TV ban: Dear Govt, Don’t decide for the viewer

For those of us used to our daily fix of sitcoms, the government’s watchful eye could well be trained on you. Recently, English comedy channel Comedy Central was pulled off the air on the grounds that the government found its content unsuitable for young people in the sense that it was obscene and vulgar.
On November 25, the Delhi high court upheld the Centre’s 10-day ban issued in May 2013 on Comedy Central. The channel went off air for four days last year and resumed after an appeal against the ban was filed in court. The high court had ordered the channel to remain off air for the remaining six days. However, the Supreme Court has now stayed the high court’s ban.
The court rulings apart, the government’s argument is flawed on two counts: One, it is shortchanging India’s youth and taking decisions on their behalf. Second, if the government is so concerned about the potential that certain shows “deprave, corrupt and injure the public morality and morals” it should turn its focus to our desi soaps which obviously have a greater reach and connect than the English TV programmes. Many Indian-made soaps, across the vernacular spectrum, show women being victimised and in perpetual suffering, and should catch the attention of the gatekeepers of our ‘culture’.
Soaps, which show women as inferior to men and which reinforce patriarchal norms where the woman is always the underdog do not seem to generate as much opprobrium as they should.  And how can a discussion on showing women as a “commodity of sex” be complete without mentioning the damage cinema, especially Bollywood, does to the Indian woman and ‘culture’. A UN-sponsored global study of female characters in popular films across the world showed that more than 35% women are objectified on screen. Last heard the government has done little to address this anomaly.
While the present government may not have moved for the ban, there is every reason for the present I&B ministry to look into the case and make sure that in future such blackouts and bans come into place only when there is a transgression that warrants severe action. It is also important that such provisions are not misused by those who claim to be the custodians of our collective ‘culture’.
Above all, it is not the government’s business to police the television-watching habits of the people. This is not to argue that all’s well with our entertainment media. There’s plenty of room for improvement and the I&B ministry can play a pivotal role here. What the people want are better and informative content — and not the state policing what they should and shouldn’t watch. Give the people quality content and let them be the masters of their decision. It is simple, if you don’t like something, switch off your TV.

Madras Cafe: good filmmaking ensures no bullet wasted

The movie business is evolving with every passing day and the rules of the games are changing. Lately, there seems to be a talk of only how much a movie earns (Rs100 cr….Rs200 cr…..), of the ensemble of stars or some trivial fact that is not worth remembering. The subject and story of the movie is that missing bit, something like fruit pulp in an aerated drink. And at a time when going to a theatre means removing your grey matter or smelling some nitrous oxide just to remain sane, Shoojit Sircar’s Madras Cafe is a welcome relief. At the outset let me make it clear that this movie is not going to the film archives for being a ‘path breaking cinema’. And yet this is a movie worth watching, if not for anything, for the simple fact that the makers of this movie have stayed true to their job. Rather than going over the top with jingoistic dialogues or cacophonic screams of patriotism, Sircar keeps the whole tenor at a mellow, on-the-ground pace giving the whole experience more credibility.

John Abraham is the main protagonist, but as you would have read by now, the script is the hero of the movie. Madras Cafe, by far, is the most rewarding performance by John Abraham. For an actor, whom I have always thought, was getting typecast as a macho-man of Bollywood, John pushes the bar high. He, probably, had the freedom of doing such an intense film because he is a part producer of the film. That however does not take anything from his performance in the movie.

Credit should be given to Shoojit Sircar. After Vicky Donor, not many would have betted on him to pull through a good movie in an entirely different genre. Casting in the film has also been commendable. Sircar seems to have got the right actors to do even small bits, be it Siddharth Basu as the R&AW head or Prakash Belawadi as the Jaffna Indian official.

Contrary to what has been seen with movies of this genre in India Sircar does not include a song in the movie. An item number (that petty excuse to get people talking about a movie) could have easily been put to show how the Tamil rebel leader enjoys his evenings, of course with a bonfire!

