Land of slumdog millionaires !!

I tribute this piece of my writing to a post that my friend had written in his blog (http://rahulbhandarizz.blogspot.com/2009/03/indian-media-goes-hysterical.html)..

my friend you truly inspired me to write this blog :)

My friend says, ''Even the NGO's have vouched that they have never seen maiming of children for begging.
Have you ever seen a blind child begging????? ''

 Well friend, I have heard similar comments that what has been shown in the movie is not the true picture of India and its about glamorizing poverty and making money out of it.

 All that I do at such comments is just smile :) We have a habit in living in ignorance and when someone tries to show us the mirror or the truth we refrain from accepting it. Do we really want the world to ignore our poverty as we do?? 

If the NGOs haven't seen what has been shown in the movie about the poverty and kids, one these are the NGOs which are like most of the millions NGOs (yes NGOs in India are in millions) that don’t work and second they are afraid, ignorant and too sophisticated people to face the truth. But there have been numerous police and law cases where kids have been blinded and their hands and feet are broken so that they can beg effectively.

 And my friend this is no movie but a dark reality that we fail to see. It does not exist in our veil of ignorance. I HAVE PERSONALLY SEEN A KID WHO WAS WILLING TO COMMIT SUICIDE FOR A LOSS OF Rs. 40.

 And till the time we shun this truth and not recognize this reality and work towards improving the conditions, movies like slum dog millionaire will time and again come to shock us.

 My friend also said, ''. The movie has only served the purpose of giving west another opportunity to look down on India, especially when they themselves are reeling under recession an India is growing healthy!!!!''

 Well friend, this reminds me of the BJP election slogan of shining India. To be honest yes we may be developing at a better GDP growth rate [statistics are like miniskirts, what they reveal is important but what they hide is vital :) ], but to be honest the process by which GDP growth rates gets calculated is highly flawed, far from reality and irrelevant to a large extent!!

The healthy country that we are growing in is dying in a civil war (Naxals,alpha,bodo etc etc). Everyday a war is going on within our country. Hundreds of people are dying which don’t make it to daily newspapers. And this is currently happening in 15 states in India!!!! And the no. is increasing everyday!! This is more dangerous than our situation with our neighbors like Pakistan and China!! When are we supposed to wake up to this reality!!

 Then some movie will come on this situation and we will again decline the reality and say that the movie is a baseless fiction..

 And my friend also says, ''Now the west says, yes the image has indeed changed to "Slum Dog millionaires", who get this by god-damned luck rather than hard work.''

 Well friend as we all can remember the fact that when KBC was started we had a whole nation going crazy on telephone lines to get to the show and try their luck :) Its ok to use a bit of luck to get rich :) 

The animal that works the hardest is the donkey :) 

 And finally about the movie, i saw it, really liked it. I think it is a good movie. 

What I felt it was a movie that shows the young spirit of India. The young people who dream and believe that they can become millionaires even if they journey begins from slums. Dhirubhai taught us how to rise from the dust to become a millionaire many years ago, Danny boyle just gave the process a name :)

 And all of us are proud of the movie and most of all A.R.Rehman for winning the oscar. Slumdog did give him a platform for the world to listen to his music. I feel Rehamn has created even better music before, if we had more movies like slumdog, i am sure oscar would go to our Rehman each year and his house would get full of these trophies :)

 JAI HO

JAI HIND