"Jayaho"

You want to take slum tourism? Simply buy a ticket to "Slum dog Millionaire" .There no debate like depiction of slum life is good or bad? It is neither good nor bad. It exists. We have to acknowledge the fact. You show it or hide it, it is your choice. If you prefer to show you must have your own reason. Any western producer has his reason to so. It is place where he is scared to death to watch "people living like animals and dying like insects." That is a different world altogether. A potential breeding ground for flesh trade, goondagiri, every thing under the sun which we can call illegal and uncivilized. Do we have to go to Dharavi to watch all this? No need. Every Indian has a passing glance of slum in every corner of his country.

Dharavi may be the one of the biggest slums in the world. (I do not know). What all we get to see there not new to an Indian. It is neatly packed and sent in a gift box to a western audience. It could be undeniably shocking experience to them. Rags to riches, brotherly sentiment, love, song, dance on railway platform, police third degree, all the underline themes are repeated more than thousands of times in our mainstream cinema. Sometimes with little glorification , some times more insight. But our cinemas don't' go to Oscars. So they don't' get awards. Necessarily "English" is your window to the outside world. More over we always have commercial success in the back of our mind.

Why are we celebrating a British film? Most of us are questioned. It is all about India, enacted by Indian actors, based on Indian theme,Indian music, with Indian masala. What is foreign about it? Yes, it is Danny Boyle. He is the only factor which makes it alien. Shaky cameras (probably off the trally) I was told it is a new technique, frequent black outs, hazy pictures, even the slum exposure was not definite and clear. Certainly it is way of filming by a Westerner. But to an Indian it is more or less like documentary. Mediocrity in narration is efficiently substituted by good screenplay. Latika (Freida Pinto) looks refreshingly sweet. Dev Patel, looks, tastes, and smells like British. Hey boy! You look good. Learn some Hindi. Probably you have a slot in Bombay.

We watch television every day. But how many of us really know who has invented it? Like wise a tea boy he must have seen revolver. But knowing the inventor's name is far fetched idea. Similarly Big Ben, Benjamin Franklin, easy computer handling, I think it is truly beyond a tea boy.He seems know of dollar more than a rupee.Is it? I do not know. Unless he is a part of slum tourism meant for a white man. There you can catch that it is not by an Indian. However painstakingly you cinematize it, the ethos get missing. It happened even with Richard Attenburough , Why with only Boyle?

Many view it as a triumph to Indian way of making films. Sentiment, songs and dance, masala sprinkled story line, are they going to make big in West? I think they are not. Still many plastic surgeries are required. Inconsequential stupid dance and songs are not going to appeal to the Western audience in any case. They have many bands who do that for them. Similarly our home grown bands are not going to make it big as long as Indian cinema goes strong. None of our producers eye Oscars, but it's whooping millions box office money that may lure them. Make a movie in English and dub them for Indian audience, any way pictures are shot in either South Africa or Kenya. They even dare to erect a temple near pyramids and make their Saree clad mother pray for her son. What difference it is going to make?

Dismal performance by Anil Kapoor, however he is trying to be happy with awards, is overshadowed by Irfan Khan's simple matter fact approach. The little children who acted (?) or lived are so cute and there lies the brilliance of a director to have shot them in their best, unlike beyond the age talking kids in our regular dossiers. If any one of them make big in Bollywood really it is rags to riches story.

The much awaited song "Jayaho" comes when you are about to leave the theatre in disappointment of not having it. It is one amongst Rahman's regular haunting numbers. Like "Chakde India" has become sports anthem, this can become our brand India celebration anthem.

I had to wait outside the theatre till show opens. There I saw a women washing her utensils at the road side sewage leaking pipe or drinking water pipe. Children were ready with their plates for a hot rice which is on the stove placed on a foot path. They do not know that such a picture is made about them. They do not bother to see it too . But you can unfailingly see them lining up for one megastar movie with costly designer dresses, heavy jewellery, posh bunglows, expensive big cars and collar up bold challenges thrown towards rich. Dreams are being sold to them in large quantities. Movies are escape routes to them from their miseries. What is for them to see in slum dog? They live in it.