India Savors "Slumdog" Success

India's movie-mad millions have not yet seen "Slumdog Millionaire," but this Mumbai-based fairy tale, which opens here next week, is already the toast of Bollywood.

All it took was the Golden Globes.

On Sunday, "Slumdog" - with its cast of actors unknown outside India and its story set on the gritty streets of Mumbai - went home with four Golden Globe awards, and became the movie to beat at the Academy Awards.

"Indian tale catches global fancy," the Hindustan Times shouted in a proud headline. "The $lumdog Has Its Day," said the Times of India. The film will be released in India on Jan. 23.

Like the underdog success of Jamal Malik - a poor kid from the slums of Mumbai who becomes a flawless contestant on India's "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire - "Slumdog" scored an unlikely victory with audiences in the West.

The picture was filmed in India with a budget of only $14 million and has no big-name actors, and about a fifth of it is in Hindi.

It swept all four categories it was nominated for at the Globes, including best picture, director, screenplay and best original score.

Britain's Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy directed the film and wrote the script - adapted from Indian author Vikas Swarup's novel "Q & A" - but the composer of the film's score is renowned Indian composer A.R. Rahman.

Indian musician Subir Malik said it was inspiring to see Rahman win a Golden Globe and watch Indian actors like Anil Kapoor, who plays the quiz master in "Slumdog," share an award stage with some of the brightest lights in Hollywood.

"It was brilliant, it may sound cliched, but it felt very good seeing Rahman winning an award and our own guys like Anil Kapoor on the same stage as Brad Pitt," he said.

Rahman started out as a rock band keyboard player before his haunting melodies and earthy rhythms captivated Bollywood in the early 1990s. He has composed music for more than 130 Indian movies.

Over the past five years, he has also composed music for numerous overseas ventures, including Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Bombay Dreams," a musical about India's movie industry that was a hit in London's West End but struggled on Broadway.

"Rahman has seen huge success in India, but the U.S. is a totally different market," said Malik. "For Rahman to win a music award in a language that the critic's don't even understand is fantastic. Now when the movie releases here it's going to be a sellout."

The score is a mixture of moody beats and pulsating Bollywood music, with some lyrics in Hindi.

Vijay Singh, chief executive officer of Fox STAR Studios India, which is distributing the movie, is certainly hoping for a blockbuster.

"It's an exceptional film, it has Indian emotion much like a Bollywood film," Singh said Tuesday, adding that a version dubbed in Hindi is also being released for smaller towns and villages.

"The film has been built on the buzz, it built its credibility in the U.S. and then rolled out in the rest of the world."

By Ramola Talwar Badam