Feb 23, 2009 5:16 pm US/Central
Film Brings Light To Age Old Issue In India
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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The cast of 'Slumdog Millionaire,' lead actor Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan, and Madhur Mittal arrive at the 81st Academy Awards at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, California on Feb. 22, 2009.
Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
Hundreds of people broke out their best Bollywood dance moves in India Sunday night when eight Oscars went to the rags to riches movie
Slumdog Millionaire which was shot in the slums of Mumbai.
Fans in Chicago say they couldn't be more proud of the film. CBS 2's Mike Puccinelli reports on why one Chicago priest says living in those slums was life altering.
"It is a reality... it is a life journey," Father Benjamin Chinnappan said.
The movie follows the paths of children referred to as slumdogs trying to survive in the slums of Mumbai, India.
Father Chinnappan didn't grow up in an urban slum, but he did grow up impoverished- in a straw roofed hut with a mud floor in rural India.
Like many of the children depicted in the film, he hails from a class of people deemed so low in Indian society they are called untouchables or Dalits- people who he hopes will benefit from the attention generated by
Slumdog Millionaire.
"When I saw this movie it breaks my heart. At the same time I am glad that the reality, the hypocrisy with which we have been living in India has come to light," Father Chinnappan said.
He says this is because India has been living under a system of apartheid for more than a thousand years and the Dalits have always been at the bottom.
"They are not treated as a human person...They are treated like rubbish," Chinnappan went on to say.
Gracy Vachachira isn't an untouchable but will never forget being treated like one in India years ago.
"We could still not touch them. If they touched us by mistake they had to take a bath," Vachachira said.
Chinnappan says all too often Dalit children are forced into child labor or prostitution. Women are often targeted for sexual and physical abuse. He says in short, Dalits are often treated worse than animals.
"A person in India will touch a cat or dog but he will not touch an untouchable," Chinnappan said.
That's why although he was deemed untouchable by virtue of his birth, Father Chinnappan has made it his life's work to touch the lives of as many Dalits as he can.
For more information on Father Ben's work and ways to get involved, visit this
website.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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