I haven’t watched Slumdog Millionaire but I do think there is a grain of truth in what Amitabh Bachchan is saying. Just look at any issue of the National Geographic that has covered anything related to India and chances are you will see the same old Maharaja-Elephants-Turbans-Sadhus-Fakirs-Snakecharmer-Banaras Ghats routine.
It isn’t the fault of the NGC I’m sure because it has been an organisation which has done stellar work over the years. It is just that what sells best to choosy audiences are stereotypes and if it comes to India, then its best to leave the body and the brain of an India as a stuttering-but-progressing nation and go for the underbelly of an India as a problematic nation.
Think for yourself. If you go to watch a movie about Africa and the director gives you one of those sleek New York kind romances shot in Addis Ababa or Khartoum and completely gives a miss to lions, the Serengeti, the tribal dances, the occult and forests, would you enjoy it?
You’d come back with a smirk saying how the director completely missed infusing the ‘feel’ of Africa into the movie.
I think we are angry with Bachchan simply because we still do not want to acknowledge the fact that the India we see in Karan Johar’s movies and upmarket television business news channels still languishes somewhere at the bottom of the world’s consciousness. What the world’s wants is the underbelly and if Mira Nair walked away with applause for her Salaam Bombay, then you really can’t fault Danny Boyle for driving his creative car on the same pot-holed road, can you?
I know the Bongs might be very upset with the state’s foster son Bachchan taking a dig at the Bhadralok’s original genius Ray but then truth has always had that quality of being very hurtful when it comes garbed in iconoclastic clothes.
The happiest man of course in all this Slumdog Millionaire talk would be none other than AR Rahman. It had to take a genius to take down Illaiyaraaja and Rahman did it. Roja for the first time brought a sound to the film music that was second to none in the world music scene.
He followed it up with flashes of brilliance film after film and in the process pushed musical boundaries to the extent that he demolished for once and for all the north-south film divide that neither RD Burman or Illaiyaraaja could quite jump. Of course there is the case of Ravi Bombay or Salil Chaudhary but the two are surely not in the icon class of a Buman or Illaiyaraaja.
But what have you? When Rahman comes up with his most ‘inspired’ music with the electronic sound substituting for soul, the white man stands up and hands him a Golden Globe. He won’t complain. Bachcan for once is and let the fight continue.
It isn’t the fault of the NGC I’m sure because it has been an organisation which has done stellar work over the years. It is just that what sells best to choosy audiences are stereotypes and if it comes to India, then its best to leave the body and the brain of an India as a stuttering-but-progressing nation and go for the underbelly of an India as a problematic nation.
Think for yourself. If you go to watch a movie about Africa and the director gives you one of those sleek New York kind romances shot in Addis Ababa or Khartoum and completely gives a miss to lions, the Serengeti, the tribal dances, the occult and forests, would you enjoy it?
You’d come back with a smirk saying how the director completely missed infusing the ‘feel’ of Africa into the movie.
I think we are angry with Bachchan simply because we still do not want to acknowledge the fact that the India we see in Karan Johar’s movies and upmarket television business news channels still languishes somewhere at the bottom of the world’s consciousness. What the world’s wants is the underbelly and if Mira Nair walked away with applause for her Salaam Bombay, then you really can’t fault Danny Boyle for driving his creative car on the same pot-holed road, can you?
I know the Bongs might be very upset with the state’s foster son Bachchan taking a dig at the Bhadralok’s original genius Ray but then truth has always had that quality of being very hurtful when it comes garbed in iconoclastic clothes.
The happiest man of course in all this Slumdog Millionaire talk would be none other than AR Rahman. It had to take a genius to take down Illaiyaraaja and Rahman did it. Roja for the first time brought a sound to the film music that was second to none in the world music scene.
He followed it up with flashes of brilliance film after film and in the process pushed musical boundaries to the extent that he demolished for once and for all the north-south film divide that neither RD Burman or Illaiyaraaja could quite jump. Of course there is the case of Ravi Bombay or Salil Chaudhary but the two are surely not in the icon class of a Buman or Illaiyaraaja.
But what have you? When Rahman comes up with his most ‘inspired’ music with the electronic sound substituting for soul, the white man stands up and hands him a Golden Globe. He won’t complain. Bachcan for once is and let the fight continue.
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