“Slumdog millionaire”, well I saw this movie yesterday. The premise of the movie forced me to compare it with a recent literary success, the booker prize winning book “White Tiger” by Arvind Adiga. Both have been done extremely well and I personally loved their unique story-telling capabilities. But as a self-respecting Indian I have my own reservations against either of them.
The protagonists of both works, Balram of White Tiger and Jamal of Slumdog represent the shadowy underbelly of India. Both of them swim through the shit that they are born into to better pastures. Both of them suffer at the hands of the hostile system that encircles them. I more than agree to either of the assertions. Poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, corruption, religious hatred, I agree the list that constitutes India’s underbelly goes on.
But is it all what my country stands for? My country is not just about a bunch of con men gouging kid’s eyes to make them better beggars, neither is it a country of only slum-dwellers nor its all about corrupt feudalism. Of course there is religious fundamentalism, but we aren’t a country that advocates religious intolerance as a state policy like some of our neighbors. I want to quote a line from famous Akshay Kumar flick here. “India is a country that with 80% Hindus is happy with a Sikh PM ‘guided’ by his party’s Catholic chief and a Moslem President”. I am not jingoistic here, but can any other country imagine this? Can a Lord Swaraj Paul ever become the PM of England? On the contrary we never had had apartheid; we never had a holocaust or a Sarajevo of the 90s either.
Slumdog also focuses on forced prostitution. Ya there is forced prostitution, ya there is child prostitution. But is that totally non-existent in the western world? What about the innumerable cases of child-pornography that’s rampant in the US and Europe. Oh no I am sorry; I am not supposed to talk about the whiteman’s ugly side. Why? Oh that’s because no one buys that in UK or the US. If no one buys it, how on earth do I get my booker? How the hell will I get a Golden globe or probably an Oscar? That seems to be our author’s attitude.
The truth is our authors “prudently” write to savor the palates of western sensibilities and these so-called stories of hope, which also happen to real good literary works, always sell; to the extent of a booker, golden globe or even an Oscar. From 1947 till 1990 we were a bunch of snake charmers. Then came the economic surge of the 90s and the subsequent success story, but that didn’t seem to leave any mark in the western literary world. Now these new generation literary works pointing out the imperfect tumors of a surging country seems to have drawn the attention of the western world back again.
I am no naysayer of western sensibilities. Having said all that I have till now, I would also say that I wouldn’t have known Arvind Adiga without his Booker; I wouldn’t have watched Slumdog if not for the Golden Globe. This quest for western recognition amongst the audience as well as our artists is infact the dilemma our literary world is facing. This dilemma perhaps masquerades as Slumdog or White Tiger.
I don’t have answers for this predicament which you, me and our authors are facing of course to different extents . But I would sign-off with these questions.
1) Vikas Swaroop wrote Q & A, but it took a Danny Boyle to make a movie out of it and its subsequent successes. If a Rakeysh Om Mehra, or a Ashutosh Gowarikar had made the same movie in Bollywood retaining the same originality and vigor, would it have been as big a success as Danny Boyle’s?
2) What was wrong with Lagaan? Taare Zameen Par? Swades? Rang de Basanti?
