6
Quixote at the mills
There is a strange kind of debate going on in the Indian media as Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire prepares to hit the screens this Friday. One of the disadvantages of round the clock media coverage, as we have all realized by now, is that a lot of inanity finds prime time viewership that is quite disproportionate to its significance to public debate. The arguments over whether Slumdog glorifies Indian poverty and thus consequently establishes that only Indian slums sell to the west is one such. The Hindi news channels, having by now long forsaken any pretense at news coverage and generating public opinion, have concentrated all their energies on blowing the trumpet for the movie and blaring its soundtrack even more diligently than MTV or the radio channels. Slumdog hardly needs any pre-release publicity; the mad frenzy that has gripped our news networks, who have by now done multiple interviews with anyone remotely associated with the movie, has ensured that enough people will be queuing up to buy tickets on day one even without posters, television campaigns or star appearances of its cast of actors. The English media, particularly the television one, has taken up the cudgels and run debates on whether the four Golden Globes amply prove that a romanticized picture of Indian poverty presented by an acceptable foreigner is enough to set the critics from New York, Hollywood and London running. Is Slumdog glorifying and selling Indian poverty?
Forgive me for being a bit thick, but there are far too many layers that I detect and am unable to unravel. At one level, there is the old fear. That of being identified still as the land of elephants and snake charmers and sadhus lying on bed of nails. This is the fear of the India of thirty years back – that realized too late that much of its spiritual charm for westerners lay in its image of being a place of hardship and renunciation. Placed alongside that, the snake charmers, the slums, the sewage and the grime seemed to complete an appropriate picture. India was a yogic land content in its dirt and at ease with its nakedness and flies. Of course, by the time India itself realized this image, a lot of time had passed and a lot of catching up to be done. This is an image that every Indian now seeks to suppress. Added to this is a new generation of monetarily empowered middle class Indians, the beneficiaries of the unlocking of gates achieved in 1991. And it is this semi-professional, confident and semi-nationalist Indian who now cringes at the mention of his country’s scars. For this Indian, the rise of an Infosys, economic growth, fancy office s and glitzy malls and rising consumer choice and consumption are enough to show that the tide has turned and the dirty, spiritual home of hippies is now a bright spanking Elevate. More than movie critics, it is this Indian who wonders why Jamal Malik’s and not his story makes the Western audiences sit up and award Golden Globes. This Indian begs the question as to why, when he has achieved skill based growth, must the world still look at Dharavi for inspiration. This Indian essentially contests the fact that Jamal Malik and not he is the true representative of his nation.
Alas, statistics, our urban landscape and daily realities of life are against him. For while he might have grown, a great of number of his countrymen are still slumdogs. More importantly, what he forgets is that the person sitting next to him on the high table of self achieved prosperity had some generation of his family that rose from those slums. He overlooks the wonderful stories of those who found inspiration to break out of those stinking drains and cramped houses and let their height grow to catch more the sun. He forgets that in India’s slums are born the dreams of desire. He forgets that he is the inspiration for those dreams. That those living cheek by jowls in India’s many Dharavis look to him and say to themselves – if he can, we can.
Essentially, this young Indian is insecure. Insecure of being pushed back to the land of renunciation and sadhu ashrams. Insecure that the world may fail to recognize him as it looks at India slums. He forgets that what he protests against is a story similar to his – a story of rising against adversity, of facing challenges and summoning grit to achieve a holy grail. Jamal Malik typifies India – yet to let go of it slums and scars, but not lacking in spirit to rise in this world and seeking a better life on his credentials alone. Slumdog is a tale of an India in transformation and howsoever much wealth the insecure Indian may amass, he cannot ignore the slums that dot his urban landscape. For in those slums lie the dreams of tomorrow and from there came the achievers of today.
I put this state of needless debate as my Facebook status and received some interesting responses. One friend was particularly galled by what he called Western hypocrisy in not showcasing their own poverty. That I believe is bit harsh. The West has been more self critical and inward looking that any other part of the current world. You only need to dive into the body of work of a Quentin Tarantino or a Martin Scorcese to explore the cinematic depiction of the underbelly of America. Another friend wondered whether all it takes to win a Booker these days is to get a degree from a foreign university, write about India and romanticize its poverty, corruption and caste system. He believes the west is excited about India’s plagues. I beg the question – Is India aware and excited about it plagues? The answer I leave for you to ponder. I could write another post defending Arvind Adiga’s book but I will mention only two points – read it and judge if you disagree with the picture of rural and urban life of India that he paints. And the second – all around me I see protagonists of Adiga’s book emerging. My grandparents’ young servant – son of a landless labourer from Bihar has taught himself to read English, owned and chucked a cell phone, bought a DVD player, likes to get his hair gelled and coloured, swears by the principle of ‘living within your monetary means’ and not taking debt and dreams one day to be an entrepreneur caretaking multiple residential dwellings. When I look at him, I realize that Adiga and Boyle do not speak to me in an alien language. These stories are resonating around India. These ambitions shall propel India. We must embrace them rather than shying away from accepting the place of their birth. We are, as a nation, surely self-confident enough to look at ourselves honestly in the mirror – to admire our beauty and understand our warts.