Rather than using John for his muscles and Nargis Fakhri for her looks, Sircar gives the characters they portray respectability and credibility, which is very essential for a movie that, though is claimed to be fictitious, has an uncanny resemblance to an event in history that is still a political hot potato for India and Sri Lanka.

Digressing from the movie, the timing of the release of Madras Cafe and its importance is interesting. It is quite understandable that the politicians in Tamil Nadu have seen red over the film. For the Congress this is a sure morale booster and I’m wondering why they have not gone about distributing free copies of the film. After all, it revisits the assassination of our former PM who was stressing for peace in the neighbourhood. What better message to give in an election year. I still can’t understand why the BJP is opposing the film.

All said, Madras Cafe is a movie worth watching and you will not have to keep your brains back home. In fact do brush you history and Tamil a bit.

This latte tastes better than an Express blend.

The Dutt case highlights the need for better conditions in Indian jails

Film actor Sanjay Dutt going to prison has highlighted an aspect of our jails in the country that seldom get mention —they are unsafe places to end up in. Many prominent people have come out demanding that Dutt be provided better conditions in the jail, where he will be serving the remaining part of his five-year sentence for possessing illegal weapons during the 1993 bomb blasts in Mumbai. The narrative, much in Bollywood style, goes that Dutt’s life is in danger while in prison and that he should be given better facilities as he is a reformed person. While there might be an inkling of truth in these fears given that our prison safety records are poor, it should not be used as an excuse for preferential treatment towards a select few because of their status in society. Giving select privileges to certain prisoners should be stopped. A crime, irrespective of who does it, is a crime and this principle should be meted out in prisons. Entitlements — like special food, greater freedom in the prison, comfy beds and air-conditioners — rob the purpose of serving a sentence and diminish the fear of committing a crime.
On the contrary, the fear of unsafe prisons should be used as a case for improving the conditions in the thousands of jails that dot the topography of the country. Overcrowded jails where both under-trials and convicted criminals share the same space — which is a human rights violation — is a common sight in most of the prisons in India. Overcrowding often leads to bad management of inmates by prison authorities and this leads to crimes inside the prison and also leads to appalling hygienic conditions. The Tihar jail, the largest in South Asia, is also frighteningly overcrowded and it was here that Ram Singh, a main accused in the December 16 gang rape case, was attacked and found dead in his cell. By not improving the conditions in prisons across the country, India is violating the UN Human Rights Committee norms (and norms of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights). According to a March 2011 report of the Asian Centre for Human Rights, more than 12,000 people have died in Indian prisons over the last decade — that’s an alarming three people a day.
Our overcrowded prisons and poor living standards need to be looked into and changed if jails should actually be centres for reform and not dungeons from which there is no escape.

Modi: The virtual is more powerful than the real

Narednra Damodardas Modi is an interesting phenomenon. I say phenomenon, and not person, owing two reasons: not much is being talked about Modi the person. While the media, along with other political parties, lose no chance to amplify and dissect the lives of other politicians, little is discussed about Modi’s life. The second reason is that there seems to be a conscientious effort to project Modi as a larger-than-life person. The latest effort in this direction was Modi’s virtual addressing of overseas Gujaratis in 20 cities in the United States on the occasion of Gujarat Divas. The subject of his talk was more or less on predictable lines — the prosperity Gujarat has seen under him, his vision for development and the peril the country is under the leadership of the Congress-led UPA. Interestingly, he also sought contributions for a statue — twice the size of the State of Liberty — of Sardar Patel.
This is not the first time Modi has made news for being the Lawrence of Arabia among Indian politicians for being the pioneer to use the World Wide Web to connect with the people. From 2005 Modi has been addressing the Gujarati community in the US on Gujarat Diwas. Modi became the first — and probably the only — Indian politician to address a rally using 3D hologram projection technology. His 3D virtual show that was simultaneously telecast at 53 places in December 10, 2012, using the Pepper’s Ghost Illusion technology entered the Guinness Book of World Records. News is that the BJP is all set to go bigger with the 3D show that in the next few months more such virtual appearances are expected where the Gujarat strongman will address people in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. The NaMo Gujarat TV, a cable network channel that was launched prior to the Gujarat elections, is dedicated to highlighting the achievements of the BJP and it is all set to cater to a national audience.
On March 21, Modi spoke to thousands of netizens using Google+ Hangout on how IT technology has been used for better governance. Modi also has a very strong presence on social networking sites. When last checked he had more than 16 lakh followers on Twitter. That is a little shy of 17 lakh 70 thousand followers minister of state for human resource development Shashi Tharoor commands. Modi also has an active presence in Facebook, Youtube and Google+. This is an achievement not many chief ministers in India can boast about.

