Rags to Riches...

The entire world these days is talking about “Slumdog Millionaire”, thanks to its excellent performance at the Golden Globes, multitude of film festivals and the astounding number of nominations received at the Oscars!

Had this movie been based in any other country, the people of that country would have felt proud about it, but then India is India and that explains the multitude of negative reviews and remarks Danny Boyle and his crew have been receiving here (I should add that some of the critics and genuine lovers of cinema have been as loyal as I am).

It is coincidental that any movie that highlights poverty in a third world country gets noticed in the West. Our guys behave as if it is only India that is subjected to this. Truth is that even Iran, Iraq, Vietnam and Sri Lanka suffer the same fate! And no one is telling the world something that is not true. Let us accept that we are a poor country and we do have slums, begging, child prostitution, dadagiri and the like just like any other third world country. Rather than fretting and fuming on a British film maker who made a truthful and entertaining film, let us collect ourselves and do something for the betterment of the Society (Amitabh Bachchan, Arindam Choudhary, are you listening?)

Coming back to the movie, “Slumdog…” is about Jamaal Malick (a competent and confident Dev Patel), a slum kid who grows into a chaiwallah at a call center and gets a chance to be on the hot seat of “Kaun Banega Crorepati”. In spite of the hostile behavior and non encouraging remarks of the wily show host (Anil Kapoor, as dependable as ever), Jamal wins a fortune of Rs.10,000,000 at the end of the first day of the shoot. The show host feels the urchin is a fraud and hands him over to the cops (Irrfan Khan and Saurabh Shukla, brilliant performers both) and as they interrogate, Jamaal pours his story out, right from his childhood, thus revealing how or why he could answer all the questions correctly.

Slumdog Millionaire is a roller coaster ride right from the word go. Perfect casting, racy screenplay, apt lines, stunning cinematography, authentic production design and costumes and a killer sound track (I prefer “Ringa Ringa” over the crowd favorite “Jai ho”)- this is one of those rare films where everything falls into place perfectly. The kids who play the protagonists at their young age stay in your hearts with their honest portrayals. Even the oppressive living conditions in the slums have been picturized in a manner that does not evoke apathy- you just end up feeling but natural about the life of the kids. The begging and prostitution mafia have been depicted very honestly and probably this is causing all the furore in the media. That said, Mr. Boyle also makes it very clear that India is a land of extremes- at one end you have the poverty stricken slums and at the other end you have the comforts of a plush office (the call center being a point here) and the Indian equivalent of an American show that makes millionaires out of the more common folks.

Deftly adapted from Vikas Swarup’s “Q & A”, Simon Beaufoy deserves to hold the academy statuette in his hands for his excellent and racy script.At the heart of it, Slumdog Millionaire is very much a Bollywood masala fare- it has it all- separated brothers, love lost and found, people and circumstances acting as villains, journey from penury to prosperity and a rocking item number filmed at a railway station! I am sure Manmohan Desai will be smiling in his grave and so will you while leaving the theatre- provided you keep your prejudice at home!