gap, despite the fact that his tale appears to repeat conventional Orientalist
oppositions. At the start of the movie, when the police inspector states, “Professors, doctors,

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lawyers, general knowledge-wallas never get beyond Rs. 60,000. He‟s at 10 million. What the
hell can a slumdog possibly know?” (Beaufoy, 6), Jamal is clearly here identified as the titular
“slumdog”. The plot's driving force is a fraud examination based on the idea that "slumdogs"
could never win a quiz game that demands intellect and expertise. It highlights the severity of
India's class system, in which the poorest are typically prohibited from upward mobility, a
prospect that contrasts sharply with popular perceptions of the US as a "country of
opportunity and a land of promises."

That is to say, everything described is a commodification process, an achievement

held or supported by a developing sense of experience that affirms some uniformity and
elaborates social differences. The uniformity makes observing the "other" a more pleasant
experience. By placing the Oriental subject within localised and recognizable ideas, the film's
foreignness is only momentary, and the Oriental subject remains comprehensible to Western
subjectivity.

It also absolves the audience of any guilt for the colonial legacies that have resulted in
today's reality, which may be overcome using the tools provided by Western culture. The
landscape is just a post-nostalgic reproduction of the Orient viewed through a freshly updated
Orientalist glass to be an object of affection rather than a colonial legacy of pain, and it is
characterized by adventure, thrill, amusement, and romance.

2. The counter discourse

According to Michel Foucault, a French philosopher and social historian, every social
discourse comprises one or more politically produced truth claims. Every discourse, according
to Foucault, meets a counter-discourse that questions the validity of the original discourse.
Every discourse, according to Foucault, occurs within a particular corpus of social discourses.
No single truth claim is made in isolation.

Given the diversity of human opinion, every speech is certain to encounter opposition
or challenge. Instead of pretending to know or differentiate absolute truth, he proposes that
truth is subjective to power struggles in society and the narratives that emerge from those
struggles; thus, truth in a particular region often appears to Foucault as being nothing more
than the result of a struggle between competing discourses.

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 Richard Terdiman also coined the concept of "counter discourse" to describe the idea
and practice of symbolic opposition. Terdiman considers how to accomplish true change in
the face of “the seeming capacity of established discourses to ignore or absorb would-be
subversion” (Terdiman, 13). Using nineteenth-century French literature as a case study. He
identifies the “confrontation between constituted reality and its subversion” as “the very locus
at which cultural and historical change occurred” (13). Terdiman's work was limited to French
literature, but his term has been adopted by post-colonial critics to interpret the multiple
interactions in which challenges to a prominent or dominant discourse especially, those of the
imperial center, can be assembled from the periphery, while always acknowledging imperial
and neo-imperial discourses' strong "absorptive capacity" (13).

Furthermore, Edward Said asserts in his landmark book Orientalism (1979) that
personal beliefs portrayed as scientific facts influenced and generated knowledge about non-
western people and countries in European nations. Despite the fact that Said is primarily
concerned with the portrayal of Middle Eastern people, it is nevertheless maintained that
images of non-western people in European works establish a division between Europe and the
Orient. The Orient is described in negative ways in this hierarchical division produced by
European perceptions of the East. The Western is shown as superior, while the Oriental is
seen as inferior.

The political component of this created identity as different is also highlighted by this
thinking paradigm. Orientalist portrayals serve to marginalize non-western civilizations,
thereby justifying and legitimizing Western imperialism's propriety and modesty. As a result,
according to Said, the primary issue that we should be conscious of is that all depictions are
ideologically biased and influenced. Said argues that “any and all representations, because
they are representations, are embedded first in the language and then in the culture,
institutions, and political ambiance of the representer” (272). Because “it operates as
representations usually do, for a purpose, according to a tendency, in a specific historical,
intellectual, and even economic setting. In other words, representations have purposes, they
are effective much of the time, they accomplish one or many tasks. Representations are
formations, or [...] they are deformations” (273). This concept indicates that there is no such
thing as a "genuine" depiction that is free of ideological bias and prejudice.

The reasoning of Edward Said is founded in part on Foucault's concept of discourse,

the textual character of truth, and the tight link between knowledge and power. Like Foucault,

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Said sees knowledge and power as intimately connected, with power being exerted via the
discursive use of knowledge, because, for Said “knowledge' [is] never raw, unmediated, or
simply objective” (273). Knowledge acquisition is not an innocent act of knowing in the
colonial setting, and it is used by the colonizer as the power that leads to its foundation and
maintenance.