While in his virtual avatar Modi seems to be a towering edifice, in reality there appears to be chinks in the armour. Modi makes it a point to highlight the prosperity and development Gujarat has achieved under his leadership. The industry houses rushing to set shop in the state are proof of this. However, there is also the other side of the story where Gujarat has high levels of malnutrition and very poor social indices. Despite his juggernaut victories in the assembly polls in Gujarat, he has not been able to replicate that victory in any of the other states. His campaign speeches and visits during the 2012 Uttar Pradesh polls and the recent Karnataka elections seem to have a damp effect given that the party did not fare well in both the states. In the recent Karnataka debacle the party got such a thorough hiding that the effect of his campaign visits in the south is being questioned.
The allies in the NDA, of which the BJP is the principal party, are also not keen on projecting Modi as the coalition’s prime ministerial candidate. Nitish Kumar, Bihar’s chief minister and JD(U) leader, in April made it clear that his party was not for Modi. There is also an element of doubt surrounding the acceptability of Modi as the party’s candidate within the BJP. The party’s dilly-dallying in naming him as its candidate reflects this difference of opinion within the party and the RSS.
As of now, going by the results in Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka, among others, it seems that Narendra Modi has a virtual presence outside Gujarat. He has proved, three times in a row, his stature in the state, but beyond the state borders it is not as luminous as projected or perceived to be. However, there is a lot of time between now and the 2014 elections and it is hard to predict how things will shape up by then.
For now, the shrill cry of the thousands of Modi followers (fans) is akin to the fans of an Upendra or Mohanlal strongly pushing for their superstar to have dominance in Bollywood.

Politicians are not above the law — Boston showed that to Azam Khan

In what can be only seen as a new high — or low — in political paranoia UP urban development minister Azam Khan has said that his detention at the Boston Logan International Airport late last week was a conspiracy hatched by external affairs minister Salman Khurshid to defame him outside India. The detention — which according to some media reports was for about 10 minutes — ruffled a lot of feathers in the UP government. Reacting to it UP chief minister Akilesh Yadav cancelled his talk at Harvard University and also chose to skip a reception hosted by the Indian consul general at New York. Thus what should have been a routine security check has been blow out of proportion and the Samajwadi Party is chasing a phantom of its own imagination. Anyone who has travelled to the United States, Europe or even Israel will list out the inconvenient, and at times unpleasant, experiences of security checks one has to go through at the airports there. One cannot overlook the positives of being extra cautious, especially at times when the organisations and people with bad intentions are getting innovative by the day.
Azam Khan is missing the woods for the trees in his charge that he was singled out because he was a member of a particular religious community and was thus unfairly targeted. Security checks, irrespective of race, religion, etc, are norms different countries adopt to ensure safety of its citizens. The UP minister is not the first person to be ‘humiliated’ in such a scenario. Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan and former Union minister George Fernadez was also subject to such security checks. Most notably, former president APJ Abdul Kalam was frisked at JFK airport in 2011. While Kalam played down the incident and was not irked about it, the leader from UP is in no mood see reason. Given that the Azam Khan incident — if at all a routine security measure can be called so — comes a few days after the Boston marathon bombings, one cannot find fault with the airport authorities if they were a wee bit extra cautious in their duty.
Winston Churchill, former British prime minister, had a point while saying “The price of greatness is responsibility” and responsibility, it seems, is a trait wanting in many of our netas. What seems to have been hurt in this process is the fragile ego of our leaders. Much used to having all doors being open and royal treatment being meted out — often to the discomfort of others —politicians find it below their standing to follow the rules. Such an attitude might pass off in India but there is no point in getting miffed when asked to comply by the laws when abroad. One would have thought that such measures would dawn upon our leaders the realisation that when it comes to security, no one is above the law. Is it too much to ask from our politicians?
(An edited version of this appeared in the Hindustan Times on April 30)

