There no longer is any question who will be the hit of the red carpet and the Oscar stage at the Academy Awards on Sunday night. It won't be Kate Winslet (best actress nominee) or Mickey Rourke (best actor). It will be the two kids from "Slumdog Millionaire" (best picture) who got the final word Friday that they will be plucked from the Mumbai slum that is their real home and flown to Hollywood to attend the ostentatious event that is perhaps the exact opposite of their daily existence.
"I feel very very very very very very good," 10-year-old Azharuddin Ismail said, sitting across from his home, a lean-to of tarps and blankets, according to an Associated Press story. He'd never been on a plane. He'd never traveled outside India. Neither had Rubina Ali, his 9-year-old co-star and neighbor. The children learned Thursday that they had their visas; their passports were issued a day earlier. Rubina was traveling with her uncle, Mohideen Khan, and Azhar with his mother, Shameem Ismail, according to The AP. How the two kids will handle the head-spinning culture clash — in the slums on Friday, at the Oscars on Sunday surrounded by jewels and lavish arrays of food and stars, then back to the slums next week — remains to be seen. In any case, making the film has left them better off than most in their neighborhood. The filmmakers paid Rubina and Azhar for 30 days of acting work, gave the families a small monthly stipend and set http://www.mercurynews.com/celebrities/ci_11753762?nclick_check=1
