When the Slumdog had his day

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that Who Wants to be a Millionaire is apparently a live show. It doesn't matter that a slumdog speaks perfect English. It doesn't matter that the show's host tries to feed a contestant wrong answers, as if he had a stake in keeping the kid away from the big prize. The movie never asks you to believe it, just accept it. There is a reason why most people who have seen Slumdog Millionaire either love it or hate it. It's a movie that asks you to check your cynicism at the door. It's like magic. You know none of it is real, because how could it be. But believe for a moment that it IS, and you will be dazzled, intrigued and entertained.
Slumdog Millionaire has become an international sensation, another , possibly the brightest feather in the cap of Danny Boyle. It has a 95 percent rating on Rottentomatoes.com and an 8.7 user rating from IMDB after nearly forty thousand votes. And like all things that were never meant to be this big but did, it has attracted criticism from all quarters. Right now there seems to be three major gripes against the movie. Let's look at them one by one.

1) Slumdog Millionaire is not a 'believable' or 'real' movie. No it isn't. When did it claim to be ? It's a modern fairy tale (and if you think it's a little too brutal to be a fairy tale, read some of the stories before the Grimm Brothers degrimmed them for the kiddies.) set in the slums of Mumbai. It could be set in the slums of Mexico city, or Cape Town, or New York or any city where abject poverty lives side by side with BMW's and skyscraper's. It's not about reality. Jamal is not a real kid from the slums. Like I said, the fact that he can speak perfect English doesn't matter precisely because the movie doesn't even try to be real. The setting and the surroundings are rooted in realism, but the story of Jamal shines through as wildly implausible, improbable and heartwarming. It's not how things COULD be. It's how things SHOULD be.

2) Slumdog Millionaire does not paint a TRUE picture of India . This one actually makes me laugh. You don't say ??!!! Name me one movie, one single movie that captures India perfectly. Slumdog is not a movie about India, or even Mumbai. That's just where it's set. It's a movie about Jamal, a boy who was born in the slums but goes on to win a television quiz show and the heart of his childhood sweetheart through a series of extraordinary coincidences and sheer grit. Also, more than a little helping of brains. When the little Jamal, covered in shit, holds up a grubby hand defiantly clutching an autographed picture of Amitabh Bachhan, he does not represent all slum children. He is just the joy of achievement breaking through.

3)Slumdog Millionaire is a typical masala movie that Bollywood has done a million times before, and has been scoffed at for its trouble. I won't disagree with this statement entirely. Yes, it is a very masala movie. And Bollywood has tried to do it before. But never has it been this smart, this slick, and this beautiful. The child actors here look and act like little children. There is a hard edge to their innocence, as there should be. They are not obnoxious little angels, as bollywood has traditionally tried to represent children. They don't give sage advice to the elders about communal harmony and the goodness of man. Coupled with smart editing, a riotous use of colour, and the very effective-in-building-tension KBC music, Boyle may have made the perfect masala movie.

So does slumdog deserve the accolades it is getting? I vote a resounding yes. It will not be nominated for many awards in the acting category, although Ayush Mahesh Khedekar as the youngest Jamal gives a heartrending performance as brilliant as Darsheel Safary in TZP. Dev Patel has a limited range of expressions, most of them being some variation of bewildered, but his sullen anger in the opening scenes comes off well. Frieda Pinto is in there for too short a time (she comes in about 80 minutes into the movie) to judge, although she is competent in what she does. Anil Kapoor overacts as usual, but makes the character work as a slimeball . The problem with his Prem Kumar is that he is given no motivation to be this antogonistic towards Jamal. Is he jealous that a street kid could make it this far? Does he truly believe Jamal is cheating? There are no answers. Irrfan Khan does a bad guy/slightly less bad guy thing he is so adept at. But the stars of the movie are The child actors, the sights and sounds of Mumbai (and Agra), and a script that wraps you up if you let it, and gives you a thrill ride to remember.

