Slumdog Millionaire - The Indian pysche gets offended

Slum dog millionaire has been globally extolled for its worth. In India, there have been mixed reactions. While we are beaming in all the attention Dan Boyle’s movie is providing, there have been accusations about the country being shown in bad light.

On one end of creative liberty, we accept Karan Johar making 3 hour movies where Gucci clad Amitabh dances with blonds and redheads. One can understand that Karan Johar is trying to woo the dollar bucks, but why isn’t he criticized for portraying India to be lavish when it clearly isn’t so. Creating positive vibes is good, but showing the not-so-lavish shouldn’t exactly be, offending? Well, may be the feel good emotions of such creations do help, however vicarious it might seem.

I am not trying to defend Slumdog behind the veil of reality, but simply as a product belonging to another end of creative expression. When compared to a run of the mill Bollywood money grosser, it clearly uses creative liberty in not portraying the affluent but rather celebrating the miserable and unfortunates (other end of the spectrum). I can’t help, but draw parallels with Gregory Roberts’ saga, Shantaram. So why is the movie offending to the Indian psyche? Is it because of the abused and homeless urchins? Is it for not-so-fair dusky toned heroine? Is it for the gaping religious and economic divide?

Let me guess.

I would like to call it a dichotomy. On one side of it, we always look at the brighter and greatly accentuated affluent (read Karan Johar movies), while on the other side we work to suppress the gloomy and miserable. It is like having an ugly-cyclops-like kid in your house you are afraid to let out of basement. Movies like Slum dog have been made by Indians too. Madhur Bhandarkar for instance. The only way to judge such movies is to treat them as pure creations just as we would openly do so to any other Bollywood movie.