Times are depressing.. anywhere one goes, one ends up hearing the how bad things are, how people are losing jobs, how one is forced to take low par jobs to make ends meet, how things are uncertain............. there is no end to it but it is quiet true.
In such times, we have a movie SDM which creates a craze in the west like none of the movies with connection to India probably with the exception of Gandhi in 1980s. Our own people win 4 Oscars at this year's Academy awards and there is a media frenzy back home as to how India has conquered the Oscars and an Indian movie has created a raze in the west.
There have extreme reactions to the movie and its success and its interesting to put things in perspective. It seems that people on both sides of the divide have reacted emotionally and probably the point gets lost somewhere. Some people call the movie to be Poverty porn whereas others glorify the movie as a movie with a hope and its success as a success by an Indian movie.
No doubt the movie is a good movie with excellent storyline and shows the grim reality of Mumbai slums, but there can be exaggerations to the point that one needs to justify the storyline. Nothing can pass the judgement of whether what is shown in the movie is correct or not but to decastigate completely is wrong. We see, living here, everyday the standard of living in the slums of Calina, Dharavi and that is a reality. The degrees of reality might be different, and lets mind it, it can be worse that what is shown but no denying it. There has been many movies made by Indian directors on life at slums but this movie has got the accolades and the criticism because how big this has become.
On the other end, this is British movie with great Indian talent being part of it and our own people by virtue of being part of this project have won accolades. We should celebrate the fact but no point dying over it as if its a success of a Indian film.
People like A R Rahman, are not known to us for the success of SDM but through all these years of fantastic music that he has given us. Same goes for Gulzar and Resul and Anil Kapoor and Irrfan Khan.
This is so typical of us that we crave for west recognition that we go overboard. There are some cynics who have wondered whether this is a plot of the west to bring India's poor face to the world to halt its growing importance especially during these times of recession. I wonder how can one deduce these theories and how much of grey cells they have to ponder over such things. Danny Boyle is a simple man who before this movie is one of the many good British directors. SDM production house struggled to finance a USD 10 mio project and they are part of a conspiracy theory!! Lets be slightly logical. There have been movies made by Indians showing such realities of India and to be honest, ever girmmer reality has been portrayed linked to the underworld, poverty and human trafficking .....
If there is SDM there is a Monsoon Wedding also.
Better still, for the media and so called awakened diaspora, we can collectively work on improving the life style and standard of living of those living there- that would be worth every rupee instead on wasting our energies on bashing or hyping SDM.
I saw the movie and thought it was a good movie linked to India with a very strong point- it was promoted by 20th Century Fox.
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