Salaam Bombay!

Salaam Bombay! follows Krishna, a boy cast out by his family after ruining his brother's motorbike. His mother tells him he may come home once he has earned 500 rupees to pay for the repairs. He joins a travelling circus to raise the money, but the troupe moves on without him while he is running an errand. With what little he has left, he buys a ticket to Bombay, where he becomes a tea boy known as Chaipau and drifts into the city's red-light district, surviving among street children, petty traders, prostitutes, drug dealers and police.

The 1988 crime drama was directed by Mira Nair and written by Sooni Taraporevala, with Nair also producing. It was her first feature, made roughly a decade before Kama Sutra and Monsoon Wedding and two decades before The Namesake and Queen of Katwe. Shafiq Syed plays Krishna, with Hansa Vithal, Chanda Sharma, Anita Kanwar and Nana Patekar in supporting roles; the credited cast numbers 49.

Made across British, Indian and French production partners, the film took about 2 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds 7.9 from around 11,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 7.3 from 127 votes. The larger, more sustained audience response on IMDb suggests the film has kept a durable reputation well beyond its limited theatrical reach.