My Journey to the Stars

Slumgirl Dreaming

From the slums to the stars - nine-year-old heroine of Danny Boyle's hit film SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE tells her story

Rubina Ali was born in East Bandra, Mumbai, in one of the largest slums in India. Her mother deserted her when she was two years old, and she has been brought up since then by her father and a new step-mother and siblings. Growing up between the railway track and one of the sewers that carve up her Mumbai slum, Rubina has hardly been to school. Lucky enough to be called by a middle-man in her slum to audition for SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, the rest of Rubina's story is history. 
 
Since the film became a million-dollar hit, Rubina's shanty home has been razed by officials and was recently almost destroyed in a fire. Due to the unprecedented media glare, she and her family have been re-housed by the local authorities. In 2008, Danny Boyle and the producers of the film set up the Jai Ho trust fund to provide welfare for Rubina and her co-star, Azhar, and their familes, until they leave school. They have also provided support for them to cope with their rapid change in plight and with the onslaught of media attention since the film's release. Rubina continues to fascinate the tabloid media and is in constant demand for international fund-raising events. Her acting career is also taking off as she is due to appear in a new Bollywood blockbuster on release later this year. 
 
Royalties from this book will be shared by the author and Medecins du Monde, who are setting up local healthcare community projects for new mothers and children.

My name is Rubina Ali. I don't know when my birthday is, and nor does my father, but I do know that I am nine years old. 
 
Rubina is a one-in-a-million-star. After being plucked from among the five-hundred slum children who auditioned for Danny Boyle's multi-Oscar-winning film SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, she saw her fairytale dream of stardom come true. But what does the future hold for a little girl now trapped between Hollywood glamour and the bleak poverty of her Mumbai slum? 
 
Now she tells her own incredible story, from playing marbles with her friends beside the sewers of Garib Nagar , to dancing along to the Bollywood films she and her family watch on their old television set. Rubina brings alive a world of wastelands and rat-infested shanty dwellings, and shows us her home near the raliway line where she lives with her beloved father and siblings. 
She tells us how her co-star came to be covered head to toe in chocolate, and how she came to meet a tall pale lady named Nicole Kidman. But how has this little girl's intimate world changed since Hollywood came knocking? And what will happen to her next? 
 
Royalties from this book will be shared with the author and Medecins du Monde in India.

Rubina Ali

Rubina Ali doesn't know when her birthday is and she's never eaten chips or pizza. She lives in a rat-infested slum in Mumbai. But after being picked from hundreds of children to star in the multi-Oscar winning film, Slumdog Millionaire, nine-year-old Rubina's life will never be the same again. 
 
This is the true story of how her dreams of being a world-famous actress actually came true. But once her fairy-tale of film sets, parties and Oscars is over, what comes next for Rubina? Can she return to life as normal? 
 
Royalties from this book will be shared with the author and Medecins du Monde in India.

Rubina Ali

Books by Rubina Ali

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