Did a little double-take when I read this headline. I'm sure she got a fabulous tour!
Rose
"Shantaram" author shows Madonna Mumbai's slumsTue Jan 8, 2008 7:47pm IST (Reuters Life!)
Pop star Madonna toured the Mumbai slums on Tuesday with Gregory David Roberts, the convicted robber who turned his time spent there following an escape from an Australian prison into the best-selling novel "Shantaram".
The singer, who is on an extended New Year's break in India with family, walked around Cuffe Parade, a seafront neighbourhood where million-dollar high rises sit next to fishermen's huts, typical of the gulf between the city's richest and poorest.
Madonna was seen entering a fisherman's hut in Cuffe Parade with a woman companion and later walking into a roadside vegetarian restaurant, warding off eager journalists and photographers.
Her chaperone Roberts, who fled from an Australian jail in 1980 after being convicted of bank robbery, appeared to take them to places mentioned in his novel, which is due to be made into a film by Mira Nair, starring Johnny Depp.
They visited a motorcycle mechanic's garage and a market of old curios in a grimy Muslim quarter where she looked at the shops from inside her car. Roberts has set up a free health service for some of Mumbai's poor, and also does some teaching.
Madonna ushered in the New Year along with Guy Ritchie, her film director husband, and their children in the deserts of Rajasthan state before reaching Mumbai.
http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idIN...-31298420080108And this:
Madonna in Mumbai meets slum-dwellers, lunches on vada-sambar Pop superstar Madonna slipped in here Tuesday afternoon with her family – quite ‘like a prayer’ come true for her many fans here – and spent the day visiting a slum and taking in some authentic south Indian food.
Madonna Louise Ciccone Ritchie reached Mumbai from Udaipur by a chartered Taj Air flight, operated by the Taj Group of Hotels. It landed at 11.30 a.m. The family, and their Israeli private security group, sped off in a golden Innova straight to the Hotel Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, opposite the Gateway of India. Shortly after checking in and refreshing themselves, the family went to the nearby Colaba slums. Madonna spent sometime with slum-dwellers – ‘she just wanted to see what a slum looked like’, an eyewitness said.
Soon after that, the family went to the Hotel Saurabh, a class II south Indian vegetarian speciality eatery for a quick lunch, around 2.30 p.m. Accompanied by filmmaker husband Guy Ritchie and Australia-born British author Gregory David Robert, who wrote ‘Shantaram’, the celebs opted for Udupi food. The excited proprietor of the hotel, S.M. Shetty, told IANS that the VVIP patrons savoured the house speciality of idli-vada sambhar, half a masala dosa, and sev puri. She also tasted a bit of jeera fried rice with sambar. She topped it off with a hot steaming cup of masala tea. They left after almost an hour for the hotel to get some well-deserved rest.
When asked what was the bill, Shetty proudly said that it had been his ‘honour and privilege to serve his distinguished international celeb patrons’.
http://www.indianpad.com/story/174597