Parents say Slumdog's child stars were exploited

New Delhi: Their roles in Slumdog Millionaire have won them international acclaim and seen them rub shoulders with the film's glamorous stars and its British director.

But the reality of life for Rubina Ali and Azharuddin Esmail is far closer to that of the characters they play in the story of love, violent crime and extreme poverty in India.

The child actors' parents have accused the hit film's producers of exploiting and underpaying the eight-year-olds, disclosing that both face uncertain futures in one of Mumbai's most squalid slums.

Slumdog Millionaire has won four Golden Globes and is nominated for 10 Oscars. It is on its way to making hundreds of millions of pounds in box office receipts. The film's British director, Danny Boyle, has spoken of how he set up trust funds for Rubina and Azharuddin and paid for their education.

But it has emerged that the children, who played Latika and Salim in the early scenes of the film, were paid less than many Indian domestic servants. Rubina was paid £500 (Dh2,529) for a year's work while Azharuddin received £1,700 (Dh8,600). Both were found places in a free "English medium" school, usually attended by relatively poor children, and receive £20 a month for books and food.

However, they continue to live in grinding poverty and their families say they have received no details of the trust funds set up in their names.

Rubina and Azharuddin live a few hundreds yards from each other in a tangle of makeshift shacks alongside Mumbai's railway tracks at Bandra. Azharuddin is in fact worse off than he was during filming: his family's illegal hut was demolished by the local authorities and he now sleeps under a sheet of plastic tarpaulin with his father, who suffers from tuberculosis.

"There is none of the money left. It was all spent on medicines to help me fight TB," Azharuddin's father, Mohammad Esmail, said between fits of rattling coughing. "We feel that the kids have been left behind by the film. He should have been taken care of. We should have been taken care of. He is a hero of the film. They have told us there is a trust fund but we know nothing about it and have no guarantees," he said.

Further down the tracks, an open sewer trickles past the hut that Rubina shares with her parents, older brother and sister. Her father, Rafiq Ali Kureshi, a carpenter, broke his leg during filming and has been out of work since. "I am very happy the movie is doing so well, but it is making so much money and so much fame and the money they paid us is nothing. They should pay more," he said. The film's producers were unavailable for comment.