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VIKAS SWARUP'S Q AND A FROM PRINT TO CELLULOID

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Vol. LXIV, No. 1 (I), 2022 पुराणम् - Purana 13

VIKAS SWARUP’S Q AND A FROM PRINT TO CELLULOID

Dr. Dhiraj J. Deshmukh

Assistant Professor, Department of English, A. M. College, Hadapsar, Pune.

Abstract
In the novel Q and A the role of destiny is more active than the film Slumdog Millionaire;
this film is not mere replica of Vikas Swarup’s Q and A. The book, titled Q and A is also a rags-
to-riches story, where it talks about how the protagonist, Ram Mohammad Thomas, who is a tea
stall waiter, wins the big prize on a TV game show. He is depicted in the novel as a man of all
religious and thus the name. The film; although, it is based on the theme of the book; it has its own
incomparable story line and deviates quite a bit from what has been written by the novelist.

Vikas Swarup, the author of Q and A was born in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh in a family of
lawyers. He studied various subjects like Psychology, History, and Philosophy. Swarup made his
mark as a winner debater in National level competitions. After graduating with outstanding class,
he joined the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) in 1986. Since August 2009, he is the Consul General
of India in Osaka-Kobe, Japan. He wrote his first novel, Q&A, in two months, when he was
appointed in London. The book was published in 2005. It has also been published in 42 languages.
It was short listed for the Best First Book by the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize and won South
Africa’s Exclusive Books Boeke Prize 2006 as well as the Paris Book Fair's Reader's Prize, the
Prix Grand Public, in 2007. It was voted the Most Influential Book of 2008 in Taiwan, and winner
of the Best Travel Read (Fiction) at the Heathrow Travel Product Award 2009. The film version
of Q&A, titled ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, directed by Danny Boyle, took the world by storm, winning
more than 70 awards including four Golden Globes, 7 BAFTAs and a staggering 8 Oscars,
including Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture.
The novel Q and A is about an orphan boy who wins India's most famous quiz show Who
Wants to Be a Millionaire? Each part, in the novel, closes with an inquiry for which Ram
Mohammad Thomas replied in the quiz show indicate prior. He clarifies Smitha, the legal advisor
who spares Ram Mohammad Thomas from the magistrate's evil treatment, how he knew the
answers. She was requesting Ram to tell the fact about the quiz show.
“I have been arrested. For winning a quiz show.” 1 (P.11)
Q and A is influential on vitality and its appealing, moving stories; Luck is another vital
instrument in the procedure of the story in light of the fact that the up and upcoming incidents
throughout Ram's life are forbidden by deciding fortunes in flipping the fortunate coin
unfortunately having 'head' at the two sides. The plot of the novel interlinks the occurrences with
the growing up or transitioning of Ram Mohammed Thomas as a rising star of the novel. The titles
of the sum total of what parts have been given based on the thoughts of the inquiries asked in test
appear and the disclosure of the appropriate response without considerably legitimate training. The
transitioning of protagonist uncovers through the sections' titles featuring the expanding measure

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UGC-CARE Group 1 Journal
14 पुराणम् - Purana Vol. LXIV, No. 1 (I), 2022

of the aggregate prize money. It is loaded up with blurbs with a wide range of the saint's different
postures salim knows everyone related with Armaan Ali's motion pictures. He knows who are
closet man, cosmetics man, hairdresser, creation supervisor, and all partners. He as of now viewed
the film eight times and even insane retaining another name each time he watches the motion
picture.
Salim says 'My ambition in life is to shake his hands at least once. I probably won’t wash it
for a month after that”2 (P. 81)
In the novel, Premkumar, the show host of the test indicates 'Who Will Win a Billion?
Reaction Formation, to conceal his hostile feeling towards Ram Mohammad Thomas. It is later
uncovered that he is the man who manhandled both Ram's previous boss and Nita, and Ram joins
the show to get exact retribution on him. Before the finish of the book, he has helped Ram win the
show and confers suicide in his car; however Ram presumes the film makers played a part in his
demise. The major scenes reveal the useful ramifications in the character of the hero. It turns out
to be certain that his life and fate work upon to train him how to be most shrewd in choosing the
correct answer. Ram's name reveals novel religious culture of India. Ram's struggle to get by in
the life, a fight to demonstrate his decency is the genuine picture of Indian lower classes pounding
and abusing consistently in each snapshot of life. This is identified with mental state of the
protagonist. His collaboration with society creates a troublesome life for him. Every one of the
appropriate responses asked to him is only his investigation of the general public. These characters
are from the system of flashbacks on the hero's life expectancy. These flashbacks may chip away
at self-reflexive progress, self-asserting, self-ensuring and independent. As a story gadget, memory
regularly has accuracy in demonstrating the pleasant features from one's life. Vikas Swarup's novel
Q and A presents desires and aspirations of the common people of India.
“He explained to me that I was an orphan child left behind by my mother in the clothes bin
of St Mary’s Orphanage, and that was whya he was white and I was not. It was then, for the first
time, that I understood the distinction between father and Father”.3 (P.55)
The movie begins awesomely in the great way as the game show over romanticizes the
characters using splendid artificial lighting. This before long changes in the flashback where
realism winds up clear as it is shot in the ghettos and is tied in with common laborers individuals
and their issues. Anyway as the flashback advances it rapidly changes to expressionism as the
uproar starts. This is noticeable through the mutilation of miniaturized scale components where
the style takes its place. A flashback is apparent as the exciting blacky blue filter becomes a
brownie, yellowy one. This use of colour suggests the scene was in the past but also assists
emphasize the filthiness of the slums. The audience is made to feel disgusted by the fact that people
have to live there.
The director’s outlook was to influence it to appear to be verisimilitude, representing that
they are ordinary kids inside a network of blameless individuals moving on. Eyes turn into a theme
in the film and are utilized to feature trustworthiness and self-learning. This is one of the manners
in which we are confirmed Jamal has these characteristics, while Salim's shades recommends he
keeps them tenable. The shot zoomblasts from a medium close up to a nearby of the mother's

