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MUMBAI — Kicking aside stray garbage in her path, Rubina Ali clearly had only one thing on her mind: a perfect pink frock.
She didn't cast a glance at the naked two-year-old boy picking his way along the railway tracks nearby, or the goat nibbling on a nest of dangling power lines.
She rushed by the rickety stalls selling used, torn clothing to her neighbours in the sprawling Mumbai slum that she calls home.
No, she would not wear a sari, the eight-year-old said with a giggle and quick shake of her head, dismissing the traditional dress of Indian women.
Wearing an outfit bought for her trip to Los Angeles, Rubina Ali gets her hair brushed by her aunt, Dilshad Khan, in Mumbai Friday. (Associated Press)
“That's just for older ladies,” she explained, turning abruptly to her dad, Rafiq Ali Quereshi.
This ordinary family shopping trip took place just hours before Rubina was set to embark on the next leg of an extraordinary journey that has taken her from Asia's largest and most squalid slum to sudden international stardom. The girl, who plays the young female lead in the Oscar-nominated movie Slumdog Millionaire was scheduled to go on a flight to Los Angeles to attend Sunday's Oscar ceremonies.
Rubina's tale could have been imagined only in Hollywood. Plucked from poverty in her Mumbai shack by British film producers, she was chosen to play the young female lead in a story about three orphans, one of whom beats all the odds to win India's version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.
Now she was shopping for something to wear among the world's most glittering set of performers.
Her large, dark eyes flashing, Rubina admitted that she knew nothing about the red carpet there but she knew exactly what she would wear for her debut: a pink dress with a wide, billowing skirt, and it had to be short and maybe a bit frilly.
“Of course, I am,” Rubina replies when asked whether she is a movie star. “This picture is going to win some Oscars and this will be the first time for India, so of course I am a movie star.”
Earlier that day, nestled on the only bed in her uncle's cramped lean-to home and hiding out from ever-present cameras staked out at her own shack nearby, Rubina slowly doodled tight designs in brown ink all over her arms, mimicking henna mehendi patterns often made on women's wrists here to celebrate great events.
Pondering her path to stardom, she recalled meeting “Danny Uncle,” the movie's British director Danny Boyle, for the first time. He and fellow producers had wandered through Bandra East and the neighbouring Dharavi, which together make up Asia's largest slum with more than half a million people, looking for a little girl just like her. They selected a few but when they saw her luminous eyes staring back at them during her screen test, they were certain. She was right for the role.
“They taught us acting for a while at first, but I never thought that I would get the role. Then when I went in front of the camera, everyone loved me.”
Her reward has been sudden fame, and some controversy over her salary, which has been reported to be the equivalent of about $1,200 (Canadian). The film producers argue this is three times the average annual take-home pay of any adult in the slum.
As well, Mr. Boyle arranged for Rubina and her young male co-star, Azharuddin Ismail, to attend school for the first time. There is a trust fund, too. But more importantly, she says there was talk of helping her family to find a safer home away from the slum.
So far, the house hasn't materialized but Rubina has faith.
“Danny Uncle is very good. Whatever we tell him, he does for us,” she says.
She enjoys school, where she sees Azharuddin. They are good friends now, she says, although he can be a bit naughty.
Her father, laughing at this, says she also can be trouble.
“Her favourite thing is butter. If we eat it and I don't give her some now, there can be fight,” her dad said.
But the little girl is also generous. Asked what she hoped to buy on her trip to the United States, she said she wants to find a yellow T-shirt for her dad, a ladies' Indian suit for her mother, and some chocolate and nice clothes for her little brother, Abbas, 6.
In Los Angeles, she plans to snap photos with her uncle's tiny red camera, and eat plenty of “ice cream,” one of the only words she can pronounce in English.
Her future dream is to keep acting and to help others.
“I want to be an actress like Freida Pinto [the adult female lead], and I'm going to help poor people and those without homes,” she explained proudly.
At this, Abbas, grinned and admitted that he, too, wanted to be a movie star.
“But he should be a villain,” added their father.
Mr. Quereshi will not go with his famous child to Los Angeles. A carpenter and day labourer, he has been unemployed since tripping on the littered railway tracks and fracturing his leg.
Mr. Quereshi, 36, said he came to the slum in search of work about 20 years ago from the southern state of Kerala. A Muslim in this predominantly Hindu country, he soon found himself marginalized and scraping together a shack from bits of refuse. This is where he met his wife, Shameem, and the pair built a life together.
Now the family was preparing to send their first-born off to Los Angeles with her uncle, Mohiuddin Quereshi, as escort.
But first, as the hours ticked down before her departure, she had to find her pink dress. Surrounded by an avid media scrum, she scanned the offerings of a nearby shop and quickly decided on two jean skirts and T-shirt combinations for a total cost of about $30 to wear on her trip.
Staring down the shopkeeper before paying, an obviously street-smart Rubina quipped: “Now Uncle don't overcharge me because of all these media, you know I'm not rich.”
Then, as the cameras swarmed more furiously, she pressed through and chose a cheap pair of baby-blue running shoes before being forced to return home without her pink frock.
“It's too bad. They had a red one. But not pink,” she sighed.
“Maybe she can find something in America,” pondered her older cousin, Reshma. “I don't know.”
Special to The Globe and Mail