14 DAY TRIAL // Rubina Ali, who played a young Latika in Danny Boyle’s Oscar-winning film “Slumdog Millionaire,” is only nine years old but that is not good enough of a reason not to release her life story. Publisher Transworld has announced that “Slumdog Dreamin,” Ali’s memoirs, will be released in the US and the UK on July 16, as People magazine can confirm.
The case of Rubina and of the other children appearing in the highly acclaimed movie who continued to live in the slums even after the film went on to make many millions at the international box-office has never ceased to grab headlines. The same goes for the alleged attempt of the girl’s father to sell her to rid himself of poverty for good, an allegation he firmly denied time and time again. Presumably, all of this will be included in the upcoming book.
In “Slumdog Dreamin,” Ali tells her story, from “playing marbles with her friends beside the sewers of Garib Nagar in Mumbai, to dancing along to the Bollywood films she and her family watch on their old television set.” publisher Transworld says in a press release made public just hours ago. The idea is for the book to show how the little girl grew up in the slums, reached international fame and literally became a household name and, ironically enough, continued to live in the most atrocious conditions ever.
If only for this reason alone, her story should be heartbreaking at the very least, it is being said in the media. The publisher for one guarantees fans will see a side of fame they never even knew existed. “Rubina brings alive a world of wastelands and rat-infested shanty dwellings, and shows us her home, a wooden shack with a tarpaulin roof, where she grew up with her beloved father and siblings.” Transworld says in the same statement.
As noted above, although still very young, Rubina has had her share of headlines, mostly for things that she had no control over. One such case was her father’s alleged attempts to sell her, as revealed by an undercover investigation by British tabloid News of the World, which offered the man £200,000 for Rubina, an offer he reportedly accepted on the spot.