Q & A (1-102)

Summary
The beginning of this book-to-film novel Q & A by Vikas Swarup is very interesting and inviting. It starts off with the arrest of Ram Mohammad Thomas, the protagonists and the speaker. He is arrested for winning a quiz show in India with a billion rupees prize (which is about 22 million US dollars). Because the company that features the show does not really have a billion rupees to give away, they accuse Ram of cheating on the quiz show. Since Ram is only a waiter and has never been to school, the company convinced themselves that it'll be easy to prove he cheated. But it is not because Ram did not cheat. He tried to explain himself but the officers and the founder of the show would not cooperate with him. He was physically abused by the police officer until a lawyer, Ms. Smita, came to rescue him and defend him without any permission. Now he is at her house telling her the story behind every question he got right from the quiz show. Every chapter of the book focuses on the story behind every single question from the quiz show that able him to answer the question correctly.
From the stories so far, I learned that Ram was abandoned in a dumpster near a church after he was born. He was taken to an orphanage where he was to be adopted. He was finally adopted by a Thomas family but three days later was abandoned again when the Thomas' marriage was ruined. They blamed Ram for the breakup and give him away to Father Timothy, a priest. During his long childhood with Father Timothy, Ram received the name of Ram Mohammad Thomas, which contained a mixture of a Hindu, Muslim, and Christian religion names since no one knew his real religion. He witnessed the burdens and secrets of many priest, including Father Timothy's. When all the secrets was out, Father Timothy and another priest was murdered in the church and that was the end of Ram's life with his favorite "dad". He was placed in a juvenile home where he met his best friend, Salim who lost all his family in a fire. Together they were adopted by Sethji (Ram was purchased for free) who they thought was the best man on Earth until they learned his dirty secret that he handicaps the people he adopts and makes them sing on train stations to make money for him. They quickly ran away together to avoid loosing a body part or eyesight. Also, I learned about Salim & Ram's encounters with a famous movie start that Ram really loved but turned out to be gay and almost molested him. He hated him and tore up all this posters after his discovery. Ram on the other hand, became a "brother" for a next door neighbor that was abused by her father. But once he had enough and stroke the father with a metal stick, Ram ran far away to avoid being hanged.
A lot has happened so far but all these events helped Ram answer the first four questions of the quiz show correctly. He has 8 more questions and stories to tell before he reaches his billion rupees mark and prove that he had not cheated.

Quote
"The sun seems weaker, the birds less chirpy, the air more polluted, the sky a shade darker" (Swarup 73).

Reaction
I like this quote. It has a lot of imagery and symbolism. This is the first sentence to the fourth section/chapter of the book. When I read this, I could tell that something was not right or that something bad was going to happen in this chapter. That was the symbolism and foreshadowing. As it turned out, Ram was in a bad situation at the juvenile home and even when he was finally adopted with Salim, his adopted "owner" that he thought was a great man really was not a great man. He ended up running away with Salim to a better scenery to avoid the danger.