•Neha Sinha: How do you see the parallel perspective of India as shown by movies like Slumdog Millionaire and the book The White Tiger?

Sam Miller: from my point of view, I was looking out for what I could see as a story. I train journalists and one of the lines I give them is that there are two stories down every road. Not enough journalists go out and get them. If that shows India in a good or bad light, that was not an issue I was thinking about.

About Slumdog Millionaire, we have to see that it was made for a Western audience. It was going straight to DVD until someone rescued it. My own view of the film, as someone living here, is that I was very uncomfortable with the language. How do you believe that? On portraying the poverty, of course poverty should be portrayed. I mean this is fiction, and they've done it very well. I walk in Mumbai and they aren't really making it up. The idea that you can stop the world from knowing is impossible. It was impossible in the 60's when BBC was cast out of the country for showing Louis Malle's documentaries.

•Shailaja Bajpai: as a reporter or while training others, did you go looking for Delhi underbelly?

Sam Miller: I have gone to insalubrious places and wondered what stories I would get out of them. Then I went to Gazipur landfill site, which interestingly sits next to fish and chicken market of Delhi. I climbed the landfill where people lived in shacks but went to their homes nearby over the night. I described meeting a small child, who I presumed did not go to school because it was a weekday and she was sorting through the rubbish. However, she did study after I discovered it was a public holiday. She and other people talked abut their aspirations and ideas for change. One of them had a nephew doing computer science. It was not a kind of fantastic and positive story but it was interesting and different. My expectations were challenged. When we go there, we should not think the poorest of the poor are hopeless. Often they have more interesting things to tell.

... contd.