Yes, we people from India are a strange lot. I routinely tell my students not to try to "understand" India because it is full of complex contradictions. There is no neat little narrative. Maybe India is truly a postmodernist society :-) So, I tell them to merely keep up with what ever goes on there ....Maybe it's a result of 200 years of colonialism, but Indians are world champions at caring - really caring! - about what foreigners (more accurately, Westerners) think or say about them. They will live blithely with impressively foetid slums in their midst, thinking nothing of the juxtaposition of Victorian-era poverty and world-class, 21st-century living standards. But the national outrage stirred when a Western film-maker uses “slumdog” in the title of his film is an incandescent sight to behold.
That foreigner's neologism (“slumdog” doesn't exist in real parlance in India, although gali ka kutta, or alley-dog, comes close) is thought to heap more shame on the land than the slums themselves. And yet when that same film, with that same neo-imperialist title, is fêted by tuxedoed Americans at an awards ceremony watched across the globe, Indians burst with pride. Eight Oscars, yaah! Isn't that a record? Isn't A.R. Rahman the best composer in the world? Isn't Bollywood bloody wonderful? And aren't our slums a lesson in how to overcome adversity and cruelty?
Aren't our slum people stoical, resilient, self-reliant, courageous, fraternal, resolute and inventive? Aren't our slum people the world's best slum people?
How celebratory is the mood in India? My mother, who rarely watches movies, and definitely not any new ones (I think) was all pumped up about AR Rahman grabbing two Oscars. The newspaper that I grew up with, The Hindu, had extensive coverage, including an editorial!
Here is an excerpt from that editorial:
The staggering interest in the fate of Slumdog Millionaire at the Oscars and the delight and celebration at its sweeping victory is a reflection of a curious but revealing fact. Although it has been made by a British Director and funded by a European company, it is seen by many at home as an Indian film. Unlike in Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi (which also won eight Oscars and which was also about how one man overcomes insurmountable odds), the cast of Slumdog Millionaire is almost entirely Indian. More importantly, the style that permeates the film is a curious amalgam — one that represents a true cinematic union between Hollywood and Bollywood. This interesting marriage was represented also in the choice of the film’s music, which earned India’s finest modern musician A.R. Rahman, whose compositions reflect a fusion of west and east, two richly deserved statuettes for the best original score and the best song. The recognition earned by the man who was once described as the Mozart of Madras should go a long way in opening Indian popular music to the world. India impacted on this year’s Oscars in another way, and one that deserves a special mention: the best documentary award to Smile Pinki. Shot in Bhojpuri and Hindi by Megan Mylan, it is a story about an Indian girl with a cleft lip who is socially ostracised before a social worker helps her avail of free surgery. In the midst of the delight over Slumdog Millionaire, we need to pause to also celebrate the victory of this life-affirming documentary about a real fairy tale.To bring things to a full circle, and relate all these to where I currently live and work .... well, Megan Mylan who made Smile Pinki has Oregon connections :-) Here is an excerpt from the Statesman Journal's report:
Although the Mylan family moved to Texas after Megan finished elementary school, Jack and Irene Mylan kept their home in southeast Salem, and they return to visit each summer.Jack was a longtime law professor at Willamette University until moving on to Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He since has retired.
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