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E-mailWe are a nation of one billion. And there are a few, who wear a false sense of nationalistic pride on their sleeves which is backed by one of the many reasons listed below...
a) Slumdog Millionaire is about Dharavi and exploitation of poor so Jaago and ban it(I shall be taking this in detail!)
b) Valentines is a “forun” concept and will spoil our culture(Hello...just consider it a money minting day for Archies and Hallmark! Those who have to kiss and fornicate aren’t necessarily waiting for this day of the year..duh huh!)
c) Dancing in parties is against our tradition (Tradition, Indian tradition flaunts the era of Mujras and Danseus’s...)
d) Sex education should be barred from entering schools( Talk about this in the land of Kamasutra)
And many such other...
I pity these people who find pride in flaunting these causes! They are not worth spending my blog time on...phish it!
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE bags 10 nominations at Oscars. A.R. Rahman, Resul Pookutty, Maya Arulpragasam and Gulzar are nominated for it. Its a big achievement. A huge bridge is crossed over by these guys. And hands down to Danny Boyle for giving us an opportunity to experience this kind of “pride”.
While there is a section of the world and film fraternity in India and the West that has scorned off Slumdog, still it doesn’t make it any less of a success.
- Going back to 2001, “Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gum” , biggest gross seller and a mega hit. What does it show? A young and handsome Shah Rukh lands in a private chopper in his backyard thats as big as country in itself. Now let ask this question to “them”. How many or what percentage of Indians get to do that in real life? How many of us Indians in reality are blessed with a chopper for daily errands?
But if you ask “them” (again) how many Indians live in slums, how many are deprived of a toilet and defecate in the open, how many children are pushed into the life of begging, how many girls are forced into prostitution, how many live in shear poverty? The answer would surely be “MANY”. Because we are a country of all that and “more” that a Westner called Danny Boyle out of his fascination brought this out in open and right on our faces.
Reading through some of the critics, whose comments range from “tailored for awards” to “movie riding on the Wests’ fancy for poverty”, I never understood what was the real problem. A westner showing a movie on India or a movie that shows a part of real India? Such people suffer from a third-world siege mentality and get offended by anything that does not show India in a positive light.
You ask why an Indian could not make such a movie. Answer is he could not. Why limit an artist’s story telling ability to his nationality alone. On the contrary Dharavi is an integral part of Mumbai that every Indian is numb too. Its a used to affair or routine of life for us. But if it fascinates Boyle just like Indian economy and its boom fascinates many FDI’s to invest in India - so be it.
Slumdog, through its brilliant story line gave a glimpse of India to Indians who long forgot about it. It brought employement to so many light boys, spot boys and it even had a real slum dweller act a part in it. It has won us our golden globe and made four Indians fetch Oscar nominations.
Lets be proud of this and enjoy a film about an Underdog who makes it really big in Life and get his long lost sweetheart. Plain and simple. Dharavi is just a backdrop!
I.N.D.I.A - the world knows her for Taj Mahal, Infosys, Wipro, IT/BT, Bollywood and also for the slums, Dharavi, men & cows shitting on the roads! Thats reality. Deal with it.
RSS 
I completely disagree with your views on Indian cinema.
There have been many great movies made in India and apparently Satyajit Ray happen to got Oscars for his contribution to the cinema. In today’s times there have been movies like Shwas, Chandni Bar, Black Friday, Dharavi, Aamir dealing with real issues.
It is easy to criticize and condemn. What we do need to ask ourselves is, are you willing to watch a movie with your friends, family dealing with real issues or prefer to stick to a potboiler. Most of us know what the answer is.
Why should we blame the film makers if they know there is not much an audience out there, but things are changing now.
It is wrong to depict that Indian film makers are not capable of making movies like Slumdog.
But you somehow misjudged my views here or I wasn’t able to explain it very clearly.
I have high respects for the Indian Cinema. And my views only are intended for people who consider Slumdog a film tailor made for awards by showcasing slum and poverty tourism.
Thats all...
Some of the films you have mentioned here are so good that I feel offended that we are discussing it in the same league with Slumdog...
