Disclaimer :

Disclaimer : More than half of it(contents of my blog) is fiction and intended only for entertainment. Not meant to be hurtful at all but if one or the other way it feels like that then it's purely unintentional and I hope for forgiveness !

March 02, 2009

Slumdog - Life's Like That!

There is a guy who is from a descent family and he works hard to acquire knowledge.He participates in a quiz competition and wins a lot of money.How does this appeal to us as audience ? There's no glorification of poverty,it doesn't display ugly India to the rest of the world and it narrates a story too.Do we like it? No way,I don't.It is very well expected and it doesn't require any onscreen narration.

Now there comes a boy from the slum who has not had a good upbringing and has no desire to participate in any such competition but still wins millions though the chances of him having learnt those answers in the past are very less or may be none.Now here I wonder,why people make such a big issue out of slumdog being used as a channel to show ugly India(which according to them either doesn't exist or feel shy to expose) glorifying poverty. Here's an young boy whose only intention is to meet his childhood sweetheart inspite of knowing whatever she has gone through.He's taught by life,he recollects the incidents how he came to learn the answers for the questions being asked.

The author(very much Indian) of the Novel Q and A (which is now changed to slumdog after the movie) Vikas Swarup could not have added any luxury or shown wealthy India when he's describing the fate of a slumdog.This unusual possibility has,probably attracted Danny Boyle to invest his creative brilliance to make a movie. A person with art and creativity has no boundaries and he doesn't have to have his masterpieces restricted to geography.Would people be happy if Ka Jos luxurious movies with one Karva Chouth and many Diwalis had won Oscars or how about the south movies with many avtars or one man fighting the entire village had won awards???? Jack was a slumdog in Titanic and it won just as many awards,so why don't people say it was ugly America shown.Has expression of creativity also become a crime now-a-days ?

What do you want to show to the world and why ? We have shown our magicians,music maestros,best actors.We even have these talented ones like Shabana Azmi who teach at foreign film institutes.What's important for us ? To show we are not ugly or to prove we are not ugly.If we go through the history of Academy awards (in the order of # of Oscar Awards won),
  1. Ben-Hur (1959) - 11
  2. Titanic (1997) - 11
  3. West Side Story (1961) - 10
  4. Gigi (1958) - 9
  5. The Last Emperor (1987) - 9
  6. The English Patient (1996) - 9
  7. Gone With The Wind (1939) - 8
  8. From Here To Eternity (1953) - 8
  9. On The Waterfront (1954) - 8
  10. My Fair Lady (1964) - 8
  11. Cabaret (1972) - 8
  12. Gandhi (1982) - 8
  13. Amadeus (1984) - 8
  14. All of the above won for the story and not because of some representation.

I liked it,it shows the best thing about life which is something like this,' Experience is a hard teacher.She gives the test before teaching lessons' and the lessons learnt that way are too difficult to be forgotten.One more thing about the movie I like is,the young man and his unconditional love for the young lady and his dedication to find her.

I like singing/humming 'Jai Ho' ........ it changed quite a lot of things and Life's Like That !