Slumdog Millionare

Slumdog Millionaire – India’s Pride?

The night of February 22^nd 2009 was a ‘happy night’ for millions of Indians around the world. Slumdog Millionaire won 8 Academy Awards, out of the 10 for which it was nominated, in the Kodak Theatre, Los Angeles. Definitely it was a moment of pride as our very own singer and composer AR Rahman won 2 awards in one night. Even Resul Pokutty won a joint Oscar for the best sound mixing, making India’s tally at the Oscars to 3. But did Slumdog deserve to win? I’ll try to answer this question.

Slumdog Millionaire is a third class film directed by Danny Boyle and is based on the book Q & A by Vikas Swaroop. It tells the story of a poor boy from the slums of Mumbai, Jamal Khan (Dev Patel), who makes it big on an Indian reality show “Who wants to be a Millionaire?” hosted by Prem Kumar (Anil Kapoor). In the book Q and A Jamal is named Ram Mohammad Thomas. Any answer given by him on the show has a story behind it. The story also revolves around Jamal’s relationship with his lady love Latika (Frieda Pinto) and his elder brother Salim (Madhur Mittal)

The movie begins with the police questioning Jamal about his success on the show. Jamal has only one question left to hit the jackpot of twenty million rupees. Initially the hawaldar (Saurabh Shukla) thinks he is a fraud and tortures him in the cell. Why was he arrested in the first place and on what charges? The violence was unnecessary and unrealistic. The chief inspector (Irfan Khan) is determined to know his story. Jamaal tells him that the answers to all questions on the show were given on his personal experiences and not the bookish knowledge (Is that possible in real life?) The question about Amitabh Bachchan’s film is answered because the young Jamaal had dived into a public latrine in order to get his autograph. Is Amitabh’s security so less? Do we have public latrines along our airports? Does Amitabh use a helicopter to travel? Can it land on an airport in Mumbai? And has/will Amitabh give an autograph to such a dirty kid? Definitely not!

During the riot it is shown that the minorities are attacked. To tell the truth, people in the slums are united in joy or sorrow. If there is a problem in the slum all people will come together and solve it with the leader of the slum taking the decision. Then the story about children from the slums being blinded for begging is unrealistic. It is not possible that so many children are taken by the goons and it skips being noticed. It is hard to believe but Dharavi, the largest slum in Asia, has ancillary units of leather manufacturing industries in the country. The song ‘Darshan Do Ghanshyam’ is not written by Surdas. It was written by Gopal Singh Nepali for the movie Narsi Bhagat released way back in 1957. This song was originally written by 15th century poet Narsi Mehta on whom the film was based.

Later Jamaal and Salim become partners for stealing chappals from the Taj Mahal. To start, the entry fee for entering the Taj Mahal for any Indian is twenty rupees. How did they get that money, if they first made money on stealing chappals, after entering the Taj? Jamaal learns to speak English and he doesn’t sound a ‘Slumdog’ at all. How can a boy growing up in slums speak such accented English? He earns in dollars and enjoys his wealth. What about the security at the Taj?

When the brothers return to Mumbai to find Latika, Jamal comes across his blinded friend who tells him of the exact address of Latika. And how does this friend know about Benjamin Franklin? Is that possible? Latika is sold to the pimps and is being trained to become a dancer. When they visit her Salim takes his gun and murders the goon who sold her and was responsible for their problems. How did Salim and Latika behave like long lost friends when they had separated as children who are supposed to have very little memory of their childhood? How did Salim get a gun? A majority of the local goons in our country don’t have guns. And here a kid gets it and he shoots at point blank range. Who trained him? How did Jamal know about Colt (Inventor of the revolver) just by watching his brother use it? There is no mention of Colts name in the film.

Jamal grows up to be a ‘chaiwallah’ in a BPO. How does he learn to speak English better than the employees and operates the computer at a rapid speed? Again how can you access mobile numbers using BPO without passwords? And how does Salim recognize Jamal just by hearing his voice after so many years? When Salim and Jamal meet he asks about Latika (knowing that she was a prostitute and had slept with Salim) finds her residence (Latika recognizes him the moment she sees him) and asks her to elope with him. How Mahesh Manjrekar doesn’t get suspicious of Jamal at the first instance though being from a world of crime? When Jamal is planning to run with Latika, Salim forcefully takes her away. And when Jamal becomes a contestant on the show, he changes his mind and turns traitor. Is that change of mind possible in such a less time?

The police finally release him and he gets back on the show to answer his final question. This brings the whole of Mumbai to a standstill. (Reality shows like ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’ and ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ are never telecast live) When Jamal uses his ‘lifeline’ during the game-show Latika discovers that she has forgotten her mobile, runs back for it, and picks it up as soon as the phone is about to be cut. This is the Bollywood ‘ishtyle’ direction. Was Danny inspired by Manmohan Desai for that shot? Jamal finally wins the game show. After winning he sits on the railway platform and nobody recognizes him. If the show was that popular then is it realistic? And then an unnecessary song like Jai Ho is used to sum it all. This song was one of the worst compositions of A R Rahman after those in Ram Gopal Varma’s ‘Daud’.

Anil Kapoor uses a fake accent throughout the film and it doesn’t seem that his acting is natural. The make up man has not done his homework. Do kids from the slums have black patches on their faces? There is hardly any good sound used in the film. Definitely it wasn’t better than the sound mixing in Wall-E or even The Dark Knight. Then why did Resul Pokutty and his companions win an Oscar for it? Cinematography wasn’t as good as the one in The Dark Knight. The use of lights is so bad that you can’t make out the faces of the actors in some of the scenes. Yet it won in that category too. Composers like Shankar-Jaikishen, Salil Choudhary, Naushad, O P Nayyar etc have made some immortal compositions. Yet the first Indian musician to win was A R Rahman. Even Pandit Ravi Shankar did not win it (He was nominated for best original score at the 1982 Academy Awards for ‘Gandhi’) Rahman has given better music for films like Dil Se, Sapnay and some Tamil films like Mudhalvan, Baba, Roja and Bombay.

Why did this film make it to the Oscars? The film was made by a British director and producer. Majority of the crew involved was not Indian. This film portrayed India in a negative light. Poverty, slums, and riots were shown in the film. The Westerners will never appreciate if a lavish India is shown on the screen. They want to see poor India and then only the film receive critical acclaim. A majority of Satyajit Ray’s films showed poverty in India. In 1993 he was awarded the lifetime achievement award for his contribution to the film industry. Even Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay made to the top five in Best Foreign Language Film category because it told the story of a poor boy from the slums. Isn’t India being showcased in a negative light in these films? The word ‘Slumdog’ has been used to insult the people from the slums. The meaning of this word is derogatory as is understood towards the end of the film. Some people might argue that all this is part of the director’s creativity. But does creativity come at the cost of an insult to a nation?

We must not forget that any comment on a particular community in our Bollywood films creates a controversy. Immediately those portions have to be deleted or else people go on a rampage in cinema halls and streets. Sometimes a political hand is also involved. Then why didn’t it happen with Slumdog? Do we really need an Oscar to prove that Indians are as creative as the film makers from the West? The answer is obviously no. Then why was this movie hyped so much. The box office collections of Slumdog from India were less than those from USA. Yet when it was nominated for the Oscars suddenly people started flocking at the theatres.

It is our mindset and the hype of our media which popularize the films. People who don’t understand the film don’t have an opinion of their own. They ‘follow the pack’ and appreciate the cast and crew of the film. We need to analyse films before coming to any conclusion about them. And hopefully then we might understand the politics behind the ‘critically acclaimed and ‘award winning’ films.

© Pratik Potdar