Background Information Vikas Swarup’s novel, Q & A (Slumdog Millionaire), employs the life of an orphan, brought up in the slums of Mumbai, to portray the contemporary Indian society. The police arrest Ram on allegations of cheating in the quiz show, “Who Will Win a Billion (W3B)”. In justifying his innocence, Ram narrates events and experiences in his life, which were the basis of his ability to answer the quiz promptly. The flashback on his life events constitutes the bulk of the story. It portrays the author as an individual who has keenly watched the issues that an ordinary member of the Indian society has to tolerate in his/her attempts to earn a living. The author, by giving the details of Ram’s ability to answer all the quiz questions, shows that life is the best teacher especially to those who are less privileged in life. Slumdog Millionaire is extremely close to reality as it portrays many aspects of the real Indian society with great verisimilitude and its realism outweighs its adventurous story and fairy tale elements. The Indian society as portrayed in the story The novel reveals lives of the impoverished individuals in the Indian society. These people live in the Mumbai slums. They do not acquire quality education thus end up becoming servants of the well up in the society. Ram works for an Australian diplomatic family and for a Bollywood megastar. Working as a waiter is part of his wide range of unprofessional occupations that Ram assumes in his lifetime. There is a clear distinction between those who are wealthy and the poor. The wealthy are very influential especially to the authority as evidenced when the producer of the television quiz is able to convince the police to arrest Ram, the poor orphan. The police, though lacking concrete evidence of the allegations, act accordingly. According to Proust this portrays the oppression of the poor by the rich in the society because as it occurs later that, the producer of the television show did not have the money to give to the winner of the quiz (25). According to him (the producer), the police would help him stop the poor winner from demanding the rightfully won prize. Proust argues that this vice is characteristic of the contemporary Indian society whereby the rich use their influence to deprive the poor their rights. The impoverished in the Indian society are not supposed to mingle with families of the well-up members of the society. For instance, Mr. Shantaram arrives in the slums and orders his family not to interact with their neighbors. Ram hears Shantaram saying, “This place is nothing less than a black hole. It is totally beneath my dignity to be staying here, but just for the sake of you two, I will endure this humiliation until I get a proper job. Listen, I do not want any of the street boys to enter the house. God knows what hellholes they have come from. There are two right next to us. Rascals of the highest order, I think. And Gudiya, if I catch you talking to any boy in the chawl, you will receive a hiding with my leather belt, understood?” (Swarup 24). Though Shantaram’s family moves to the slums due to financial constraints, they still do not admit to stoop to the level of the