The British movie set in Mumbai, SlumDog Millionaire, won four Golden Globe awards yesterday including Best Film and Best Director.
The music for the movie was composed by the “Mozart of Madras”, A.R. Rahman, who is now a Muslim but was born to Hindu parents and named A.S. Dileep Kumar until his conversion to Islam. Rahman has been a top composer in Bollywood for almost two decades. He was noticed internationally for the music of Oscar-nominated Lagaan in 2001 and for the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical, Bombay Dreams.
Unfortunately, the folks hosting the Globes mispronounced Rehman’s name, twice (two different ways). Better have the Oscar team practice their pronunciation. And here is a Western interview of Rahman, shortly before he won the Globe. (If you want to be an expert on India read carefully to note how the interviewer may be culturally insensitive.)
I was intrigued by The Telegraph’s characterization of SlumDog as the first movie of the Obama era. At least Obama knows how to pronounce “Pakistan” correctly (the first American President in my memory not to say Pack-istan but Pahk-istan).
Other trivia: The lead character in the movie was names Ram Mohammed Thomas (a combination of a hindu, muslim and christian names) by the author of the book. But the director preferred a muslim name for the star.
Last updated: December 26th, 2025
