The Quiz Within "Slumdog Millionaire"

Answer: Amitabh Bachchan

Bachchan became the "angry young man" of Bollywood cinema with his performance there as an honest police inspector. Not mentioned in this movie is that Bachchan was also the original host of "Kaun Banega Crorepati" -- the Indian version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" used in the movie. Anil Kapoor, who played the host in the movie, appeared as a celebrity contestant on the actual show with Bachchan in 2001. However, Bachchan was not asked to play the movie's host, because the host's villainy (deliberately giving Jamal a wrong answer to get him to lose) was too variant from Bachchan's Bollywood hero image.

Young Jamal's determination to get Bachchan's autograph despite being trapped in a squat toilet created one of the most memorable images in the movie. Salim then selling the autograph for "a good price" while Jamal was being cleaned off by his mother also established their poverty.

Answer: The truth alone triumphs

This motto is expressed in Hindi as "satyameva jayate." In the movie, Jamal had to use his first lifeline, the "ask the audience" lifeline, here, although the police inspector noted that his 5-year-old daughter would have known that answer.

Answer: A bow and arrow

Lord Rama is based on a real king, although he has been deified as one of the avatars (incarnations) of the god Vishnu. Vishnu is depicted with blue skin, but, unlike the presentation in the movie, Lord Rama is not depicted as blue because he is Vishnu in human form (a concept Christians should understand). Lord Rama is always shown with a bow, although it can also be in in his left hand or slung over his shoulder, and often shown with an arrow.

Some Hindus have complained about the depiction of the 1993 Mumbai Hindu-Muslim riots (the so-called "Bombay Riots") in the movie, during which Salim and Jamal's mother was murdered by the Hindu mob and the boys encountered someone dressed as Lord Rama. However, the riots were real, as were the thousands of ethnic killings associated with them.

Answer: Surdas

The answer given in the movie was Surdas, the famous Indian blind poet and singer of the 16th century, which tied in well to this section of the movie, in which the singing beggars were blinded by the crime boss Maman to increase their earning potential (although Salim saved Jamal from that fate).

However, the song is from the 1957 Bollywood movie "Narsi Bhagat", based on the life and work of the 15th century poet Narsinh Mehta. Gopal Singh Nepali was given the writer's credit for the lyrics, so he is the correct answer to the question, and Narsinh Mehta (whose poems inspired the song) also may be, but Surdas is not -- except in this quiz about "Slumdog Millionaire".

Answer: Benjamin Franklin

Franklin was put on the $100 Federal Reserve Note when it was first issued in 1914 and has been there ever since. Between 1861 (when the U.S. first issued paper money) and 1914, the U.S. government had issued $100 notes featuring, at different times, Mexican War hero Gen. Winfield Scott, Civil War hero Adm. David Farragut, U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton, and U.S. presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and James Monroe. Since 1969, the $100 has been the largest U.S. bill in circulation, leading to the slang of $100 bills being known as "Benjamins."

In the movie, Jamal received a $100 bill as a tip from an American tourist couple while at the Taj Mahal (where he and Salim were unlicensed tourguides) and used it to locate Latika back in Mumbai.

Answer: Samuel Colt

The question in the movie was "Who invented the revolver?", but this phrasing is more accurate. Colt apparently never claimed to have invented the revolver, although he was the one who modified it in a way that made it successful. In 1818, 17 years prior to Colt's English patent for the revolver (1835), Boston's Elisha Collier patented a flintlock revolver in England, which was primarily used by the British army. Colt, who was from nearby Hartford, Connecticut, said that the innovations in his design were inspired by Collier's basic idea -- which is part of the reason that he patented his design in England a year before patenting it the U.S. Colt was also inspired by Eli Whitney (inventor of the cotton gin and one of the innovators of mass production), who in 1798 started a Massachusetts factory focused on building rifles with interchangeable parts for the U.S. Army. Colt's revolver had continuous-fire capability and interchangeable parts, which made it both useful and affordable ... and made him extremely wealthy, although it took the revolver a while to catch on.

In the movie, Jamal's older brother Salim called himself "the man with the Colt .45" when he demanded that Jamal surrender Latika to him, after he killed Maman and then was hired by the gangster Javed.

Answer: London

John le Carre fans are familiar with London's Cambridge Circus, because it is the location of the headquarters of British intelligence (known as "the Circus") in his books.

In the movie, Jamal (now a "chai wallah" -- a maker of tea) learned London landmarks from pretending to be in England during his work in the call center (as an "assistant phone basher", as the host put it at first, or, more accurately, as a fill-in during breaks) ... and also learned when to call if he wanted to get on "Millionaire" as a contestant.

Answer: Jack Hobbs

As noted in the movie, Hobbs (from England) scored 197 first-class centuries during his career from 1905-1934, a record that is unlikely to ever be broken. (Some sources credit him with 199, but Hobbs himself said that the two in dispute should not be counted.) In the movie, Jamal answered Hobbs after using his 50:50 lifeline, ignoring the incorrect answer Ricky Ponting, a current star for Australia, that he had been fed by the host. As a result, the host had Jamal arrested by the police on suspicion of cheating, although the police finally released him after hearing his stories about the events of his life that led him to know the answers.

Jimmy Bridges was the bowler when Hobbs broke the previous first-class centuries record. Mumbai's Sachin Tendulkar holds the records for most test centuries and most one-day international centuries, but he is not one of the 25 batters with 100 or more first-class centuries.

Answer: Aramis

Isn't this too easy of a question for one that is worth 20 million (2 crore) rupees? Aramis was the third musketeer; D'Artagnan became the fourth musketeer; Cardinal Richelieu was the musketeers' archenemy (although still trusted by the king); and Planchet was D'Artagnan's trusty servant.

In the movie, Jamal and Salim referred to themselves as Athos and Porthos, but they never learned the name of the third musketeer, although Jamal thought of Latika as the third. This added to the irony when Latika answered the phone after Jamal used his "phone-a-friend" lifeline to call his brother before giving this answer. Finally, Jamal just guessed when she also didn't know, stating that maybe "it is written" that he would win. And so it was.

Answer: Mohandas Gandhi

It is not believable that Jamal would not know this answer, since an identical picture of Mohandas K. "Mahatma" Gandhi, the creator of "passive resistance" and the architect of Indian independence in 1948, appears on all Indian paper currency. Instead, the bills are differentiated by size, by color and by the picture on the reverse side. In fact, the current series of Indian currency, which has been in use since 1996, is generally known as the "Mahatma Gandhi series."

Although you need to answer 15 questions correctly to win on "Kaun Banega Crorepati", the same number needed to win on both the U.S. and U.K. versions of "Millionaire", Jamal was only shown answering nine questions in the movie -- the nine questions that make up the rest of this quiz. Viewers have no idea what happened to the other six questions, which are not discussed, but it hardly seems possible that someone who didn't know Gandhi's picture was on all Indian paper currency could have answered any other questions without suspicion, let alone six of them.