Saturday, February 28

When The SlumDog Beat The White Tiger...

SlumDog Millionaire v/s The White Tiger

Mood: Critical & Analytical.

This post is an exploration of the glorification of India's negativity, an analysis of the western mindset behind it and also an attempt at a book and movie review. For starters, both the movie and the book have similar story lines – the same old rags-to-riches kinds. However, the style and the after-effects on readers are radically different. Read on…

When the Man Booker was announced, I immediately craved for The White Tiger. After all, the writer was from Mumbai and was also born in Chennai. Having got a copy for as low as Rs.60 (at least I didn't read an e-book!!), I read it during my painful tonsillectomy post-op. Well, have to admit it made me feel worse.

Page after page of pricking abuse and distasteful mud-slinging at India leaves you a bit angry and irritated. But that’s the reality and reality does bite. Agreed, all that Adiga writes is not uncommon in India, but it is put in a hard-hitting and on your face way. The crude and often dry narration style gives away the probable end quite in advance. Cause you know this writer can never climax in a Bollywood-ish happy-go way.

TWT does not give out anything positive all through its 304 pages and sarcastically defends the protagonist’s way of life. A life, which is mutinously 'successful', but at the cost of the ones who love him. Break the law at every point, no matter what, to reach the top – that is the end message, with lots of India-bashing along the way. 

SM on the other hand tells you the story of a kid, again from my Mumbai, who goes on to win millions on a TV show. The stuff and style might be new for international audiences, for which it was targeted, but was too predictable for India. India loves movies in which stories are unrealistic, sets are lavish and lifestyles similar to the western world. In a way, we love to see on screen what we crave in reality. Movies like DCH, RDB, Black, K3G or most other movies you think of, portray characters which hardly 10% of Indians can even relate to, forget about matching the lifestyles. SM however shows the shit that 80% of India really is. And we obviously find it a bit difficult to accept.

To me, SM is as Indian a movie I have ever seen. And with that in mind, it seems decent. Definitely watchable compared to the other crappy movies releasing of late. The characters are a delight to watch and the story-line albeit not being smooth, is agreeable. The flow of the movie is always towards daylight and not towards darkness. 'Darkness' is in fact, a word all too common in TWT, used to indicate Indian villages. That is where SM differs from TWT - Positive v/s Negative tone in describing India’s mess.

Both have now swept awards in their respective categories. And they have a common theme. When was the last time, works as Indian as these, grabbed such worldwide attention? No rocket science to understand what the world makes out of it. Catch BBC/CNN sometime - a rioter attacking the police in China will get more coverage than say, a similar case in Algeria. Similarly, India's gutters will draw more attention than Ethiopia's. Will anyone be interested in SM if it was based in Ethiopia? Obviously No. The reason is simple.  The world has been told that India is on the rise, to be wary of India, and so on. When the same world is exposed to something degrading in the new challenger, it laps it up in its entire splendor. Not that it is always meant to ridicule, but also for the awe and shock of it. A kid in NY who has been told India is the next big thing is bound to be astounded by a way of life as bizarre as the one shown in SM.

For an Indian critic, SM was pathetically mediocre to deserve 8 Oscars (LOTR-Fellowship of the Ring won just 4). But the fact remains that out of the 8 Oscars, 3 were won by Indians, for their previously unknown talent in the international scene. A star is made only when people recognize someone to be one. In this way, the movie is a god-sent for India. Actors, artists and technicians from India who always deserved bigger bucks will now indeed start commanding them. Just FYI, Frieda Pinto now is worth twice as much Ash. Rahman status won't change much in India after this (genius has a superlative term?), but the world will look at him completely differently, a double Oscar winner.

Now I rate SM and TWT based on not just the quality of the content, but the significance and sensibility of the two works:

SlumDog Millionaire: 4/5

The White Tiger: 2.5/5

Quick Suggestion: Look forward to SM, while do read TWT. Both expose things which we push under the carpet all too comfortably. However IMHO The Dog beats The Tiger.

 

Midnight, at the Andheri Station Bus Stop, I snapped up this interesting coincidence through my N82. Yeah, it's my Indyeah!!

Friday, February 20

Bell Bajao, Ring The Bell...