Beautiful Soldiers, Brave Daughters

‘Do you have it in you’ is a tagline the Indian Army uses for its recruitment drive. They say you walk in as a boy into the armed forces and come out as an officer and gentleman. All these, one thought, was enough to the get the blood rushing through the veins and jump the queue to get recruited into the army. And how wrong a notion that was is evident in a rather novel way a local recruiter for the army chose to advertise. A billboard in Shillong with the photographs of Priyanka Chopra, Anuskha Sharma, Preity Zinta, Gul Panag and Celina Jaitley had the caption: If you want to have Beautiful and Successful Daughters JOIN INDIAN ARMY’. What is common among the Bollywood actors mentioned is that they all belong to army families.
There are many examples of successful women who can be associated with the army — the billboard advertisement being an example. It’s robs reason as to why it was not thought motivating enough to feature testimonies of women officers in the force? Another point that gets us pondering is how do the recruiters vouch for ‘beautiful’ daughters? To find answers we plan to approach the Armed Forces Medical College in Pune and maybe even call on at the DRDO Bhavan in New Delhi to check if they have come up with a secret formula that will bring the cosmetic industry to a grinding halt.
What about the ‘sons’ of those who join the Indian Army? It’s hard to recollect if any of them lost their way into Bollywood or stardom. Then again, in the great skewed Indian patriarchal society, isn’t it a sine qua non that ‘sons’ are successful. We guess it was this paucity of successful and handsome sons that got the local recruiters to focus on daughters. In all likelihood womens’ organisation will not see red over this — after all it is showing women as successful. We’re also not getting critical about the idea and have come up with a suggestion: rather than putting up such an advertisement in Shillong, Meghalaya, which is way up on the sex ratio table in India, the agencies should think about such moves in Chandigarh, Delhi and Haryana — that sit comfortably numb at the bottom of the table. This might help improve the sex ratio and increase the applicants to the Indian Army. Two birds with one stone they say.
(An edited version of this appeared in the Hindustan Times on April 22)

Ente: Human Trafficking Comes to Celluloid

Every second movie that comes out on any given Friday is based on a ‘real story’. It is a tag line that has been done to death and is passed off along with the disclaimer. So when social activist Sunita Krishnan, Founder General Secretary of Prajwala, dons the hat of a film producer and when her movie has a tag line ‘a never before told true story’, eyebrows are bound to rise. “I am aware that there is a chance for a prejudice that, since I am a social activist and Rajesh Touchriver is a filmmaker whose documentary films are famous, the film is also on those lines. However, Ente is far from that. Rajesh (Touchriver), while ensuring that the scenes are true to the real events, has made sure that its entertainment quotient is not lost. The promos for Ente are slick and it’s an edge-of-the-seat thriller.”
Ente produced by M S Rajesh and Sunita Krishnan and directed by Rajesh Touchriver is a story about human trafficking and stars veteran Malayalam actor Siddique and NSD product Anjali Patil (in pic above). Ente is a movie about human trafficking. “I’ve conducted many talks and done short films to get across the message of human trafficking. I have personally rescued more than 1,500 girls and each one is a story in itself. However, there was this one incident that really shook me. It had to be told.”
Sunita Krishnan, who is also the concept adviser for the film, calls Ente a ‘family thriller’. “Ente is not your usual masala thriller with stunts by the hero and item numbers at the silliest of pretext. It’s a movie you can go and watch with your family. In fact that is how one should go and watch this film. It deals with a story that can happen to anyone; to anyone’s sister, daughter or friend. Every man watching the movie could be the father, brother, husband or friend caught in such a situation. I want the movie to linger in the minds of the audience and slowly sink into each person long after they have left the theatre. They should realise that human trafficking is an evil that is prevalent in their midst. It is not this distant vice that until recently was considered to not happen in ‘our society’.”
Ente is slated for a December 21 release and is pitted against at least four other movies that release at the same time. “The number of screens in Kerala is coming down over the years while the number of movies releasing each year is on the rise. We’ve had a lot of difficulty in going about with the release and are still on it. So it’s a great thing that we are able to release the film during the Christmas holidays. It has all the elements of a mainstream thriller and with the brilliant performances of Siddique and Anjali Patil it can’t go wrong,” says a confident Sunita. It’s the same confidence that comes across when Siddique says, “These days it’s hard to judge any movie before it hits the theatres. Gone are those days when the outcome of a movie could be predicted. The audience are changing and Ente is a good and different movie. It is something that the Malayalam industry and audience have not seen till date.”
Ente, is a bilingual (in Telugu as Na Bangarru Talli) has music by Bollywood composer Shantanu Moitra (of Parineeta fame) and features a song by Shreya Ghosal, which by now is a hit in the social networking circuit.

