Q & A

It’s okay if you haven’t heard of Q&A by Vikas Swarup. I certainly hadn’t before. But I’m sure you’ll know the movie adaptation of this book: it won 8 out of the 10 Academy Awards it was nominated for, and was a critically acclaimed success, raking in over 300mil against a budget of 15mil. I’m talking, of course, about Slumdog Millionaire. There’s something about the rags to riches narrative that captures our hearts and minds completely. We love to hear stories of the underdog beating the system and rising against all odds to triumph. In Q&A, the underdog is one Ram Mohammad Thomas, a boy from the slums who goes on to win one billion rupees after participating in a gameshow similar to the reality TV series Who Wants to be A Millionaire – before he is arrested for ‘cheating’ – his only crime being trying to go against the status quo.