Anathema

81^st  annual academy awards generated unprecedented interest in India .The reason :Slumdog millionaire ,a movie which had something to do with India ,had a more than realistic chance in   almost every category ,and boy didn’t they pull off something close to a cleansweep.However  on analyzing my  thought process ,I found the conclusion  a bit disturbing.

First thing,how ‘Indian’ was Slumdog?almost the entire crew if  you exclude the music director were british.

The actors ?yes..but then it would not have made much sense to have a movie based on India having some caucasian actors in the lead.So what was all the excitement about when the movie got  best director, best movie ,best adaptation awards..... Certainly it was not a landmark Indian movie  and it certainly wasn’t  the movie that would make me stand up and sing vande mataram .The worst thing is that it would even make the foreign  tourists a bit circumspect when they think about coming here.

SO what was all the ‘funda’ about ?was it the fact that a movie which had something to do with India was being recognised at the global level.For christ’s sake we are not some gautamala or somalia.We dont need to take solace from the fact that someone is taking note of us or from the fact that the ‘world’ is recognising us.What could be  the frigging logic behind all this tamasha?That the image  of a versatile India  with its tough and adapatable  population  are finally bought by the ‘world’.Let me just ask the  :the world who?US population..  .Maybe the fact that we India as a nation command more respect at the international level hasnt really sunk in.The only image I thought the movie conveyed was that of a nation which was a functioning anarchy! Not entirely baseless, however what is entirely incomprehendible is the cheering that it received  from us.The media no doubt has played a very important role,sometimes thats what media does..it does the judgement part for you and forms the opinion for you too.

The movie ?personally i felt the movie wasn’t  anything  to rave about,if for a moment  , you are able to forget the tremendous cinematography and some of those striking images presented to us in the first half.That, along with some tremendous soundtrack was what made the movie tick at the box office and what I thought was the  fine line of difference between a bollywood masala and a visually engrossing and ultimately a  highly successful movie.If you had watched the second half of the movie in isolation,you would not be blamed  for thinking it was a B class bollywood movie with relatively unknown actors. The railways station scenes where the girl is kidnapped,...’ breathtakingly fresh idea’ of two brothers .. one being  a local don ..and the protagonist becoming an innocent smart person....does it ring any bells?

Hypothetically,assume that the movie wasn’t directed by  danny boyle ,the director of severally critically acclaimed movies like ‘trainspotting’  and instead had a good Indian director at the helm.Would it have been this successful globally? Would it have caught international attention in the first place and would it have been able to generate the sort of unprecedented hype it managed to ,even months before the official release despite having  no major stars? My guess:most probably not!

In an industry saturated with teen flick ,pointless action drama and techie movies slumdog turned out to be a wisp of fresh air.A lot of movies has been done by Indians  on its slums ,however most of them had a tinge of melancholy to it....this one took us along the fun ride. To the aforementioned audience it was something new, a celebration of human life  ,helped them to appreciate human life...blah blah blah.....To us Indians it was a a celebration of ‘Indianness’ .At least thats what the media made us to believe with headline like “ITS JAI HO AT GLODEN GLOBES” and beaming images of Anil kapoor.Correct if I am wrong :anil kappor didn’t win anything.So wasn’t it obvious that the media was doing everything it could do to strike some kind of emotional chord with the Indian audience. Fortunately there was no official pat on the back  from the bureaucracy ???.

And lastly ,I found it most disturbing when i became aware of the fact that it took us , the supposed recognition of the ‘entire world’ to appreciate the genius of A R Rehman.The fact sunk in when I saw that almost all the dance performances in our cultural festival ‘tried to pay a tribute to Rehman’ .Hello !!what were you guys waiting for ?a green signal from the academy?.People should have some kind of judgement,should be able to think for themselves.Honestly I  wouldn’t be able to live with the fact that some channel or some movie review site is forming my opinions.

Finally I thought it would have been fitting if Jamal had missed the last question    ... he only gets  what he values the most ,maybe it was too happy an ending   J