'I have no Image'

Among the kaleidoscope of roles he has portrayed, we’ve seen Siddique as a comedian and we’ve seen him as a menacing villain. However, to quote the actor, in Ente he is doing a “life changing role”. “As an actor every role is challenging and different…but what stood out in Ente is a story. It’s the story of a father and daughter; a very caring father who in a moments time loses his daughter.”
A highlight of the movie is that scenes have been shot in locations where the real incident took place. “We went to real locations for shooting this film. There is a scene in a brothel and a lot of women there hurl abuses at the protagonist. Rajesh (Touchriver) has focused on small things and has shown them as real as possible. It was an entirely different experience.”

Sunita Krishnan, while agreeing that the role of the protagonist was initially offered to a senior actor, has no regrets now. “Things happen for a purpose. While the actor we approached was concerned about his ‘image’, I now can’t think of anyone other than Siddique for the role of the father. He has done a brilliant job and has done absolute justice to the character.”
When asked if he had apprehensions about the role and whether it would affect his image, Siddique was quick to reply: “I don’t have an image. I do all kinds of roles — both negative and positive. It’s superstars who are worried about their ‘image’.”
(An edited version of this appeared in The New Indian Express on December 12)

Bollywood Loses the Plot and Trivialises the Issue

Film stars discovering themselves on television shows, be it reality shows, chat shows or even soaps, is not a recent phenomenon. There is also nothing novel about the media frenzy — doctored without doubt — surrounding it. These days with TV rivalling cinema as we know it there isn’t much surprise that many film stars — even the so-called superstars — are testing new waters. Even though only a handful of these film stars who have ventured into the small screen have tasted success, it nevertheless is still a very enchanting milieu.
The entry of Aamir Khan — last of the troika Khans in Bollywood to do so — with an ‘Oprah Winfrey type show’ into every Indian living room was pitched sky-high. Three episodes old Satyamev Jayate is the talk of the town — or at least that is what the media keeps reminding us by saying that the show has broken all known records on TV viewing records and has forced law-makers take decisions.
It is telecast at the ‘Mahabarat’ slot —11 am on Sunday. Telecasting at a coveted timing, however, will alone not do the trick. Unlike the epic, Satyamev Jayate does not have drama, grandeur and flamboyance. What it has, instead, is an artificial, thrust-down-your-throat packaging of reality. If the producers of Satyamev Jayate thought they could replicate the Mahabarat success, it only goes to show their overconfidence in their marketing genius. Mahabarat is an Indian epic, with almost all the essential ingredients to keep one glued to the TV. That it was based on a religious text helped in its success.
Satyamev Jayate, on the other hand, speaks about taboo issues that are unfortunately prevalent in our society but none would want to address. This in no way is to undermine the importance of the topics that are discussed, but how many people would want to spend a lazy Sunday morning listening to issues that many cringe at?
The promoters of the show have heavily relied on the image of Aamir Khan as a crusader for social causes and have taken great pains to show that the issues discussed are close to his heart. The fact that female foeticide is close to the actor’s heart will make good Page 3 news or will make headlines in news channels that have unashamedly blurred the lines between news and entertainment. The question is: how does it matter to someone who is taking such a decision, wrong as it is, either due to ignorance or pressing circumstances whether Aamir Khan is against the practice? Film stars or celebrities have not been able to create such a profound impact in society. If that was the case, law and order would have been much better in the country given the number of police-officer roles the popular film stars have portrayed.
In the effort of covering Aamir Khan in an activist armour the promoters of Satyamev Jayate have actually done harm to his image as an entertainer. That, one presumes, explains the clarification given by the actor shortly after first episode of Satyamev Jayate stating that he was just an ‘entertainer’. It perhaps seems that it was seen as necessary to disassociate the ‘star’ from the ‘cause’, not because the ‘cause’ was not worthy to be associated with the ‘star’ but because contrary to expectations the ‘cause’ was hampering the image of the ‘star’.