Said's Orientalism paved the way for a variety of postcolonial textual analyses aimed
at subverting colonial representations and reclaiming the voices of the oppressed and
disadvantaged, as well as developing new forms of representation to facilitate this
reclamation. In their efforts to problematize Western grand narratives, postcolonial authors
and theorists emphasize the essential role that colonial historical critique should play, and
think that Postcolonialism may be conceived of as an appraisal of history itself.

As a result, post-colonial literary critics point out that much of the history writing of
colonized peoples was done by Europeans in pursuit of their own interests during the glory
days of colonialism, making history a completely Eurocentric discourse in which the
colonized other is expelled and rejected. This method of thought emphasizes history's
discursive role in colonial imposition and maintenance. History is portrayed as the narrative
through which the colonizing authority exerts its control over the colonized subject in the
colonial situation.

The interaction between colonizer and colonized resulted in a scenario in which the
predominant colonial discourse was opposed in a variety of ways and by various tactics. The
authors of India, Africa, and the Caribbean developed their own narratives in which they
fought the colonizer's sociopolitical, economic, and cultural violence. They created methods
and ways in their works to speak and give vent to the colonized's repressed sentiments and
aspirations, which had been denied by colonial power. This marked the emergence of a
postcolonial discourse in which colonized authors resurrected their own identity, history,
culture, and narrative.

Often these postcolonial Indian and African writers have been involved in questioning
the homogenous European worldview throughout their writing careers, demonstrating the
potential of an Indian and African writer to interrupt and destroy the oppressive and dominant
western worldview through their culturally diverse and hybrid identities. Because the essence
of such writing is basically hybrid, diasporic, and multicultural in origin and growth, it stands

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up to an equally powerful dominant and abusive European rule. The literature they seek
represents a powerful counter-discourse that challenges, the claimed to be original, western
discourse to represent an absolute truth.

Taking in consideration the above mentionedVikas Swarup, an Indian diplomat who'd

already spent 18 years in the foreign ministry with assignments throughout the world,
including Washington, London, Turkey, and Ethiopia, wrote the Indian book "Q and A." In
2003, Swarup began writing his work while staying alone in London, away from his family.
Fond of thrillers, this genre naturally came to his mind for his first fictional work. Because he
enjoys thrillers, he chose this genre for his first literary work. Swarup expressly ties the work
to the Indian context, despite the fact that it is written in English. He said: “I don‟t want to be
branded as a writer catering to Western sensitivity. This is an Indian novel, rooted in Indian
tradition, written with Indian idioms. It is an Indian story of Indian characters in the Indian
milieu” (The Rediff Interview, Swarup 2005)

We will be able to tell whether his assertion about the novel's "Indianness" can be
validated or not by analyzing it. Whether his novel, rather than preserving the lengthy quiet as
an eastern writer, is a counter-discourse designed to silence westerners. To avoid falling into
the trap of essentialism when it comes to “the” Indian identity, a comparison with “Slumdog
Millionaire” based on the plots of the two stories and the questions posed to the protagonist
(Ram Mohammad Thomas in Q and A, Jamal Malik in Slumdog Millionaire) will provide
some insights.

The only language used in “Q and A” is English, and the English spoken by the
narrator Ram Mohammad Thomas is far too advanced for a young man with such a little
education. Rather than the kind of English one might anticipate from such a narrator, Swarup
uses the vocabulary of the urban Indian elite, which is liberally loaded with cliché.

The novel's realism, or rather, its realistic purpose, is hindered by the author's
continuous use of colloquial phrases and desire to satisfy his possible readers. Swarup has
purposefully decided to employ an international and globalised language medium for his
diplomatic operations while thinking in Hindi, his mother tongue. When Swarup thanks
Google for assisting him in the Acknowledgements page, he then recognizes his debts and ties
to the era of globalization.

