my view on slumdog millionaire

Well first of all as individuals, we do have the right to feel, say or speak what we like or dislike. We don’t need to apologize for it to anyone.

Quickly shifting our gears to Slumdog, as most of us know by now, that it’s a story of the journey of a “Slumdog”, as the creative heads have put it, who wins one million dollar in a popular TV game show. The term “Slumdog” literally doesn’t exist in the English dictionary. Let’s not go into the critical estimate of the film but it’s really sad that even today we don’t stop criticizing good cinema. With Slumdog, the problem doesn’t lie in putting up underprivileged India on screen but a British director doing so. We don’t have a problem accepting the condition of the slum based people but we have the problem of accepting the same through a foreign director’s vision. We feel pity of ourselves in front of them and hence the criticism. But we forget a simple thing: fact remains fact even if we close our eyes or shut others’ mouth.

We can’t simply take the fact that a foreigner shows us a part of ‘Our’ real self, of those born and brought up in the darkness of waste. Can’t we see that these conditions really exist? Why do we need to close our eyes?  I think the answer lies within us.

A famous personality has written in his blog that Slumdog Millionaire projects India as Third World dirty under-belly developing nation and causes pain and disgust among nationalists and patriots. O really Sir?? Is it? In spite of being so knowledgeable I can’t understand how you had passed such a comment. I think showing reality is courage and not imparting disgust. Even great film makers like Satyajit Ray did so with the master piece ‘Pather Panchali’. Showing poverty in cinema is not the key to success, it’s actually the portrayal of the reality. Its upon us to take it the way we want to.

Moving on to the Oscars, someone has rightly pointed out in an English daily that the “intelligent fools” send only those movies which represents “Indian culture”… essentially Bollywood. Oh cmon, give me a break. From the last few years looking at the films that were sent for the Oscars from India, the only thing that comes to a normal mind is “O my God… Please give them some brains…” Paheli, Jeans, etc are only some examples. TZP is the only decent choice this year. I really wouldn’t have been surprised if they sent Om Shanti Om this year. Indians really do not understand that cinema is a vast medium.

Indian cinema had been and will be star and lobby driven. Even Uttam Kumar wasn’t spared of lobbying. Most of the films have larger than life characters. Be it Yash Chopra’s films and be it over the top Ekta Kapoor’s. We misinterpret Indian cinema as Bollywood only.

Coming back to Slumdog Millionaire, I, as an individual Indian would like to thank Mr. Vikas Swarup to have written this book and Danny Boyle for taking on such a subject and make a film out of it and a bow of greeting to Rahman for lending such beautiful tunes to the lyrics.

For the people who feel that such films show India as a Third World country and a country where a major part is under the poverty line, I would just like to say that India is a developing country in every aspect. Hence, even if a film portrays its poverty, people won’t judge India just with its poverty. It’s only an aspect not The Only aspect. We image conscious people have that fear in our mind of others looking down upon us on the basis of a movie. So what if the film is entitled as a British movie.  At the end of the day, it’s a story of a protagonist in and of Mumbai in particular and a great film in real. I really don’t thing why we are making such a big issue out of this.

Some one has rightly said- “A sky appears red in a painting not because it is so but because the painter has chosen that color to paint it. It’s his choice. He might have used any other color according to his own will. The sky remains the sky”. Same thing goes into movie making. Its an empty canvas and its on the director to choose his color palette: be it rags, be it riches, both or none.

The ending line is “We do not like to see ourselves in a mirror held by someone else. We want mirrors that will reflect white and not Black.”

Thank you.