Why don’t we have movies made on Ambani’s, Tata’s, Vijay Mallaya and the other tycoons who have made the country proud in real sense..
Your right. Every country has its filth to hide. India is much more than just Dharavi.
why do you want a film to be made on the personality’s( which u mentioned) who were born with a silver spoon? Backed by abundant power and lucky to be born into elite families its no wonder they made it big.
In Slumdog, a story is woven around a boy brought up from the slums and who makes it really big in life. Why not embrace it?
what makes you think that we don’t have movies made on Ambani’s, Tata’s, Vijay Mallayas etc?...who are those people in typical bollywood films who travel on private helicopters & lives in european castles?...
every country has ”weak points” as you say, and there has been numerous movies on those points i.e. racism, drug trafficking etc...those films also won loads of awards & nobody protested like we are doing...
Thanks for this...I was sick of patriotism overflow over then past few days...especially that of Big B’s...
As a matter of fact I am not too fond of SDM & I have seen better movies before. But the logic given by some people are just ridiculous. People are talking about ”inferiority complex” & ”colonial mentality” and I saw someone in a forum who was urging every one to ”believe our own people”...the ”own people” who’s 80% of the works are plagiarized...
It all depends, how well one makes use of it in interweaving with say, the most modern technologies, and so called modern actors, and Oscar hungry, actors, music directors, and several of them !
Any way thank god, I am happy about the results, with not so devastating image of mother India.
Is Amir khan is near by ? Try to catch up with similar sentiments; let the word Slum appear, some where in the sentence you are going to depict in your future movie. You are craving for Oscar award like others, for a decade ?
This is the right choice baby !
Good luck. Go ahead !
Also if people think Mr Bachchan who is now crying foul, also went to Cannes with his entire family...it’s all business...& is necessary...
your reply to Mr Anant Kapoor of New
Delhi.
The big guns need no advertisement in any form.
great blog ,i was sort of agreeing to Mr.AB till i read what you had to say.i agree with you,most of our films are very unrealistic and at times make no sense.the filmmaker is not trying to show only our poverty but also creating a story around the opportunities the people have to succeed if they try hard enough.
1) The director seems to RELISH showing violence. Some of it (like the police-torture) is quite needless. And why was the boy arrested in the first place? On what charge? Was it realistic?
2) How can a boy growing up in slums speak such accented English? Even if one assumes that the language he actually uses to communicate with the game-show host and the police officer is Hindi (granting the director the creative license to use a language better suited for international audiences), there are 2 instances where it is stretched too far: (a) when the boy becomes a ‘guide’ for foreign tourists at the Taj Mahal & (b) when he becomes a substitute-operator at the call-centre.
3) When the boy uses his ‘lifeline’ during the game-show, his friend discovers that she has forgotten her mobile and has to run back for it. This is plain Bollywood masala! Did the director HAVE to make it so melodramatic?
4) How did the boy know who invented the revolver just by watching his brother use it?
5) How does his friend know about Benjamin Franklin (something which many Americans themselves don’t know)?
6) “Darshan Do Ghanshyam” is NOT written by Surdas. It is written by Gopal Singh Nepali for the movie Narsi Bhagat (1957). This song is also credited as traditional and originally written by 15th century poet Narsi Mehta, whose life that film is based on.
7) After winning the game-show, the boy sits on the railway platform and nobody recognizes him! Considering the popularity of the show, is that realistic?
8) Two glaring omissions: To get invited to the show one has to answer several GK questions over phone or Internet. Even after making it to the show, a contestant can reach the hot-seat, only after qualifying through “fastest finger first”. All this is conveniently forgotten in the film.
9) And of course the greatest flaw in the storyline: programmes like ’Kaun Banega Crorepati’ and ’Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’ are NOT telecast live. As a result the entire structure of the film becomes unrealistic. For a film that boasts of being realistic such a flaw cannot be overlooked.
Due to all these flaws, “Slumdog Millionaire” is no better or worse than an average Bollywood masala film and the Academy will lose its credibility if it gives this film the Best Picture & Best Director awards.