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 Swarup's goal was accomplished, since the novel has been translated into over 40
languages, something that would have been impossible for a published work in Hindi, at least
not so rapidly. The book's and language's international character is mirrored in the tale itself:

Ram learns English as a youngster from Father Timothy, a priest from the north of
England, then masters Australian English while serving Colonel Taylor, and has to deal with a
variety of accents and dialects when working as a guide at the Taj Mahal. Swarup realized
that writing in English would allow him to reach a larger audience, especially those in the
west. The slums', poverty's, and abuse's stories would be told throughout the world. As a
result, we'd view his decision since strategic, as he's attempting to shape his language within
the contexts of international English, which is more readily translated.

In this regard, “Slumdog Millionaire,” on the other hand, appears to be more realistic
and localized than "Q and A". In the first four episodes, Boyle and Beaufoy make the young
heroes speak Hindi. However, only non-Indian audience will see this option as being
culturally oriented.

If the intention had been pure, we would have watched a film in which children spoke
Marathi, local Hindi, or any other local languages, depending on their family's origins,
because they grew up in Mumbai's slums. This usage of Hindi, on the other hand, might be
seen only as a sort of tribute to Bollywood. Nonetheless, English is evident from the start, as
both the inspector and the TV program host only speak it. After these initial episodes, English
is the only language in the film; it is then portrayed both as an international mode of
communication during the TajMahal scene, when Jamal presents himself as a guide for
foreign tourists, and as a global language, in tight existence in the world of communication,
which is symbolized by the call center where Jamal is working and attempting to locate Latika
and Salim.

Swarup and Boyle's objectives are very different, despite the fact that both works
employ language as a main instrument. One is attempting to represent the colonizer's eternal
control over the colonized, even in terms of language, while the other is attempting to portray
the colonizer's everlasting dominance over the colonized.

When looking at the quizzes from “Q and A” and “Slumdog Millionaire (SDM)” with
the topic of counter discourse in mind, one may look at the level of difficulty used and if the

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information they suggest is mostly local or global. The set of questions posed to either Ram or
Jamal are examined for this study. (See Appendix 1)

In response to the first of these considerations, Swarup stated in an interview that he

intended his novel to replicate the format of the original quiz show, “I had to follow the
etiquette of the quiz show. In the quiz show, easy questions are at the beginning and the tough
ones are at the end. It has to be good mix of questions on sports, science, history and other
subjects” (The Rediff Interview, Swarup 2005). That is to say Swarup had the Indian setting
in mind, believing that the more street-contextualized the question is, the easier the answer
must be for such a young man.

However, for an Indian candidate, the succession of questions in the novel does not
appear to follow an increasing level of difficulty. For a candidate like Ram, it is not at all
progressive, because the questions need a broad, primarily western-oriented knowledge base.
Unless Swarup finally abandons his initial notion, the evolution Swarup had in mind must be
connected to the way he envisioned his readers' general knowledge.

The questions are clearly geared at an Indian audience. Nonetheless, the substance and
structure of the questions convey the impression that global knowledge from the West has a
greater value, both because western-contextualized questions appear towards the conclusion
of the quiz and are therefore worth the most rupees, and because competitors are more likely
to be wrong not knowing the answer at all. Ram is unable to answer the last questions, which
are about Beethoven's music and Shakespeare's plays, but he still wins the game with the
assistance of an Indian professor of English literature and threatening the host in revenge for
crimes done earlier in the tale by the latter.

We can only conclude that the goal was to put the quiz in an Indian environment, yet
the overall trend of the sequence of questions gives the western world and western knowledge
the most value and supremacy. You can't place a western topic on a lower level than an Indian
one, and this is precisely the social class conflict in Orientalism.

In terms of SDM questions, we can state that the first four are unquestionably focused
on the Indian context and can be answered by any Indian candidate with ease. They are,
however, unrelated to the actual and local experiences of Indian living. On the contrary, they
may be defined as the common knowledge that western audiences interested in India and its
culture can anticipate. The second portion of the series, on the other hand, has nothing to do

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with India; it's all about western culture. They are, in fact, far more linked to the western,
English-speaking world, and resemble the types of questions seen in British and American
editions of the quiz show.

As a result, the quiz in SDM emphasizes two feelings: first, that this picture was
primarily created for a western audience, and second, that it strongly conforms to the concept
that western knowledge is, or must be, eminently worldwide. Despite the fact that the film is
clearly set in an Indian setting, the quiz questions include minimal information about India
and are aimed at an English-speaking audience.

