I didn't catch Oscars until 10:10 (the quintessential "smiley time" in old Anchor clock ads on DD), because ... lets face it! I am a tennis guy. If only my tennis racquet was a woman, my valentine's day could have been a real date. Ennywhoo, self-depracatory humor aside, I came back and switched the tv on to abc, where Bill Maher was religluously (get my pun?? get my pun??) introducing the documentary films that were nominated for Oscars. I couldn't care less. I turned my laptop on, opened Google Chrome and typed in Oscar, and clicked on Winners. Nope. Not yet. The award for music categories were not given away yet.
But as a foot note my gk, I just checked how many awards Slumdog had won. Till then, it had won two - Screenplay and Cinematography. A wierd pause in my brain. Was I happy? Was I proud? I was... paused. Blank. Ever since Slumdog Millionaire was released, it has received rave reviews from non-Indians. And self-proclaimed "self-aware un-denial-ridden progressive Indians" like me (I like calling myself that) found the movie interesting, disturbing but flawed. Of course, I was involved in the 120 minutes of screen time depicting slums, s&*%, poverty, beggars, mafia, prostitution, religion, riots, violence, noise, prejudice as much as I was involved in the 120 minutes of conflicted brotherhood, hope, love, optimism, destiny, chance and redemption. Was it the best movie I had seen this year ? Nope, not for me. Was it the worst depiction of India in all its messiness? I hadn't seen anything messier than this in a long time. Was this the worst movie about India ever? I beg your pardon! I ask, Was this the worst movie about India ever? I beg your pardon again.
I haven't seen Salaam Bombay when it was nominated for Oscars ( or anytime later, either), but I read that the plot is about children in the slums of Bombay. Yeah, the slums in Bombay are real. It was once a GK question in my childhood too (one whose answer I didn't know then) - Where are the world's largest slums? Surely, the answer must be Nigeria or some African country. I was aghast when the correct answer was spelled - not because I understood what slums are, but surely something that sounds as bad as "slum" (places of extreme poverty where extremely poor people live in close proximity without adequate ventilation, sanitation and other hygeine) couldn't exist on the largest scale in India. The quiz master must be wrong! Never mind the images you see from the moving trains as you move out of the secunderabad station. Those are just aberrations.
And so, I had a deja vu, when I had read about the protests and controversies against Slumdog Millionnaire in India. In a country where people defined movies with Hrithick Roshan jumping from mountains to land accurately on a train (yeah, I am talking Dhoom 2), where Indianness is defined by the "saas-bahu" relationship in serials (never mind the dilution of joint family in urban regions), where escapist fare and farce is complimented as tour de force, an outrage followed Slumdog Millionnaire for it's depiction of a story from Mumbai Slums to the Millionnaire hot seat. And I wanted to ask people, what should be the depiction of India to the western world.
Show them our power in the software industry, show them chandraayaan. Show them and shower them with our emotional strength and our unlimited love. Refrain from religion, refrain from our hypocricy. Make a rags to riches story, but have the heroine semi clad in two-piece or have a couple of "item" songs. Preach about how we respect our women, and would never corrupt the dignity of womanhood. Yeah right! When "Swades" depicted the plight of a farm labourer and a kid selling water, it was deemed preachy and manipulative. "Dilli 6" is no fun because it is too serious?? "Water" should be banned because it shows a shameful story from a sacred land ? Should slums and riots be part of the mainstream only if we can infuse them with escapist fun so that they appeal to our psyche? What are we so afraid of! Why so much denial?
Ofcourse, I know I could have been oversimplifying things. Just like I have the right and ownership of my house, and wouldn't like it if some outsider would show pictures of my messy bedroom or rest room to the whole world, may be we as Indians are right in disliking a Danny Boyle showing the pictures of slums to the world. But if I know I am having guests, I better clean my home. Not just my hall, but my home. But the question is... will we clean our home that is India.
We want a piece of pie of the developed economies. We would love to build multiplexes, beautiful buildings for MNCs, own world class cars, HDTVs and Wii games. But we shall spit on our roads, break traffic signals, honk all the time, profess and practise the superiority of our caste, religion, language and land. And if anyone dares to hold a mirror, we will break it (Dilli 6, anyone). And... the funniest part is... if Slumdog millionaire had been a movie made about a different land (maybe Nigeria, my guess for largest slums in the world), we would have lapped it up and showered with praise as shamefully as the rest of world. Yep, thats the effect of foreign cinema. It is assumed to be a window ... no, a door to the land. A shortcut to its history, economics and psyche. All chinese are kung fu-ers, all japanese are samurai, all Africans are dying of malnutrition and AIDS ( wait a min... India has the largest AIDs cases, right), and all Americans are sex-crazed, emotionless solidiers who blow up things every once in a while, thanks to the movies we get to see. And if we go by our popular movies, Indians are teary eyed, infinite loving, god abiding, honest, superheroes for whom rags to riches is mundane "a-day-in-the-life". Do you see the pattern here?
All in all, all I wanted to say, was that SM was a movie. A movie about a protagonist who faces insurmountable odds, in terms of poverty, riots, family, violence to trump with love and life and a few millions. In todays economy, may be we need that kind of hopeless hope. May be thats why it struck a chord with Oscar voters and every other award show in town. And thats all it was. It was not even a brutally honest movie, and Saleem's character arc seemed abrupt. It was not the best movie of the year. Not even the week (I liked Valkyrie too, but for different reasons). May be watching Indian movies and being fed upon destiny and fate and hope against all hope kind of rags to riches stories with redemption and love united, has made me a little immune to its charms and spells. May be thats why its a breath of fresh air for the western audience. May be thats why it will win. Not because its a story depicting Indian slums, but because it's lesson is to always have hope, for life will give you a second chance at every turn. But for me, I am neither excited, nor disappointed.
Wait a minute , wait a minute... Rahman wins for his musical score!!! Score!!!! Suck that up !!! Wait another minute.. wait another minute... He wins it again... for the best song!!! Score square!!! Yes, this ... I can be proud of. Though if only west was more exposed to Rahman, he could have won a lot more. SM is not his best among what he already gave to Indian film music. But for now, He has won a lot more Oscar, for a lot less. And I can live with that. With a hope that he will have more chances at the next turn.
PS: Slumdog went on to win 8 including best picture and best director. Maybe I will need to be a non Indian to understand.
2 comments:
entertaining brain dump.
I am not really happy happy for Rahman's oscars too except of course for one fantastic reason that there is going to be a whole new chapter in an already amazing career. I loved Peter Gabriel's Down to Earth, especially with those amazingly done end credits depicting most of human civilization. But other than that, some of the wins are understandable, like cinematography.
Ah!! First comment on my blog... Thanks Kesava. You are right about the new chapter in Rahman's career. And this was not his best work (even between the contender), but I hadn't heard Down to Earth too much, except in the movie (which if I remember right, you had mentioned even in the review of Wall-E). I can understand technical excellence awards: in the times when creating artificality is the norm, these guys won for "creating the very ordinary sights and sounds of Mumbai". But I still think Best Picture and Best Director were .. a little far fetched. I dunno if any other movie could have won it (Richard/ Nixon, Milk, BB), but in their own way, I guess these movies were more or less following the path oft traveled (Historical dramas, True story of Gay Personality, the life story of an unusual guy) in hollywood. In any case, if SM causes people from India to look at poverty as something they need to clean up to project a clean image to the ww, I think the oscar would be worth its weight. But then I wonder, if Salaam Bombay did anything for poverty? Did you watch SB?? Any similiarities it had with SM?
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