A real life story with minor liberties:

Vinod Kumar never felt so miserable. This, in a life full of sufferings and a troubled childhood. From the slums of Chennai, he had risen like a phoenix often does - this, after his parents’ death at a tender age. The meritorious boy he was, he paid up for schooling through scholarships. Along came college and Vinod had outshone others and eventually, secured a handsome paying job at a private firm in Mumbai. Wanting to start his life afresh, he left Chennai and headed for the city of dreams.

Day one of his first job, and it was there that he met Richika Gupta. Now, she was as beautiful a girl he had ever seen in his life. Not that Chennai doesn't have cute girls, but he instantly knew there was something special in her which he had never found in another of her kind. A Southie who had never ventured outside Chennai all his life and a Northie who had all along been in Roorkee! As diverse as they were, they hit out instantly. She liked him for his intelligence and more so for his childish innocence. And he liked for he didn’t really understand what. They went around, to the cinemas, to the parks, to the lounges. Marriage was now not a question of if, but when. And sure it happened, she proposed and he couldn’t have disposed in a thousand years.

The Guptas were a liberal lot and the marriage was grand. They moved to a comfortable 2BHK flat in Goregaon, like the one he had always dreamed of owning in his childhood, back in the Chennai. She continued working as that was what she always intended to do and he could never have said no to anything she ever wanted. Life was all that he had wanted – A house of his own in the great city, a wife as beautiful and caring as he could ever have hoped for. And then, one day he came to know that he was to about double that joy. He was about to become a father. And when he did arrive, the baby boy, the couple found a new meaning to life.A feeling of playing God, which they cherished beyond words. Life was indeed being dangerously kind to him.

A month passed, and then two and then six. She had been thinking of joining back at work for quite some time now. Career was after all, as important as family to her. Besides, the baby no longer lived off her anymore. On a particular day, she casually informed Vinod about her decision to join work. The man who had let her be her own on every single matter till now, somehow could not accept this. This was the first time he was going against her, because this time it was not about him, not about her, but about his son. He blankly vetoed her decision. She on her part could not understand what this was all about. The baby was growing up; she can’t forever be like this. A few years in a crèche and he would be on his own then. Why was Vinod being such a jerk all of a sudden? The tempers rose so did the decibels. And then it happened. He slapped her straight and square on her face. 

She stood shell-shocked for a few seconds only to be engulfed by a pulse of blinding rage. The princess of her parents, had been slapped by someone who had come just yesterday. She wept, ran into the bedroom and locked herself in. By now Vinod was regretting his deed; how could he ever hit a female, that too his wife. This was something totally against the principles he stood for. Impulsively, he rushed to the gardens to calm himself down. 

An hour later, he was slowly walking back. All this time, he had sketched out the plan to apologize, to pacify her. Back at the house, the door was left unlatched; he pushed it and entered. The baby and the mother were nowhere to be seen. The bedroom, empty. A paper on the bed shouted out to him to pick it up, and he did. Tears trickled down his eyes - she had left him, with the baby. 

He simply collapsed on to the floor. He despised his moment of rage but hoped that she had understood his intentions better. She hadn't taken her mobile along, for he had gifted it to her. He lay there with his eyes staring at the chandelier awaiting her call. Hours later, the door was being knocked. She was back, he thought. He was right. She was standing right there, but not with the baby, but with a relative. And behind them were the men in khakis. 

They kept him in the cell all through the night and it was in the morning that he was bailed out. The whole society was shocked when they came to know of the domestic violence case. It suddenly dawned on him how life had taken such an ugly turn. The dream he was living in was over. Reality - the great leveller. He decided there was no point in wanting to lead a life with her again, now that she had approached the courts directly, without caring to even speak a single word. He would now fight - for his son in the courts, alongside the domestic violence case filed against him.

Epilogue:

Four years later: Young Shashi is about to join his first day at preschool. His father and mother alight from the car and kiss him goodbye. Seconds later, Richika turns to Vinod and bursts into tears. She had returned to him a month back. She could no more live without her son and husband. The way she had been doing so for the past 3 years after the court had granted the boy’s custody to the father.

The ending describes the current real life status of the case. The epilogue is what I hope the family would be like with time. But sometimes this life is too short to forget the silly grudges we hold.


Quick Opinion: The law is being wrongly put to use in this particular case.