To summarize the purpose of the shows, Every question in the novel "Q and A" is
crucial to the plot and reveals various facets of it, such as poverty and absue, as well as the
street life. In SDM, on the other hand, the questions are only a vehicle for describing the India
that Boyle and Beaufoy intended to convey to the western world. That is to say, Swarup
delivered message through his work is totally the opposite of the movie and hence it
represents a counter-discourse to the west.

Moving ahead, the novel's author, Swarup, makes an attempt to expose the
contemporary status of Indian women in society. Through his hero, he attempts to represent
the moral characteristics of impoverished Indians in opposition to the west. Ram, now an
adult, does not appear to be a conventional male oppressor; rather, he looks to be a female
guardian. From childhood until adolescence, he has witnessed many forms of female
aggression. Readers may become acquainted with the female characters through his story-
telling behind each question. Women including Gudiya nickname Smita, a slum girl who later
became an advocate, and her housewife mother [Link]; ex-actress Neelima Kumari,
best known as the silver screen's "Tragedy Queen"; and Nita, the beautiful prostitute whose
beauty is a curse rather than a blessing; are considered to be important characters who change
his life timeline occasionally.

When reading the novel "Q and A," we may immediately observe the significant topic
of wife abuse in marital relationships. We can see the terrible occurrence of wife beating
through the Shantaram episode in the chapter titled "A Brother's Promise." Ram describes his
encounter with the lower middle class Shantaram family, comprising Mr. and Mrs. Shantaram
and their adolescent daughter Gudiya, in a Mumbai chawl, as well as a related instance of
wife abuse.

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 Because they are a low-income family, the Shantaram family's daily existence is
becoming increasingly difficult. Furthermore, the father and husband is an alcoholic by
nature, which has made the issue much worse, as when he is under the influence of alcohol,
he loses his mind and is capable of doing anything terrible towards his own family. Mr.
Shantaram, a former astronomer-scientist who is now a sales manager at the Vimal
showroom, holds his wife responsible for his decline in life, lifestyle, and career.

As a result, in trying to cure his own wound, he brutalizes his wife by tossing dishes at
her. With clear anger he says: “You bloody bitch! You are the one who has brought me down
in life. I could be writing research papers on black holes, and instead I am showing blouse
pieces and saris to wretched housewives. I hate you! Why don't you die?” (Swarup, 74).
When things became heated in a similar circumstance later, the drunken father threw a hot
cup of liquid on his wife, which fell on his daughter's face. Here, the hero, the charming and
honest Ram, intervenes to take the hero's wife and daughter to the hospital.

The incidence of wife beating, however, is not limited to slum domestic life; it also
affects upper middle-class families. From the well Taylor family, there is also another case of
wife abuse. “The Man Who Knows” Colonel Taylor, an Australian ambassador at the Indian
embassy, is the head of an upper middle-class family. “Colonel Taylor catches someone else
cheating. His own wife. Mrs Rebecca Taylor. Turns out she was having an affairwith
someone in the Embassy” (Swarup, 124). Mr. Taylor slaps his wife brutally after being caught
red-handed in his wife's intimate relationship with the high commissioner. He can't contain his
fury about his wife having a physical relationship with a guy other than her spouse, despite
their status. He becomes white with rage as a result of his sexual jealousy and lack of
authority over his wife.

The Taylor household's predominant features for wife beating are the problem of
continual male ego and the allegation of adultery against wife. Mr. Taylor does not hesitate to
hit his wife in order to reclaim his formerly total support. This is a system of political power
that applies to all women, whether they are black or white. Whether she is a slum-dwelling,
impoverished Indian wife or an educated, enlightened, advanced Australian woman, the
unifying element is that her social identification is "Spouse or Wife", and she is the victim of
subjection and abuse.

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 The only difference is that the first (Shantaram) will be a public problem owing to his
poor socioeconomic background, whilst the second (Taylor) will be kept as a top secret
personal matter to protect the family's image and respect. Thus, Swarup portrays the two
parallel pictures of wife battering to highlight the patriarchal orientation towards this crime.
Therefore it is not just from a third-world nation like India, but any progressive country's
males have the same attitude of assaulting their wives to show their manhood and masculine
superiority.