An overkill of activism is eating into the ‘entertainment’ quotient Aamir Khan is commanding, and there is little argument that projects he is associated with are the most anticipated ones in Bollywood. In addition to the quality of the film and publicity surrounding it, what gives an Amir Khan movie an edge is the fact that unlike many other stars there is a certain invisibility about the actor from the public eye and rampant speculation about the project/film. Satyamev Jayate brings him in the news almost every day, into the living room space and thereby killing an anticipation that earlier existed. One wonders how this will affect his Talaash, which is now slated for a November 2012 release and by then Satyamev Jayate would have run its whole season and Aamir Khan would have addressed almost all social evils in the country. Would this constant reminder of what ails our society hamper Aamir Khan’s glow? After all, who likes someone who always points out the mistakes in us?
Finally, recent news reports linking Satyamev Jayate to Parliament passing a Bill on child molestation and Rajasthan seriously considering addressing female foeticide is wrong on two counts. First, it trivialises these important social evils. One only wishes addressing these issues was such an easy task. Secondly, to say that our politicians wake up and take note only if celebrities speak is a sad state of affairs.

Spinning Yarns Glorifying Silver Screen Mannequins

A few years back Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan said in an interview that a filmstar’s shelf life in the industry was till a given Friday. He was referring to the fate of actors being decided by the audience with the release of a new movie every Friday. How I wish that was true. If that was the case --- of the audience, and the audience alone, getting to decide the fate of silver screen mannequins ostentatiously called superstars --- we would not have blockbuster hits but good cinema, we would not have superstars but actors, and the tribe of conniving pretentious conmen called ‘film critics’ would have been extinct by now.

Film critics can be compared to a glorified version of the effusively earnest broker, who for a cut in the deal would sell a dead duck as a daffodil. Follow the many reviews appearing every Thursday on newspapers/blogs/TV channels and one is left with the impression ‘this was the movie I have been waiting to watch all this while’. It gives the impression that suddenly our filmmakers have got it right and have reached a state where they cannot go wrong. A dearth of good scripts and actors have made sure that the same old plot is told, retold and told yet again – the difference being the location, number of item songs and, how can one forget, the ‘controversy’ and ‘news’ about the film. News about such developments and film critics are largely to be blamed for this sorry state of affairs. Words like ‘superhit’, ‘blockbuster’ and recently ‘terra hit’ have been abused beyond recognition. It is a different matter that with pre-budgeting a movie more or less recovers the money spent on it before its release. Given this one should work real hard to deliver a flop.
This being said there are a few critics who can be taken for their word or rather for what they do not say. This group speaks at length when the movie is good and if it is bad, they either choose not to comment or talk about the ‘positives you can take from the movie’. It is a survival tactic in an industry where criticism is largely not welcomed while ‘hero-worship’ and sycophancy is hogged upon. Thanks to inflated egos and an equally inflated purse such criticism is seldom heard, if not silenced. This group of hopefuls are a minuscule that does not match against the behemoth ‘film critic’.

