When the movie was set, Jamal Malik was 18 and working as a chai-wallah at a call centre in Mumbai. Jamal Malik was born and raised till the age of five by his mother who died in the riots shortly after Jamal got an autograph from the Hollywood star Amitabh Bachchan, which his brother Salim then sells. Jamal then lives in a shipping container where they meet Latika who is a girl from where they used to live and who also lost her parents. When he finds Latika, he tells her that he will wait for her every day at the VT station till she comes. He then goes onto "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" and answers all the questions which makes the game host think that he had a friend who was telling him the answers as no "person from the slums" ever won more than 16000 rupees. They believe he cheated because he knew the answer to one of the questions which he was given a wrong hint to by the game host. Then on the next night when he answers the rest of the questions, he uses the lifeline ring a friend who is Latika and talks to him before going out of time. He picks a random answer which luckily enough is the correct answer of the question.