The Noise of Music

Its half past midnight. Finally, after 9(nearly 10) gruelling hours of work, I want to go home. To sleep, perchance to dream as the saying goes. I climb into the company cab, lucky enough to get a front seat, which means I might be able to doze in peace and not fall over and crush a fellow passanger. Secure the seat belt, lock the door and in as meek and polite a voice as possible, communicate to the driver that since it's ten to one and the cab was supposed to leave at 12:30, maybe we should get going. Again, polite to the point of grovelling. The last person I want to fuck with right now is the guy who will be taking me home. So I carefully interject a lot of politeness in my voice. After a final goodbye to his friends and countrymen (Romans, sadly, were not available) the man saunters in, plops in his seat and reaches for the dashboard. I lean back and close my eyes.
The first indication that things won't go as well as I had hoped are my eardrums shattering. A sound like the last trump bellows in my ear that all is not right with the world. Peace and quiet, the twin maidens I had been dreaming about turn tail and run. I jerk spasmodically and try to sit bolt upright, an unfortunate and miscalculated move as the seat belt slams me back . Considerable chest pain notwithstanding, I look on in horror as the driver turns the volume knob on his stereo like there's no tomorrow. And no decibal limits either. He looks at me, pride shining in his eyes. I hear the unsaid words "Dude, it goes up to ellleven...."
The music, if I may play as fast and loose with a word, is some sort of Bhojpuri song about the pleasures of drink. Or maybe the evils of drink. Or maybe it's something devotional. I don't know. Don't care. All I know is that in order to go home safely, I will have to listen on. Maybe even smile and nod during the good bits. What are supposed to be the good bits ? Are there good bits? It's clear from the driver's expression that he feels audience participation, or at least appreciation is essential. I start panicking.
The car has a speaker, one of seemingly fifteen million, built right on the passanger side door. I press against it with my foot, hoping to mute the volume by a fraction of a decibal. The driver frowns a little, obviously wanting to wring as much entertainment out of his job as permissable by the laws of physics. He twiddles the knob once more some more (does the thing never stop turning ? What is it's breaking point exactly ?) and what I previously thought was the loudest noise in the world gets louder.
By now I am praying for a miracle, and I get one. A sweet voice, the sweetest sound I ever heard in my life, pipes in from somewhere among the recesses of the back seat "Bhaiya, sound zara kam kar dijiye please" The master of the chariot is obviously displeased, and I see four letter words, or at least their country cousins hovering near his lips. But he holds his tounge and lowers the volume by a fraction of an inch. Ahhh, peace and quiet. Also, the fact that I have gone partially (and perhaps permanently) deaf helps matters a great deal.
By now we have started dropping people off. My knowledge of Delhi roads being limited to 'Roads MCD has dug up' and 'Roads MCD are about to dig up', I have of course no way of knowing exactly how close I am to home sweet home. But it should be close, and with the volume somewhere at about only double the legally permissable, I may even get there with some of my sanity still intact. It is at this point that the sweet girl, my saviour, light of my life decides to fet off. The bitch. There is a flash of fingers and a dirty sleeve, and one twist later, we are back to rock 'n' rolling all night.


Next time, I'm walking home.

A President of Hope

Dear U.S.A.
Congratulations. You finally made it. It took eight years, billions of Dollars, thousands of bodies and God knows how much in goodwill, but you finally have an elected representative in the big white building. You came out, hardly unscathed, but make it out you did. You finally woke up to realise that wars on nouns don't really turn out too well.
See what I just did there? A cynical sarcastic comment. But we all seem to be so cynical these days. Cynicism, negetivity are the new black. You know, cool. But then I saw something. I saw a woman cry. I saw her face go from anxious hope, through a whole gamut of emotions, and finally break into tears of unrestrained joy (and maybe even a little bit of relief?). I saw her mouthing the words "We did it" over and over again. Of course it was on television. But it was more real than anything I have seen recently.
Display of emotions like these are reserved for sporting contests. But politics ? Really ? Who cares if one incompetent fools replace another on the seat of power? That's the way most of us see politics these days. It's an excuse to badmouth some people and go back to our daily lives. But U.S.A., you finally made the world proud. You picked a man from nowhere and took him to the top. Because you realised you COULD do it. And only you could. It wasn't enough to hope for change, you'd actually have to get it yourself.
I envy you, you know. I really do. I don't say this because you have a great president, someone who will wave his little magic wand and make your problems go away. Whether he can get you out of the hole you have dug yourself into remains to be seen. Some say he is the right man. I say, let's wait and watch. Maybe he is. but that's not because why I envy you.
I envy you because finally, FINALLY you have a leader, not just a politician, as your President. Someone who you can cry for, someone who inspires you, someone who makes you feel like he could change the world and for a pinch, so can you. For too long we have had leaders who elicit emotions restricted to anger, bigotry or hate. Leaders who inflame passions of all the wrong kinds. That does not mean we don't have good leaders. Our own Prime Minister is a good man, a smart man. A humble, intelligent, compassionate man. I truly believe he is. But he does not make me FEEL. He does not make me wan't to go out there in the rain just to hear him speak. You have such a man.
President Barack Obama has a tough job ahead of him. But he has you, his countrymen by his side. He is a black man who got elected to the highest office of the Unites States of America. A country where only eighteen percent of the population share his skin colour. This goes beyond race. He could do this because he could drag you out of the culture of cynicism you had settled into. Lets hope he can do all that you hope he can. The world will be watching.
Thank you.

Revisiting the Final Frontier

First, a flash of light. Sparks. The scrape of metal on metal. A hand with a welders gun. A face hidden by goggles. The goggles come off. The man looks up with a face drenched in a mix of sweat and soot. The screen goes black. Another sound overlaps the various hums, clangs and sizzles. A voice. Voices. "The eyes of the world...". "The eagle has landed...". "A small step for man..." Bits of machinery. It's huge. The people are working on it, hanging on like insects on a tree. The camera goes wide...wider...wider... There she is. All other voices drown, or maybe converge into one.

"Space....the final frontier"

Enterprise.

I will not deny I had goosebumps. J J Abrams has a difficult...no, make that almost impossible job to do. Satisfy older fans like me and a billion others who are much much more hardcore....and bring new fans to the franchise. The problems are many. The fans are hungry. They want their ST fix, but won't settle for less. They don't WANT cheesy, not even in a good way. They want their heroes to be treated with a bit of respect. Can you do that Mr.Abrams ? I know you have said that this movie is not for fans of Star Trek, but fans of movies. But can you satisfy fans of movies and ignore fans of the show(s)? This will be Treks last shot in a long long time. Please don't screw this up Mr.Abrams. Please don't destroy the memories. Please let Star Trek BE Star Trek. The trailer made me hungry for more. So I have faith in you. Here's hoping it's justified.