Clearly, "Q and A" seemed more like "real life" in India than the film. Through his
works and usage of English, Swarup is regarded a diasporic, hybrid character. By attempting
to integrate the colonizer's culture, the colonized becomes a hybrid and a mimic man.
Alternatively, the colonized becomes free in the process since he is unable to change his
position and situation, but rather his essence in harmony and communion with the colonizer.
This involves both active opposition to the colonial situation and an endeavour to reclaim the
cultural legacy that the colonial system intended to erase. As a result, it might be claimed that
hybrids in colonial situations become rebellious as their yearning for their own origins grows.
With a developing feeling of freedom, their mimicry proves to be the most subversive and
effective weapon.

3. The difference between the novel and the movie

“Q and A“ novel or “Slumdog Millionaire” movie, the book or the cinematic
adaptation, the original source or the changed script, which one is better? Did the movie give
credit to the novel? All of these controversial concepts would be within anyone‟s mind if he
went through both of these works.

3.1. The book:

Swarup's novel is set in India, and the protagonist is Ram Mohammad Thomas, an
orphaned 18-year-old who recreates his life by obtaining the top prize on a quiz show similar
to "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" The show's producers, on the other hand, are skeptical
that a young kid with a sad past like Ram's could possibly accurately answer all the questions.
How is it possible for a youngster without regular Internet access, let alone a proper
education, to recall answers to questions on poetry, cricket, and the Indian armed forces? As a
result, they accuse him of deception. The initial 12 exceptional incidents from Ram's youth

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are divided into chapters and show how he came to know the critical answers when he needed
them most.

The format of Q and A follows a rigid pattern, chapter by chapter. Except for the
prologue, which sets the tone for what's to follow from first-person narrator Ram, each
chapter begins with a story from Ram's past, which usually lasts approximately 20 pages.
They come to an end with Ram speaking with his lawyer, Smita, who then examines footage
from the tape and realizes how the narrative Ram just told her affected his response to the
question.

Swarup's tale is amazing because it is so basic. Because Swarup employs just the most
basic words to convey his narrative, “Q and A” is almost too simple to follow. Character
dialogue is very weak, which is a drawback. What they say to one other isn't always
appropriate for the situation and comes out as slightly overdone. But don't be misled, "Q and
A" is much more than a bedtime story, it's a heroic story about a young boy who overcomes
the most difficult of challenges, whether it's growing up without biological parents,
witnessing murder, committing it, or narrowly escaping the open arms of some unjust and
vicious Indians.

Ram Mohammad Thomas (an intriguing name that reflects India's richness and
variety) is portrayed in Q & A as a postmodern Indian boy who learns three main religions
(Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity) due to his uncertain birth history. He is taught in a church
by a British priest, Father Timothy, from whom he gets a perfect English accent. He also
encounters the hypocrisy of a child-abusing priest, Father John, while he is there.

Later, as a tourist guide, he meets people from all over the world and learns about their
cultures. He also works for a family of Australian diplomats and at a contact center as a tea
boy. His interactions with a variety of individuals have shaped him into a deeply mixed,
cosmopolitan character and helps him to claim control over his relationship with the
antagonistic modernists like the film star Prem and aristocrat Swapna Devi, a friendly lawyer
Smita, a lonely, aged film heroine Neelima Kumari and also criminals like Shyam. Ram, a
patriot, also supports his country by informing the police about the actions of a spying
Australian ambassador who is working against India's interests. Ram's encounters with
foreigners allow the story to go beyond the borders of the country, implying that the
impoverished youngster in the third world might also be a victim of deeper exploitation.

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 We may recall or forget some information from time to time. But it's important to note
that Salim, also as one of the main characters was a child he met in a juvenile detention
center. Both Ram and Salim were kidnapped by Maman and forced to become beggars, but
they escaped. We can't talk about the novel's features without adding that, unlike the movie,
Salim's favorite Indian actor and idol was Armaan Ali. Furthermore, Nita, a prostitute girl that
Ram met in Agra, was one of the female characters with whom Ram had a relationship.

Finally, we conclude the section of the novel with its beginning story; the quiz show is
referred to as Who Will Win a Billion, or W3B, in the book. Before the first episode even
airs, the protagonist wins the lottery. The producers will not be able to afford a billion-rupee
reward until the first eight months of production. They are about to give the police
commissioner a ten percent share, of what Ram couldn‟t hear, if the protagonist is found
guilty. The cops are about to sign a confession when a young female lawyer arrives out of
nowhere and saves our hero. And that‟s where our story begins.

