Dog's Day Out

It happened earlier too. When Satyajit Ray made his films and certain sections of Middle and Upper Class Indians commented adversely on his depicting poverty. A percentage of people in these segments of society just cannot bear the sight of poverty and dirt and gloom. I remember somebody commenting negatively when a foreigner was clicking a photograph of a beggar in Park Street, Kolkata. He rather clicks Victoria Memorial. Maybe he has? And what stopped my friend from visiting Ethiopia and clicking some shots of the hapless victims of famine?

So when educated (sic) India comments about Slumdog Millionaire being opportunistic it’s a sad commentary of the mental state of those people. We at our cushy homes forget that the rural uneducated India is still waiting to catch up. They want to catch up in terms of prejudices, rituals, bad traditions and they want exposure. So let’s show it. The maid servant working in Arindam Chaudhuri’s house perhaps stays in a slum that the latter never visited or would dare not look at.

The morning view from a high rise building in Mumbai is terrible where you see hoards of people on a field for the morning natural needs. They don’t have a place to go. We of course take refuge in the ostrich like behavior of closing the window. So when Danny Boyle exposes the slum, suddenly people are busy denouncing him. I for one don’t want to be always fed with lies on the big screen. It’s not always a fairy tale that we are running after. So, what's wrong with a realistic fairy tale?

We are sometimes so small that a journalist asked Danny Boyle as to what did he do for the slum actors that acted in the films? His answer his immaterial for my piece, but that’s what the media is all about. But then that’s another topic. Sphere: Related Content