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Vol. LXIV, No. 1 (I), 2022 पुराणम् - Purana 15

stressed face. This vertigo impact is expressionistic and distinctly singles her out from the group
for being the special case that saw that something wasn't right. Her edge perspective is likewise
evident using tending point shots as she understands the future danger.
“The white man dabs his forehead with a hankerchief and looks at me a though I am a new
species of monkey.”4 (P.15)
Slumdog Millionaire fills in for instance of a transnational generation. It not just limits the
evaluation of silver screen inside the tricky limits of nationhood, yet additionally powers all non-
Hollywood films, especially “accented cinema” to undergo the weight of speaking to country and
culture. Transnational creations are unavoidably examined as far as national portrayal. Close ups
of their running feet at ground level connote their expanding franticness, increasing the instinctive
effect of the scene. The theme of prejudice is appeared through an over the shoulder shot of the
cross examiner's face in light of the fact that as he tunes in to Jamal's past he supposedly looks
down in discontent. The chief purposely utilized this shot as it underlines how the truth of Jamal
securing the appropriate response influenced him.
Low point shot of Jamal gazing toward Salim in the inn after the slaughtering of
Maman.Used by Boyle to emphasize the creating power battle and Salim's assurance to champion
himself over parallel altering in the falling activity with hop cuts between Salim's demise and
Jamal noting the last inquiry establishes the association between these two events. Reinforce the
feeling that Salim's sacrifice was essential for Jamal and Latika to be as one. The title Slumdog
Millionaire, appealing as it may be has stimulated up no shortage of controversy. Some have
argued that the term "slumdog"—and indeed the film as a whole—is dehumanizing and
undignified to slum residents. Director Danny Boyle responded to this criticism, explaining that
the intent of the title wasn't to humiliate and belittle slum residents, but rather to emphasize the
"underdog" aspect of the story. Either way, it's hard to argue that the title isn't both memorable and
descriptive, totally underlining the rags-to-riches aspect of the film.
In the novel Q and A the role of destiny is more active than the film Slumdog
Millionaire; this film is not mere replica of Vikas Swarup’s Q and A. The book, titled Q and A is
also a rags-to-riches story, where it talks about how the protagonist, Ram Mohammad Thomas,
who is a tea stall waiter, wins the big prize on a TV game show. He is revealed in the book as a
man of all religious and thus the name. The movie; although, it is based on the theme of the book;
it has its own exceptional story line and deviates quite a bit from what has been written. The
defecation scene shown in the first part of the film is also nothing but Director Danny Boyle letting
his imagination runs wild. Nowhere in the book does anything like this exist. The differences
between the book and movie set up with the main theme itself. The slums of Mumbai in Slumdog
Millionaire are projected as places where intense poverty prevails-which is not what the book
depicts. In the book, the first person narrator and quiz show contestant is named Ram Mohammad
Thomas. He was deserted at birth in the clothing bin of a Catholic church in Delhi, and raised for
eight years by a generous English priest named Father Timothy. His surname comes from a family
that adopted him for three days before giving him back to the church. Local religion leaders
suggested his first and middle names, on the theory that his birth parents might be either Hindu or

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 16 पुराणम् - Purana Vol. LXIV, No. 1 (I), 2022

Muslim. There is more violence in the movie than in the book. In the most graphically violent
scene of the movie, a young beggar boy is drugged and blinded with acid while unconscious. There
is no such scene in the book, although its possibility is suggested.
In the book and in the movie, both boys are taken to a residential music school near
Mumbai, where all the children seem to be crippled. They are taught songs of the blind poet Surdas
and learn they will likely to be blinded when they finish learning the songs, in order to work as
blind, singing beggers. The elder boy leads an escape, Salim in the movie, Ram in the book. The
film makes the use of overlapping editing. As the starting credits move, we see a best down
perspective of somebody filling a bath with cash. The setting in Slumdog Millionaire was India.
Anyways, the lighting always had a specific shade, whether it was orange, blue, green, and yellow.
After winning the grand prize, again, Ram is arrested by police to try to torture him into signing
of confession of cheating. This scene is where the book begins. He is rescued from torture by a
women lawyer who call herself Smita, and who listens to his explanations, given in the sequence
of the relevant question number. She then reveals herself to be Gudiya, from the chawl, whose
father had suffered only a broken leg when Ram pushed him from the balcony, and who had
stopped raping Gudiya after his fall. Gudiya gets him his prize money, Ram marries Nita, Salim
becomes a film star, and the crippled children are rescued from their imprisonment.

References:
1) Swarup, Vikas. Q&A. 2005. London: Black Swan-Transworld Publishers, 2009
2) Swarup, vikas (2005), Q and A , great Britan: A Black swan Publication, ISBN 9780552775427
3) Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 Vol. 17:1 January 2017 The
Role of the Unconscious in Vikas Swarup’s Q & A: An Analysis Dr. C. Ramya Ravikumar, M.A.,
M.Phil., Ph.D.
4) Boyle, Danny and Loveleen Tandan dir. Slumdog Millionaire. Fox Searchlight Pictures and
Warner Bros. 2009.
5) https://quizlet.com/48569993/slumdog-film-techniques-flash-cards/
6) http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/51432/5/05_chapter1.pdf
7) http://puneresearch.com/media/data/issues/55faed73bcf94.pdf
8) https://jwilson30.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/slumdog-millionaire-film-analysis-on-effects/

ISSN : 0555-7860
UGC-CARE Group 1 Journal

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