On Sunday night here at the 81st Academy Awards, Bollywood ended its long had a dismal showing at the Oscars, going home with three Oscars . A.R. Rahman, 43, bagged Oscars for Original Score in “Slumdog Millionaire”, named the best film, and along with veteran lyricist Gulzar also won the Best Song award for the foot-tapping number ‘Jai ho'. Kerala-born sound engineer Resul Pookutty notched up an Oscar for Sound Mixing. And “Smile Pinki”, made by American director Megan Mylan about an Indian girl born with a cleft lip won the Oscar in the short documentary feature category. Bollywood's first Oscar was when costume designer Bhanu Athaiya won tin 1983 for director Lord Richard Attenborough's Gandhi. In 1992 legendary director Satyajit Ray received a lifetime achievement award. The run ended there and Lagain in 2002, a colonial tale with cricket as a backdrop, made it up to the nomination for Best Foreign Language Film but lost out eventually. Pookutty seemed overwhelmed as he accepted his Oscar. “I dedicate this award to my country,” he said. “Thank you, academy, this is not just a sound award, this is history being handed over to me.” An Indian newspaper reported Monday that Pookutty almost didn't make it, when, after a heated exchange with Danny Boyle, the Oscar winning director of “Slumdog,” Pookutty walked out of the film, only to be wooed back by the filmmaker. “I would have been crying now,” Pookutty told the Indian Express. “It was a difficult project and Danny was very demanding. It put a lot of strain on me emotionally and physically,” Pookutty recalled. Since the film was shot in Mumbai, a “very noisy city”, in motion, the sound designer had trouble recording the sound from the viewers' perception. In keeping with the film's flavor, Pookutty decided to record the soundscape of the city. Many commentators have noted that the three Indian Oscar winners (Pookutty, Rahman and Gulzar) are all Muslim. But for anybody familiar with Bollywood, that's no surprise since some of India's biggest superstars are Muslim and communal harmony has always been Bollywood's boast. And it was likewise in Dharavi on Monday, where Mohammed Usman, father of “Slumdog” child actor Azharuddin Mohammed, said the whole neighbourhood had been praying, at temples, mosques, gurdwaras and churches. Usman, who resells junk furniture, told local reporters, “Though we cannot afford much, we shall try to make it a memorable event when the children return from America.” – Agencies The child actors in the movie were darlings of the red carpet in Los Angeles. In Dharavi where their families still live in makeshift shacks, their parents watched on borrowed televisions and wept with pride as the kids were carried on stage for the Best Picture acceptance.
