Meet the man Danny Boyle wants to gift a million pounds

Raj Acharya was in for a pleasant surprise on Tuesday morning. The first assistant director of Slumdog Millionaire received a call from a London-based friend about Danny...

Raj Acharya was in for a pleasant surprise on Tuesday morning. The first assistant director of Slumdog Millionaire received a call from a London-based friend about Danny Boyles statement that if the British director won a million pounds,he would give it to Acharya. The money,of course,Boyle would want to be spent on teaching Mumbais street childrensomething his assistant for the film has been doing for a few years now.

In fact,Acharyas involvement with street children could be one of the reasons that helped him bag a significant position in this international project. I am known to handle children well. Thats why Im often asked to do commercials with children, says the 39-year-old,who has a six-year-old son named Vir.

Still,Acharya is surprised. I had made a passing mention of teaching street children to Boyle. Im amazed he remembers this.

He,however,regrets not being able to devote time for slum childrens education regularly. Getting children to focus was a big challenge on the sets of Slumdog Millionaire. They were not exposed to film production. But once they understood what was required from them,it was easy to get desired results. Treating them as adults also helped, says Acharya,who along with co-director Loveleen Tandon helped Boyle bring in an Indian flavour to this rags-to-riches film.

Mumbai-based Acharyas understanding of children probably stems from his tough early life. After his father died,he was forced to drop out of his engineering course. Being the eldest of siblings,he had to do odd jobs to meet the familys needs. The world of cinema opened to him when he began assisting his uncle T M Sunder,a sound-effects editor. Later,he worked for the Omar Sharif-starrer One Night with the King,Christmas in India.