Imaging: merilanand@gmail.com

The media is also to blame for cultivating this trend and breeding the ‘film critic’. With various media organisations coming in competition grew and so did news coverage. While that was the positive, the flipside was the birth of an oxymoronic entity called ‘entertainment journalism’. The race for ‘exclusive’ interviews, juicy gossip and inane details about people associated with the film industry ensured that ‘stars’ were never rubbed the wrong way. Add to this the curse of paid-news and we have an overkill of ‘entertainment news’.
Coming back to Shahrukh Khan: No doubt he is a superstar and has been entertaining the nation for more than two decades. But then again Lalu Prasad ruled Bihar for more than a decade and it would suffice to say that the state is better without him (not to forget that he has been entertaining us for years now).
(The appeared as a Middle on The New Indian Express edit page on March 6)

Bollywood denies Boyle’s mirage on Mumbai

I cannot recollect when I first heard about Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire. It caught my attention after I heard Jaya Ho on MTV and saw that the film was creating ripples on the international circuit by winning four Golden Globes, three Chicago Film Critics Award, three Satellite Awards, 10 Academy Award nominations and 11 nominations for the BAFTA Awards among many other laurels. Reviews have praised the treatment of the film as unique and refreshing.
It may be an inane notion to contradict popular choice, but I refused to believe Slumdog was a good film. As though we don’t have enough of them, the promos showed Anil Kapoor as a quizmaster in a TV game show, with slum children running throughout the montage.
In a week’s time Slumdog managed to do what every Bollywood film wants: attract the attention of a billion people. This in itself is an achievement given that most promising Bollywood masala films are received with a yawn. While movie buffs were praising Allah Rakkha Rahman’s music in the film, Indian film industry insiders were trying to work out how an Oliver Twist-meets-Richie Rich film shot by a foreigner had captured the imagination of the nation.
With fame comes foes and Slumdog is no exception. The detractors focus on two aspects. First, that it is being seen as an Indian/Bollywood film. Though the definition of an ‘Indian’ film is vague, Slumdog fails on certain prerequisites such as an Indian director and production house. But the film has other kinds of ‘Indian-ness’, an Indian cast, music director, co-director, milieu, and of course, a love triangle, hero-in search-of-childhood-sweetheart, betrayal and, even a dance sequence in a railway station. In that sense it is more Bollywood than Bollywood.
The second charge is the old whinge that when foreigners make a film on India they choose poverty. A theme that not many would want to associate with, a theme that India would not want to project to an international audience and a theme not many in Bollywood could relate to. As a veteran Bollywood director noted, from Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali onwards, filmmakers have eternalised poverty on screen.
Whoever raked up the issue might be unaware that almost all international indices on health, livelihood, maternal mortality, malnutrition and, female foeticide, infanticide and mortality, place India in alarmingly dangerous categories (India’s surplus of hunger, TNIE Jan 15). We can’t deny that.
The tempo of protest and reactions may have been different if the film had been made by Nagesh Kukunoor or Madhur Bhandarkar or Vishal Bharadwaj. The fact that a Briton has highlighted slums and poverty is a bitter pill to swallow.
The chances are that Slumdog, being a foreign production, would not have been noticed if not for the international acclaim. Recall Madhur Bhandarkar’s Traffic Signal released in 2007. It exposed the underbelly of our metropolises, but the cacophony we hear over Slumdog was not heard then. Bhandarkar’s film showed the murky side of city life in greater detail. In contrast, Boyle’s treatment has an almost innocent yet refreshing touch. One sees the joys of living in a slum — an aspect none of the ‘Indian’ films have captured. In that sense, it is about hope and optimism.
In an interview, Boyle said it was not poverty that attracted him to make the film but the ‘rags to rajah’ theme — a universal theme. But what if Boyle had been attracted to poverty and its omnipresence in Indian cities? Mumbaikars know that close to 60 per cent of them live in slums or ghettos alongside 10 of the Top-100 richest in the world, in many cases both sharing the same postal index number.
Maybe Slumdog has come at the wrong time. India as a nation is in denial. We are refusing to accept that our personal security (Mumbai 26/11), economic security (financial meltdown) and much-vaunted corporate growth (Satyam fraud) are like a mirage. Films seem to be the only comfort and Slumdog has invaded even this haven. We deny that the slums and life shown in the film are real and construe them to be a figment of the director’s imagination — a mirage the director has seen.
We surround ourselves with run-of-the-mill stories of love triangles. We prefer dancing jodis, re-incarnation and separated-at-birth tales. We forget that by taking these films internationally we show the world the India we prefer to see, the India we choose to acknowledge. By making films on India, others show the India they see and understand.
And we deny it.
(http://epaper.newindpress.com/NE/NE/2009/01/23/ArticleHtmls/23_01_2009_011_002.shtml?Mode=1)