3.2. The Movie:

From the first impression to give, we can say that Danny Boyle's “Slumdog
Millionaire” is anything but faithful to Vikas Swarup's “Q and A”. The amazing run of a little
child on a television game show is the same in both cases. Even though he's on the popular
international show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" and not the novel's imaginary drop
"Who Wants to Win a Billion?" or as a simple depiction of what Indians term "Kaun banega
crorepati," everything else is different. It's essentially a rewrite of the tale. Even Jamal's
(formerly Ram's) motivations for being on the show have changed. He's not there for fame or
wealth, but rather to attract the attention of a long-lost love, Latika, who he thinks is watching
the popular show.

Salim is no longer a best friend, but a brother, which adds to the intensity of the events
that follow. We may also admire Jamal's improved communication with Salim and the new
female Latika. Instead of following a primary character who acts primarily on his own, like in
Q and A, we are introduced to someone who is confronted with difficult situations with the
help of two others. We may also think Jamal's childhood stories in the movie are more
powerful. Unlike the novel, where a "story" from Ram's history may be as easy as an
insignificant individual in the room taking Ram to one side to tell him a war, love, or other
cliché narrative, "Slumdog Millionaire" puts Jamal at the center of every tale.

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 The film depicts Jamal, Salim, and Latika's marginalization as street children, Jamal's
unwavering love for Latika, a crime-prone adolescent Salim's desire to take power in the adult
world, and eventually Jamal's success story of winning a million dollars and meeting his ideal
lady. In comparison to the text, the film lacks adequate detail in its representation of each
individual. Concerning the first scenes, Although his mother dies in one of India's riots, the
film's hero, Jamal Malik, appears to have a family. He is transformed into a Muslim child
orphaned by rioting Hindus in the film. His brother is the same Salim, and there is a girl
named Latika with whom Jamal falls in love and fights to find her. Ironically, Jamal went to
the concert to get her back, believing she was watching.

When it comes to the movie's quiz, the first question is on Amitabh Bachchan, the
legendary Bollywood star who is so beloved by Jamal that he would go to any length to obtain
his autograph; as a result, he is his idol, rather than Armaan Ali, as the book claims. There is
no story about Neelima Kumari, the Tragedy Queen of Indian Cinema, or Colonel Taylor, the
Autralian with whom Thomas used to work in his house, or about Thomas murdering a man
who robbed him of his money on the train, or about a Military retired and one-legged Balwant
Singh who told lies about his heroic act in the war, And then there's no Ahmed Khan, a
contract killer who saved Salim's life, and Swapna Devi, who in the film denies his own son
Shankar.

We would give later on an analysis on the contradictions and similarities between the
novel and the movie, but first let‟s recapitulate. Here are the main difference between the
book and the movie represented in the following table:

In the Book In the Movie

Jamal Malik
Ram Mohammed Thomas.
Portrayed by: Dev Patel

Latika
Nita
Portrayed by: Freida Pinto

The main character meets his love when he is a They meet as young children.

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 teenager, and she is a prostitute.

The main character is relating the events that led to him

He is telling it to a cop.
knowing the answers to his lawyer.

He goes on the show so he can make

The main character hopes to win money on the show so
contact with Latika because he
he can pay to have his girlfriend released from her pimp.
knows she watches it daily.

He is a gangster and gets killed in

Salim is a Bollywood actor.
the end.

Ram calls an English professor that he befriended for Jamal knows the answer but uses his
his phone a friend and got the answer to a question phone call to call Salim. It is the
about Shakespeare. only phone number he knows.

Salim and Ram are both orphans who are not related. Jamal and Salim are brothers.

Ram works for a Bollywood actress. He works in a Call Center.

The host of the show is an actor that Ram knew, and The host is an actor, but he has no
who abused his girlfriend. He wanted revenge. previous relationship to Jamal.

Ram goes on a fictional game show called, "Who Will It is the Indian version of "Who
Win A Billion?" Wants to Be A Millionaire?"

Ram is older than Salim. Salim is older than Jamal.

In the book, Ram Mohammed Thomas is an orphan and In the movie, Jamal Malik is brother
is collected in a church. And , a monk gaves his name with Salim, and his mother is killed

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Ram Mohammed Thomas, what influences the name of during a war of Bombay riots.
three religion.

