Q & A

Shortly after being picked up from Father Timothy’s church and moving to the juvenile home, Ram contracts jaundice and spends two weeks in bed. The home is overcrowded, and everyone gets together on Sundays to watch films on the small TV. Ram gets to know the other boys, many of whom are “repeaters” who have been adopted but returned.

When Ram returns from the isolation room after his jaundice, he finds a new boy there named Salim, whom he will get to know well. Salim is young and comes from a poor Muslim family who was killed by Hindus after rumors spread that a Muslim had defaced the local temple to Hanuman. Salim and Ram bond over playing marbles and watching films.

One day, an old widower named Gupta invites Salim into his room and Ram follows behind him, out of sight. Gupta is drunk and orders Salim to take off his pants, then Gupta takes off his own pants. Suddenly, Ram realizes what Father John and Ian were doing in Father John’s bedroom. Ram screams out loudly, surprising Gupta, who didn’t know Ram was there. Salim gets away unhurt but is shaken by this incident for the rest of his life.

One spring day, Ram and Salim get a chance to go outside the juvenile home. They find a carnival with a palm reader, and Salim insists on getting his fortune read. The fortune teller tells Salim that he’ll become a famous actor, even bigger than Armaan Ali. Ram doesn’t want his own fortune read, believing they’re scams, but when Salim insists, Ram grudgingly hands over 10 rupees for a reading. The palm reader is alarmed and says that Ram has a short life line, but he might be able to do something for 200 rupees. Ram laughs and says they’re orphans with no money. They go to leave but before they go, the palmist gives Ram a lucky one-rupee coin.

One day, a man named Sethji comes to the juvenile home. The rumor is that he chooses children he finds promising to go live with a rich man called Maman in Mumbai. Salim knows that Mumbai is the center of the film industry, so he wants to get picked. When Sethji arrives, Ram is surprised to see that he looks more like a gangster than a rich man. Sethji inspects the line of children and does indeed find Salim promising. Gupta tries to convince Sethji to also take Ram, but Sethji is reluctant. Gupta offers Ram as a two-for-one package deal with Salim, and Sethji agrees to this. Salim is excited, but Ram is worried.

Ram and Salim take a train to Mumbai accompanied by Sethji’s associates, Mustafa and Punnoose. Ram and Salim are optimistic at first as they see sights they recognize from films. On their way to Maman’s, they pass a school Maman runs for disabled children—Mustafa tells them that it’s empty because all the children are away for “vocational training.” They meet Maman in the evening, and Salim is overjoyed when Maman promises to give Salim singing lessons. Maman makes sure Ram and Salim both get a good meal. As Ram eats, however, he notices other boys coming in, boys missing eyes or needing crutches—Mustafa says  they don’t get food because they’re being punished.

Over the next few weeks, Ram and Salim learn music from a teacher who tells them to call him Masterji. Salim proves himself a natural, but Ram struggles to sing. They get to know some of the boys from Maman’s school, including Ashok, who tells them that the “school” is actually full of beggars and that Maman is a gangster who gives them food and shelter in return for them giving Maman the money they earn begging. Other children tell similar stories, which shake Ram, but Salim keeps his faith in Maman.

One day, Mustafa and Punnoose are excited about a new boy arriving. They call him a “rat child” because of his long head, which is supposedly due to a tradition of using iron rings to stop a baby’s head from growing. Meanwhile, Salim and Ram’s singing lessons with Masterji come to an end. Masterji says that Salim will one day sing as well as Surdas, who sang songs in praise of Krishna and was famously blind. That evening, Ram overhears Punnoose and Maman talking about how Salim will be very valuable but how Ram will have to fend for himself and go hungry if he can’t live up to Maman’s expectations as a beggar.

Ram tells Salim it’s time to escape—he believes that the boys at the school have been deliberately maimed by Maman and that Maman wants to blind Salim. Salim doesn’t want to go, so they agree to flip the lucky one-rupee coin. Ram wins the toss, so he suggests that they try to find the actress Neelima Kumari, whom one of the boys at the school told them about, saying she needs a servant.

Ram and Salim escape Maman and take a train to the center of Mumbai. Soon after getting off the train, they come across a blind singer singing one of Surdas’s poems to Krishna. Salim and Ram agree to give him some of the only money they have left.

In the present, Ram explains to Smita that he managed to get a job with Neelima Kumar, while Neelima arranged for Salim to stay at a room in the chawl, where Ram will live later. They press play on the next segment of the quiz show. Prem Kumar asks Ram which god the blind poet Surdas devoted himself to. Ram correctly guesses Krishna.