SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

Today evening, on the satellite Channel I saw the movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire” directed by Danny Boyle. The movie has been the talk of the country for about two months now. Enough and more interviews of the Director, the music Director (A R Rehman) and actors had come out already. Many blogs had been written for and against the movie. The great star Amitabh Bachchan was critical of the movie in his blog as he was not bemused by the idea of depicting India this way.

The movie begins in a sad note and as time progressed, while it picked up the tempo, I found something missing. First of all, it was never like any Bollywood or Indian movie. So it does not go with the average Indian’s liking. One felt the movie as very realistic, devoid of any melodrama. It was so realistic that it almost looked like a documentary. Had it been shot by an Indian director, one would have seen many emotional scenes including revengeful confrontations.

I also felt the movie to be very serious in nature. Though it did not leave any deep impact or emotional scar in me, I found it devoid of humour. In real life, it is only with the poor that one sees lots of humour (From my experience, I feel that the rich are either artificial or bloody serious and their lives are normally without many lighter moments). The only Indian-ness that I had noticed in it was the last scene where there was a dance number Jai Ho (for which A R Rehman has been nominated for the Oscar).

What struck me deep was the scene where the Show host tries to misguide the hero with a wrong answer and the hero, true to the spirit of a slumdog, identifies it (intuitively) as wrong and goes for the correct answer. This is the true manifestation of native intelligence that we see only in street kids. Very poignant observation of the Director! And again truly like a slumdog, the hero does not take it on the host (he swallows it without much difficulty) and moves on. It is here that I really loved the script!

Will Slumdog Millionaire sweep the Oscar this year? Hard to tell. One would not be surprised if it didn’t win much of Oscar. Looking at the Hollywood history, I do not see much chance for the movie. However, it is a different America now. It is the America of Barack Obama. So I do not rule out the possibility of a miracle happening in faovour of Slumdog Millionaire in the incoming Oscar award function.

All said and done, Slumdog Millionaire is the creation of the times that we are passing through. It is the story of the incredible, emerging India, however anyone would want to hate it.

Therein lies our hopes, for the future of course. Jai Ho!