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Before the start of the film, Krishna has set fire to his bullying elder brother's motor-bike. This has landed him in big trouble with his mother. She has taken him to the nearby Apollo Circus and told him that he can only come home when he earns 500 rupees to pay for the damaged bike. Krishna agrees and works for the circus.
The film begins as the circus is packing up to move on. His boss asks him to run an errand, but when Krishna returns, he finds that the circus has left. Alone, with nowhere to turn, and without the money to repay his mother, he travels to the nearest big city, Bombay. As soon as he arrives, he is robbed of his few possessions. He follows the thieves, befriends them, and ends up in the city's notorious red-light area of Falkland Road, near the Grant Road Railway Station.
One of the thieves, Chillum, a drug pusher and addict, helps Krishna to get a job at the Grant Road Tea Stall, and becomes a mentor of sorts to Krishna. Baba, a local drug dealer, employs people like Chillum who are addicted to his drugs. His wife, Rekha, is also a prostitute and they have a little daughter, Manju. Rekha is annoyed that she has to raise her daughter in such an environment. Baba earlier promised to start a new life elsewhere, but it is a promise which Baba cannot, or will not, fulfill.
Krishna gets a new name, "Chaipau", and learns to live with it. His goal is still to get the money he needs to return home to his mother, but he soon finds out that saving money in his new surroundings is next to impossible. To make matters worse, he has a crush on a young girl named Sola Saal, who has been recently sold to the brothel. He sets fire to her room and attempts to escape with her, but the two are caught. The fire causes Krishna to get a severe beating, while Sola Saal, who is considered valuable property since she is still a virgin, denies starting the fire and tearfully tries to resist her enslavement. The madame of the house asks Baba to "tame her," which Baba agrees to do.
Meanwhile, Krishna works odd jobs to feed himself and look after Chillum, who can't live without drugs, especially after Chillum is sacked by Baba after a disastrous interview with a foreign journalist. Eventually, one of these odd jobs costs Krishna his job at the tea stall. To get more money, Krishna and his pals rob an elderly Parsi man by breaking into his house in broad daylight. Krishna eventually finds out that the money he had saved had been stolen by Chillum who had used it to buy drugs, which he had overdosed on and died.
One night while returning home from work with their friends, Krishna and Manju are apprehended by the police and taken to a juvenile home. Eventually, Krishna escapes and goes back to his world. He finds a new recruit in Baba's drug business has taken Chillum's place and name. Krishna meets Sola Saal and tries to convince her to run away with him. She reveals that she is charmed by Baba and no longer interested in Krishna; she is driven away to service her first 'client'. Meanwhile, Rekha is told that the authorities will not release their daughter, because the mother is a prostitute. An angry Rekha decides to leave Baba, but Baba beats her in retaliation. She is saved by the timely intervention of Krishna who, in a fit of rage, kills Baba and attempts to run away with Rekha, but they become separated in a parade honoring Ganesh. The film ends with a slow zoom in to Krishna's dejected face, alone and being thrown back to the same reality he started out with in the film.
Nair records that the initial inspiration for the film came from the spirit of Bombay's street children. Her thoughts deepened when she researched the lives of the children with her creative partner Sooni Taraporevala. From the beginning, they decided that real street children would play in the film, since the combination of childhood and knowledge in their faces would be hard to find among professional child actors.[3]
Nair was also inspired to make the film after watching Hector Babenco's dramaPixote (1970). She said, "on the first day of shooting, I received the news that the child actor who played the character of Pixote was shot dead in the street. After this incident, I was more determined to make Salaam Bombay!, and decided to share the film's dividends with street children if we could."[4] After making four documentaries,[5]Salaam Bombay! was Nair's first full-length feature film.[6]
Production
Krishna and Sola Saal in Salaam Bombay!
Most of the film Salaam Bombay! was shot on Falkland Road in Kamathipura, the largest brothel in Bombay and the second-largest in Asia.[7] Apart from the main character, others were real prostitutes of Kamathipura. The child actors in the film were also real street children. The cast received drama training at a workshop in Bombay before they appeared in the film. A room was rented near the Grant Road railway station for rehearsals, where about 130 children rehearsed on the first day.[3] Later, before appearing in the film, a group of 24 street children received dramatic training in a special workshop. Where they are given continuous practice, music, dance and acting training. Gradually the stories of the city of Bombay, their parents, sex, trafficking, drug dealing, gangs and their profiteering were learned from them.[3] They were reunited with their families even before the film was shot.[4] They were paid to pay for their medical treatment and work on the film, and some of that money was left as a fixed deposit.[3]Irrfan Khan played the role of a letter writer in a two-minute scene in the film, which was his first appearance in the film.[8]
After its release, director Nair established an organization called the Salaam Baalak Trust in 1989 to rehabilitate the children who appeared in the film.[9] Most of those who starred in the film were eventually helped under this trust. Dinaz Stafford, a child psychologist, has been working with the children after the film.[3] The Trust is still in existence and now lends support to street children in Bombay, Delhi and Bhubaneshwar. Shafiq Sayed, who played Krishna in the film, is currently living as an auto rickshaw driver in Bangalore.[10]
Initially, the UK-based public service television broadcasting company Channel 4 and the National Film Development Corporation of India paid for the production of the film.[11] Several producers co-produced the film with Nair, with Gabriel Auer from France as the executive producer, Michael Nozik from the UK and Anil Tejani from India and Cherry Rogers as the co-executive producers. Also in co-production were Jane Balfour and co-producer Mitch Epstein.
Post-production
Music and soundtrack
Salaam Bombay!: Music from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, of the film was composed, performed and directed by L. Subramaniam, which was released on cassette and CD versions in 1986 from DRG Music Publishing. The song "Mera Naam Chin Chin Choo" written by Qamar Jalalabadi, composed by O. P. Nayyar and sung by Geeta Dutt for the 1958 film Howrah Bridge included in the film soundtrack. Also in a scene at the movie theatre, Sridevi's dance to the song "Hawa Hawaii" sung by Kavita Krishnamurti from the 1987 film Mr. India was performed.[12][13]
Salaam Bombay!: Music from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Following year, the film was released on 13 January in Denmark, 2 February in Netherlands , on 10 February in Finland, on 27 April in West Germany, on 29 June in Australia, on 27 July in Argentina, on 24 September at the Cinefest Sudbury International Film Festival in Canada and 3 November in Sweden.[15]
In 1990, the film was released on 26 January in East Germany, on 10 March in Japan, and on 5 April in Hungary. Following year, the film was released on 18 January in Portugal.[15]
Box office
Salaam Bombay! earned US$2,080,046 in the United States and Canada[16] against a production budget of US$4,500,000.[11]
In France, the film sold 633,899 tickets,[17] the average ticket price in 1988 was 34 francs,[18] which is equivalent to 21,552,566francs (US$3,803,394). In Germany, the film sold 258,728 tickets,[19] the average ticket price in 1989 was 9.5DM,[20] which is equivalent to 2,457,916DM (US$1,550,736). The average exchange rate in 1988 was 1 US dollar equal to 1.585 Deutsche Mark,[21] which is worth US$1,550,736.
The film grossed in a total of US$7,434,176 in overseas markets and becoming the highest-grossing Indian films in overseas markets at that time.[22] The average exchange rate in 1988 was 1 US dollar equal to ₹13.9171,[23] which is equivalent to ₹103,462,171 (equivalent to ₹1.2 billion or US$15 million in 2023).
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