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Forgive me for being a bit thick, but there are far too many layers that I detect and am unable to unravel. At one level, there is the old fear. That of being identified still as the land of elephants and snake charmers and sadhus lying on bed of nails. This is the fear of the India of thirty years back – that realized too late that much of its spiritual charm for westerners lay in its image of being a place of hardship and renunciation. Placed alongside that, the snake charmers, the slums, the sewage and the grime seemed to complete an appropriate picture. India was a yogic land content in its dirt and at ease with its nakedness and flies. Of course, by the time India itself realized this image, a lot of time had passed and a lot of catching up to be done. This is an image that every Indian now seeks to suppress. Added to this is a new generation of monetarily empowered middle class Indians, the beneficiaries of the unlocking of gates achieved in 1991. And it is this semi-professional, confident and semi-nationalist Indian who now cringes at the mention of his country’s scars. For this Indian, the rise of an Infosys, economic growth, fancy office s and glitzy malls and rising consumer choice and consumption are enough to show that the tide has turned and the dirty, spiritual home of hippies is now a bright spanking Elevate. More than movie critics, it is this Indian who wonders why Jamal Malik’s and not his story makes the Western audiences sit up and award Golden Globes. This Indian begs the question as to why, when he has achieved skill based growth, must the world still look at Dharavi for inspiration. This Indian essentially contests the fact that Jamal Malik and not he is the true representative of his nation.
Alas, statistics, our urban landscape and daily realities of life are against him. For while he might have grown, a great of number of his countrymen are still slumdogs. More importantly, what he forgets is that the person sitting next to him on the high table of self achieved prosperity had some generation of his family that rose from those slums. He overlooks the wonderful stories of those who found inspiration to break out of those stinking drains and cramped houses and let their height grow to catch more the sun. He forgets that in India’s slums are born the dreams of desire. He forgets that he is the inspiration for those dreams. That those living cheek by jowls in India’s many Dharavis look to him and say to themselves – if he can, we can.
Essentially, this young Indian is insecure. Insecure of being pushed back to the land of renunciation and sadhu ashrams. Insecure that the world may fail to recognize him as it looks at India slums. He forgets that what he protests against is a story similar to his – a story of rising against adversity, of facing challenges and summoning grit to achieve a holy grail. Jamal Malik typifies India – yet to let go of it slums and scars, but not lacking in spirit to rise in this world and seeking a better life on his credentials alone. Slumdog is a tale of an India in transformation and howsoever much wealth the insecure Indian may amass, he cannot ignore the slums that dot his urban landscape. For in those slums lie the dreams of tomorrow and from there came the achievers of today.
I put this state of needless debate as my Facebook status and received some interesting responses. One friend was particularly galled by what he called Western hypocrisy in not showcasing their own poverty. That I believe is bit harsh. The West has been more self critical and inward looking that any other part of the current world. You only need to dive into the body of work of a Quentin Tarantino or a Martin Scorcese to explore the cinematic depiction of the underbelly of America. Another friend wondered whether all it takes to win a Booker these days is to get a degree from a foreign university, write about India and romanticize its poverty, corruption and caste system. He believes the west is excited about India’s plagues. I beg the question – Is India aware and excited about it plagues? The answer I leave for you to ponder. I could write another post defending Arvind Adiga’s book but I will mention only two points – read it and judge if you disagree with the picture of rural and urban life of India that he paints. And the second – all around me I see protagonists of Adiga’s book emerging. My grandparents’ young servant – son of a landless labourer from Bihar has taught himself to read English, owned and chucked a cell phone, bought a DVD player, likes to get his hair gelled and coloured, swears by the principle of ‘living within your monetary means’ and not taking debt and dreams one day to be an entrepreneur caretaking multiple residential dwellings. When I look at him, I realize that Adiga and Boyle do not speak to me in an alien language. These stories are resonating around India. These ambitions shall propel India. We must embrace them rather than shying away from accepting the place of their birth. We are, as a nation, surely self-confident enough to look at ourselves honestly in the mirror – to admire our beauty and understand our warts.
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