Washington, Jan. 12: The release of Slumdog Millionaire, in India on January 23 will be a test of the country’s tolerance, which has repeatedly been strained at the box office in recent years.

The film, which is running in packed cinema houses across north America is chalking up awards, the high point of which was a jackpot of four successful nominations for Golden Globes in Hollywood last night.

By last weekend, the film had grossed $34 million at the box office, surpassing a record for other films of its genre.

The previous record was for Bend it Like Beckham which collected $32.5 million gross, according to film industry statistics available here.

Other similar films of its kind did about half as well. For instance, The Namesake grossed $13.6 million and Monsoon Wedding collected $13.9 million.

The earnings from Slumdog Millionaire, have been more than the combined box office revenue of these last two films.

There have been rumblings in India after its Golden Globes jackpot that Slumdog has painted an unflattering picture of India and that this time-tested recipe appeals to movie-goers and critics here, including those who sit on film jury.

There is enough in Slumdog to assail, if one wants to from the point of view of Indian sensitivities. But equally, there is enough to applaud as well.

The issue is entirely a subjective one, depending on how one looks at it.

Vikas Swarup, diplomat and author of Q & A, the best-selling novel which was adapted for Slumdog’s screenplay, told The Telegraph today that he was “impressed by the vibrancy of life in Mumbai’s slums” that is shown in the film.

Director Danny Boyle, who won a Golden Globe last night “has presented India in a unique way”, Swarup said.

In an interview to a blog of the South Asian Journalists Association here, Boyle made the same point and rejected the western, pejorative notion of a slum.

In Mumbai, “they are not like really that. They are just places where people live. They are not wealthy people, but quite resourceful people. They are not provided by the state. The sewage system doesn’t work, but the homes are clean. They are very generous. They were very keen that we didn’t just say they were poor. They didn’t want a documentary about the poor in India. They hate that. You can never be bored there. It is life going on fast forward, the whole time. I loved it.”

The film’s hero, played by Dev Patel, works as a tea boy in a call centre handling customers in the US and is shown in the film as illegally tapping into the call centre’s database.

Comparisons are, therefore, apt to be drawn to the ongoing Satyam Computer Services scandal and the poor light in which it has shown business process outsourcing to India.

But Swarup says that is precisely what is changing in India. “The old settings for films has changed. The media is no longer elitist. Stories from every segment of Indian society will now be heard” as a result of the way India is being transformed.

Of course, when the film is released in India, there may be the usual criticism from both secularists and the religious right about how communities are portrayed.

Swarup regrets that his original hero in the novel, Ram Mohammad Thomas, had his ultimately secular name changed to Jamal Malik. But the author was persuaded to accept the change on the ground that there was no room in the plot to explain how the original name came about.

But a greater regret is for those who enjoyed reading Swarup’s novel, Q & A. Because of the success of the film, the book is now selling on Amazon.com under a new title: Slumdog Millionaire.