Bollywood at its shrewdest

PUBLIC memory is short. To see larger than-life characters on 70MM, to forget a harsh reality called life, we willingly suspend disbelief and cherish the action on screen. But public memory is not short as in the case of Sanjay, the protagonist in Aamir Khan’s Gajini, whose memory span is not more than 15 seconds or so. We remember what we consider important and what we are told is important. Similarly we keep a tag on our celebrities — what they do, what they don’t, and what they are believed to have done. No celebrity is immune to this scrutiny.
In a scorching April in 2006 he braved the Delhi summer and extended his support to the Narmada Bachao Andolan and the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. The next day was the DVD release of his movie Rang De Basanti. More than appreciation, he received flak from all quarters, so much so that activists asked him to stop promoting a soft drink and his movie Fanaa was not screened in Gujarat.
Two years later, he again braved an unforgiving Delhi April and ran with the Olympic torch. This time (as mentioned in his blog) he ran “with a prayer in my heart for the people of Tibet, and indeed for all the people across the world who are victims of human rights violations”. He might have had little option, as the soft drink giant he was endorsing was an official partner for the games.
This winter he is back, with a new cause. Yes, it is 26/11 — the talk of the town. This time he has expressed a desire to postpone the release of his movie, slated for Christmas day, as he is yet to come out of the ‘shock’ of the attack and is not in a frame of mind to think about movies. A closer scrutiny would reveal the arithmetic behind the thought. The fact is it might not be a good time to release a big budget movie. Post-26/11 around 70 theatres/multiplexes in Mumbai saw less than 25 per cent collection till the second week of December.
Another reason for Aamir Khan’s press conference on Id-ul-Adha could be that Shah Rukh Khan, whose movie Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi released on December 12, has been all over the media speaking about religion, his movie and the terror attack.
Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi is clearly the most anticipated Bollywood film in recent times, and is hogging all the light. While trade pundits bet on the movie for its freshness and the SRK-Aditya Chopra team, the feedback from distributers and moviegoers is that it has the power to bring the audience back to theatres post-26/11 — and the movie seems to be doing that.
Other than the fact that it is an Aamir Khan movie, there’s nothing fresh about Gajini. The heroine is a new face in Bollywood and so is the director. The storyline is known, as it is a remake of a Tamil movie ‘inspired’ by an English one. It might be this fear that has made the actor market his movie in a way best known to him — get hold of a contemporary issue, identify himself and then the movie with it.
Bollywood has been all over the media, expressing shock and making suggestions on the lapses, what needs to be done and how the nation can fight terror. It seems everyone is an expert in terror management except the government and police. Sanjay Dutt was among the first from Bollywood to be interviewed after the attacks — maybe the anchor thought firsthand information on how hard it is to handle an AK-47 would give some perspective on how much training the killers received in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir or wherever they came from. It is not Aamir Khan’s acting skills that are in doubt. It is his concerns that often come across as the conniving shrewdness of a politician who waits for the press before paying floral tributes at a leader’s memorial.