Overseas Indians Can’t Decide: Slum Dog or Top Dog?

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Overseas Indians Can’t Decide: Slum Dog or Top Dog?

As the super hit film ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ rakes in over $50 million at the box office globally and basks in the glory of ten Oscar nominations, some Indians – both at home and abroad – are angry. Protesters, mostly slum dwellers, attacked theatres screening this film and burnt its posters in some parts of India. As claimed by superstar Amitabh Bachchan and later denied by him, it portrays only the worst in India by highlighting its poverty and slums. Later, an Indian filed a defamation case against its name that insulted slum dwellers. Low income Indians are not crowding to see the Hindi version. It is not doing well because these film goers say that they do not need to see the film as they are living it in their daily lives!

Yet the film has plenty going for it. For a start, the pithy screenplay by Simon Beaufoy hurtles at a frantic pace and the direction by Danny Boyle never allows attention to wander away even for a fraction of a moment. The acting by the slum children, and later, by the lead actors – Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor and Irrfan Khan et all – blends seamlessly into the rags to riches tale. A. R. Rehman provides eclectic music. Most of all, the unique perspective of the director and the camera angles capture the energy and the momentum of India to made it a masterpiece.

So the elite Indians at home and abroad are gushing about this film. In well decorated drawing rooms, they ask, ‘Why a Bollywood director, living all his life in Mumbai, could not make such a film?’ ‘Why do foreign directors like Richard Attenborough have to make films on India and get Oscar nominations?’ Abroad, the educated, overseas Indians appreciate it for its candid reporting and riveting drama. Everybody knows that India is more than just slums, they say. But there are also plenty of irate overseas Indians who are sending E Mails to all and sundry, furious at the film’s anti-Indian and anti-Hindu distortions. To reproduce these mails or even sections from them would identify one as a rabid nationalist and a radical Hindu. But they do have many prickly points that cannot be explained by artistic license.

The film starts with Hindus killing Muslims, denigrates the Indian national anthem, shows God Ram as a violent warrior, a devotional song for Krishna is taught to main and blind street children to become beggars, reduces the Taj Mahal to a five star hotel, claims tourist guides are written by ‘bloody Indian beggars’ and so on and on. The title irks many Indians. Danny Boyle, the director, explained it in an interview with Newsweek, “Basically, it’s a hybrid of the word ‘underdog’ – and everything that means in terms of rooting for the underdog and validating his triumph – and the fact that he obviously comes from the slums. That’s what we intended.”

As the box office hit juggernauts towards the Oscars night, it remains a brilliant film; and it also raises strong emotions about how India is shown as the land of poverty and slums and deprivation. Does it follow the set pattern of films like ‘Mother India’ by Catherine Mayo, ‘The City of Joy’, ‘Salaam Bombay’ and ‘Water’ that show the squalor and misery of India to make a mark in the West?

It’s a far cry from ‘Gandhi’ that won eight Oscars including the one for the best film, for it showed the father of the nation fighting non-violently for justice and freedom against all odds. But here we have a battered slum child, who hits the jackpot despite the poverty, and also finds his true love as a bonus. And it’s set against the brutal reality of India today, the poor-rich chasm and the religious divide.

Yet the film has collected four Golden Globes, including the one for the best film, and gets ready to dominate this year’s Oscars on 22 February with ten nominations and perhaps eight Oscars. Its nominated song ‘Jai Ho’ set to music by Rehman will be performed live by Sukhvinder Singh on the Oscar night. Yes, India has arrived on the global film scene.

Now the queasy questions remain for Oscar night: Will Indians be angry at this British film grabbing all those Oscars by depicting India in all its filth and grime? Or, will they be proud of this film that is poised to launch them on the world movie scene and all this glory at Oscars? So, will it be slum dog or top dog?