In terms of character representation and fictitious events, there are differences between
the novel and the film. The character's name was changed to Jamal Malik from Ram
Mohammad Thomas. There are a few additional names that have been altered for different
characters. The narrative, though, is quite similar. Ram or Jamal (protagonist) answers the
quiz questions based on his own life experiences in both situations. He was abandoned as an
orphan on the street when he was young, falls in love with a girl in jeopardy, and makes it his
mission to save her by earning a large sum of money in the shortest length of time through a
TV quiz game. Because the quiz only included questions to which he knew the answers, his
success is based on chance. He only knows about diverse real-life scenarios because of his
personal encounters with many contradictory occurrences that commonly occur in the lives of
street children. Both the writer and the filmmaker are sensitive to these concerns in their
setting.

The stories in the movie and the book start to differ at some point. It's worth noting
that, unlike the movie, the order of the questions in the book does not correspond to the events
of the protagonist's life. As a result, the narration bounces back and forth, leaving you to fill in
the blanks between the various tale fragments. Each chapter of "Q & A" corresponds to a quiz
question, providing us a picture of Ram's life at any given time. Although we do hop back and
forth on occasion in "Slumdog Millionaire," the questions are mainly chronological. Slumdog
Millionaire follows the same plot as the novel and opens with its young hero, Jamal Malik
(Dev Patel) or Mohammad Ram Thomas, being hauled away for severe questioning before
answering his last question to earn a million dollars. In the novel, he is permitted to explain
himself to Smita the lawyer, and in the film, he is allowed to explain himself to the thugs who
have been torturing him.

Despite the fact that the idea of the book and the film were similar, the questions
posed, and the stories behind them, were frequently extremely different. “Q and A” doesn't
really have a narrative storyline, despite the fact that we constantly returning to the quiz show
questions. It's highly episodic, with Ram serving as the sole regular character. The narrative
of "Slumdog Millionaire" revolves around Jamal, his older brother Salim, and the girl he
loves, Latika. They are the "three Musketeers," and the film's central theme is the interaction

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between these individuals, particularly the romance between Jamal and Latika. In Q and A
Salim and Ram have several adventures together, but they are not brothers, and the Salim of
the novel is not the same as the Salim of the novel. Book Salim is younger than Ram, has a
crush on movie stars, and is generally a kinder child. Salim in the film isn't perfect, but he's
complicated. Although females wander in and out of Ram's tale, and he, like Jamal, is a
chivalrous type, there isn't really a core relationship.

Poverty and injustice in modern India are portrayed in strong tones in both the book
and the film, but it is not overbearing. Ram had a fairly bad existence, as did most of the
people he met, but he also met a lot of interesting personalities, both Indians and westerners,
who lived in less horrible circumstances. While living with Father Timothy, staying at the
children's home, and working for the Australian family, Ram experienced a few moments of
nearly normalcy. Poverty and hardship were not avoided in the work, but they were present as
a backdrop to Ram's tale and the ordinary for so many people. On the other hand, several of
the plot lines in the book seemed implausible, as though the narrative occasionally descended
to the lowest levels of poverty and slum life in India; whereas the film omitted the stranger
elements, such as priests and female abuse, in favour of romance and love.

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Conclusion

Although Swarup with his novel “Q and A” tried to portray a counter-discourse in

which he depicts a real India with brave, intelligent characters from one hand; while on the
other hand, he mocks the West for their cruelty and fragile appearance. Ironically, he could
only give an opportunity to the Westerners to use his authentic work as a weapon against
Indians through a movie, famously claimed to be an adaptation, entitled “Slumdog
Millionaire”. By creating binary sections between the contemporary and the backward, the
known and the investigated on the one hand, the mysterious and the dangerous on the other,
or by creating imagery of the powerless, abused, and sexually enhancing passive Indian
females or the country's bizarre, peculiar, and violent religious practices, Slumdog Millionaire
demonstrates and misuses old and new stereotypes about India. These specific
representational methods used in Slumdog Millionaire transform India as an exotic spectacle,
easily available for the eager consumer in the West, by conforming to the Orientalist
expectations and fantasies of the audience. Slumdog Millionaire builds a fictional India by
portraying it as both a fantasy and a reality, thereby appealing to Western viewers' continual
desire to preserve the exotic Oriental "Other" as a proven diametrical contrast to the "Self."

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