Slumdog star Azharuddin loses home

It is certainly not a Jai Ho moment, but Azharuddin Ismail and his friends have seen the bulldozers come and go. "I was sleeping. A cop came and said, do you want to die, the bulldozer is coming!" the childhood star of Slumdog Millionaire says. His shanty in Garib Nagar, an unauthorised slum colony, has been reduced to rubble yet again. A fate the Slumdog star's unprecedented success has not been able to change. "The demolition squad has been coming since before I was born," he says. The slums have been built adjoining a storm water drain and it is necessary to clear them in order to avoid flooding during the Monsoons. When Azhar became a household name, some state Congress leaders had suggested he be given low-cost housing free of cost. A suggestion the government later turned down. Says Azharuddin's mother Shamim: "When he returned from the Oscar ceremony, an official told us at the airport that we would get a house soon. I never saw him again." Azhar knows the moment the demolition squad moves away, they will rebuild again as they have for years.