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Slumdog Millionaire: A Partial Display of a Rising Country
“So, have you ever been to India?” I asked Jacque. He was a good pen pal of mine; and by pen, what I actually mean is e-mail or to be rather precise, Facebook, the enormous cloud of social networking intermingled with a swift desire to meet the same people that you’ve just met in school, online that is taking over the world with it’s very attractive and alluring promise to help you ‘stay connected’.
“Naah… but I’ve seen the Slumdog Millionaire”. He grinned; another metaphor that I’ve used in pretext of sending an online emoticon closely resembling a lopsided smile on the face of a bright yellow egg yolk.
But what really grabbed my attention was his reply a cynical mockery filled to the brim with sarcasm and disdain.
Slumdog Millionaire:- A grossly overrated film made by a famous director picturing India in a pool of cow dung accompanied by whole massive colony of slums with children in their dirty undergarments running all over the place, having stolen a wallet or maybe some foreign tourist’s shoes.
An insight into the dirty underworld, everyday rackets of prostitution, people lying around like shards of filth with no identity whatsoever with a gun to their throat, being threatened by a twelve year old to fish out a few crisp notes or hope to die… and don’t get so disgusted; it doesn’t end here.
What follows next is a gang war between a couple of big time mafia members and a duo of some fifteen year olds, risking their neck to save the life of a girl; their escapade from the horrible city of Mumbai, their decorousness and decency for trying not to make a grab for each other’s crop of sand filled hair and instead, resorting to hurl abuses at each other, hanging on to the bare threads of adolescence…
Most of the people in India who stumbled out of the theater, having watched Slumdog, with their vision blurry and eyes unfocused, muttered a throaty ‘disappointed’ and staggered out of the hallway, never to be seen again.
On the other hand, most of the people who HADN’T been to India ever before, came out of the hall with confident strides, hands inside their pockets, and a remorseful expression on their faces saying, “I’m sorry for those people; It was a genuine and a heartfelt movie.”
And when the time came for the same ‘delegates’ to turn up in the Commonwealth games, they backed out saying “We are unsure of our hygiene, we might fall sick in India”.
According to me, Mr. Danny Boyle, the director of this movie, featured India in a very partial manner. We are a rising country; the government has massive pressure blasting confetti into their heads, bellowing REMOVE CORRUPTION. LOWER THE POVERTY LEVEL. DO SOMETHING.
The movie shows glimpses of India as a country begging the others to release them from the web of poverty, corruption, prostitution, men reaching out to pour some lethal acid into the eyes of young kids and a bunch of girls ready to be sold off.
This is not true at all. While the movie did show some bleak aspects of the country such as a widespread slum area and the ever increasing population; it FAILED to show the metalled roads, sky scrapers, the infamous ‘bollywood’ headquarters, industrial landscapes, well lit suburbs, successful businessmen reaching out to play in role in some of the major events out there, the world class education system…we have, as a matter of fact, made significant improvements to our infrastructure in the past fifty years and that aspect CANNOT be ignored.
Slumdog Millionaire misled people and obscured their vision, willing them to believe that India is a country shooting rockets of some new viruses, a whole bunch of corrupt ministers and a field overflowing with cocaine, into the air.
It has made people pity India, look at it with looks of utmost regret intermingled with some resent as well.
It has made people unwilling to come here; see the sky-reaching turrets of forts built by the Mughals, the wide-spread Himalayas, with every bounty of nature that God has bestowed upon us; from snow capped peaks to evergreen forests; from a peninsula flagged by the Arabian Sea on the west, Bay of Bengal on the east and the Indian ocean on the south to the tribal groups residing in the North-East ; from the Deccan Plateau on the South-East, to the Thar Desert in the extreme west… India is the like a beautifully painted piece of canvas.
Anyone who has ever seen the true colors of India would strongly oppose the dirty picture created in the minds of people from the movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’.
India is not what it was made out to be in it; it befuddled me and left me open mouthed when I first saw it; I could not recognize the country being shown as my very own…
Nevertheless, I have to agree to one point which was made clearly in the movie; the very words which earned themselves two Oscars-
Jai Ho!
