Recently there is too much controversy going on in India regarding the movie and mainly there are two camps. One camp is of the supporters of the movie, who believes that the movie had brought glory to India and they are writing all praises for the movie. On the other hand there are group of people who think that this movie should be denounced as it portrays the westernized version of India rather than the actual shining India.
I humbly reject both of these camps as the “supporter camp” forgets that this is not an Indian movie per se rather it is an international movie that uses Indian storyline and some Indian artists as the theme is Indian. Thus all the accolades should belong to the foreign crew rather than to Indian film industry. On the other hand those who are crying foul for the movies as they complain that India is not that poor and downtrodden as depicted in the movie. They are the people who went overboard 5 years ago with their version of shining India despite the facts that in contemporary India the gulf between poor and affluent strata of society has actually increased.
Further I am a bitter critic of the “crying-foul camp” as they are the biggest hypocrites who would not have bet an eyelash if the same movie was made by some Indian. Their pain is that “how the hell one English man dares to show us mirror? Though India is “shining” and if there are some segments of society that feels left out then it should be an Indian who shall bring out their plight”.
What the hell? Are there two versions of truth? Shall we reject a truth as a conspiracy just because some outsider has threw it in out face? Come on morons, the degree to which a society is truly modernized can be measured by the degree of criticism and debate it can take as well as initiate. After all at the end of the day an only open and self criticizing society can say itself as a developed or developing society.
On the other hand, merely a movie and its depiction of India can not change the global understanding of “Indian phenomenon”. Dude, it is a movie. It has the creative liberty to tell whatever it seems entertaining. So hwy do not you all just shut up for a while and accept that despite all your pleas for general public about not to watch the movie, you had watch and enjoyed this flick.
Only by admitting our guilt and weakness, we stand a chance to grow and not by turning a blind eye to it and call it propaganda. It is same thing when our leaders label each act of terrorism as “perpetrated by foreign power” and thus loose an important opportunity to look inward and have a permanent solution for the menace by bring structural reforms.
So in the end, even if the movie had shown us a distorted and diabolical version of India, we should treat it an opportunity to change this misconception by ameliorating the problems of slums and slumdogs rather then fighting over whether or not the word slumdog exists in dictionary.
Its amazing as wel las ironical that years ago it was an foreigner who made an movie on our national father Gandhi and brought his story to us and now it is an another foreigner who had told us a story of one of us. I give a damn that he calls that character a “Slumdog”.
1 comments:
Dear Vipul;
First of all I congratulate you on writing so clearly & logically about "slumdog".
The movie, one must recall has been directed as well as acted upon in by international crew. The Indian setting being just incidental. What really saddens me is that we Indians are prone to giving Knee-jerk reactions.
The so called "Indian Nationalist" is feeling hurt that its nation has been shown in poor light. but my poser is- given the fact that we cant deny that whatever the movie shows is reality, what have we done to help the Salims, Jamaals and the Latikas out.
we watch with utmost attention the bikkerings and catfights going on in the saas-bahu sagas, forever wondering what happens next in the life of the Salonis,Prernas etc. but turn a blind eye to the child in debilitated state begging or performing in the street.
Another question I would like to pose here is would we have given the movie this much attention had it not won $ golden globes and so many Oscar nominations???
Agreed that the problems of our society cant be wished away or removed in a second, couldnt we all for once stop cribbing about a piece of art and see it like that only!! Let the movie be the movie and not dilute its artistic value by looking through the nationalist spects. Let us as individuals decide to like or dislike the movie.The mass frenzy either for or against has to stop.
Regards.
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