No slum dog but a millionaire.

I finally saw Lion last night, for which Dev Patel has been Oscar nominated. Having made his name in Slumdog Millionaire, he’s matured into a Hollywood A-lister. This is astonishing, given his background. Not that it was poor or disadvantaged but Dev Patel grew up in Harrow. I know that area very well and people who grow up there seldom escape into anything remotely artistic. Harrow was the epitome of lower middle-class suburbia, so the huge 1970s influx of Patels – hard working and respectable – fitted right in. They were, if anything, even more conservative than their neighbours, so I have no doubt that Dev Patel would have been expected to go into something more staid like accountancy or IT. Instead he became a movie star. One other person escaped the area to achieve artistic recognition. But although he came from Harrow, he spent his whole life pretending he didn’t.