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This article has 13 comments.
Writomania. I love what you wrote. It is exactly what I think and it is so true. Sulmdog Millionaire only displays a partial picture.
India, I believe has the potential to be the most powerful country in the world. All those big countries they know that. We don't. We don't realise our own potential.
As a fellow Indian I applaud your efforts to tell the world thateven though it was a good movie, it wasn't completely true.
yeah lol a sari is a drape sort of a thing while a salwar kameez, if u please (hahahahahahahah) is yeah, a two piece ;)
Haha really? Oh wow. The kite festival's the independence day; you know, when we got our freedom from the brits. It is celebrated by this kite flying thing where most of the country is on their rooftops, trying to cut the other one's kite.. its not that easy but fun!
Even i don't have a sari haha. It is for older people; worn mostly at marriages. I mean, it is kinda difficult to carry and not worn on an everyday basis..
You should come here sometime. It will be great...
Another movie about India I saw was Bend it like Beckham. Have you seen it? I love that movie!! It's still my all-time favorite. Well, I thought her parents were very mean to let not her play soccer but in the end it all worked out so..
I know that there a lots of forced marriages and stuff in India and people get married when they are twelve and stuff and child labor and sex explotation... I thnk it's very sad and I want to do something about it(it's my dream job, helping civil rights around the world) but I'm just totally enchanted with India!!
My friend(who I told you about) is not Indian, she's actually from Bangladash. But she has many family ties in India. When I was at her house, she showed me all the pictures. She loves Bollywood movies and soap operas and yes I watch those with her. It's very funny, sometimes I call her and she's in the middle of a movie or soap opera and she gives me the play-by-play.
But I've seen some negative stuff too. I watched this British TV show called Blodd, Sweat and T-shirts. These fashion-obsessed British teens went to countries where they make the cheap t-shirts. They went to India and they had to see the whole process of how all the t-shirts are made. They went to the cotton producing facility, the cotton pickers and they went to the factories themsleves.
I liked the show. It was very realistic and truthful. But those teens were honestly very stupid and snobby and petty at first.
At the beginning they said stuff like,
This Indian girl she said, " I don't care if a two year old or a fifty year makes my shirts. I want them!
This boy(I actually thought he was kinda cute) was so incredibly stupid.
It was at the beginning of the show and they were on the train to the cotton fields and you see kids working and he was like, Why aren't they in school? They don't want an education?
I WANTED TO PULL MY HAIR OUT!!
The cotton fields were brutal, people are paid like 2 cents a day. So were the cotton facuilties, they looked very dangerous. They showed the real Mumbai slums from Slumdog Millionaire. because they produce t-shirts there,very dirty and disgusting. The show made me hate my clothes!! I was almost thinking to make my own clothes!!
Anyway, the teens became much better people because of it. They looked at themslves at the end of the show and they called themselves stupid and ignorant(which they were)
I really want to see it, just never got the chance to. It did win 8 Oscars, I watched the Oscars that year. Like every time they had an Oscar for something, Slumdog Millionaire won it. It got very boring!
I LOVE INDIA!!!I've always wanted to go to India. It just seems like a beautiful and colorful place. When I think of colorful, I think of India. The Taj Mahal is the place I want to go the most. And on TV I see this thing about this kite festival, I want like to go on the kite festival and celebrate with them. I love Indian food, whenever we have takeout I always ask my mom to go to this Indian place. I actually have a sari!! And I enjoy Bollywood movies. I enjoy many things about India.
well, i don't know.. it's just a personal opinion, something that I felt was an important issue to be raised :)
Hmm, you should see it.. you might end up liking it.. it won like 8 oscars or something..
And really? Its good to know that you like our culture.. what've you heard?
Thanks for the comment :)
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Wow thanks Dee.D for your comment ;)
Yeah well it did infuriate me to see how partial someone could be in depicting india.. it was disgusting.
I mean no one would ever wanna come here by the picture that they get from it.
I'm glad that you liked my article! ;)