A Tale of Two Stages

The Oscar fever has died down for now, but the 81st Academy Awards will always be remembered as the time when Bollywood took over Kodak Theater. Well, technically it wasn't really Bollywood-Slumdog Millionaire, the movie that stole the show (quite literally) is an English language film, made by Brits and can at best be described as an Anglo-Indian collaboration. But it felt like Bollywood- A R Rahman sang Jaya Ho as Meryl Streep, elegant as ever, looked on somewhat dazed. Hugh Jackman performed a lovely medley of numbers from our favourite musicals, but will that be remembered or will the sight of lehnga clad dancers and Japanese drum-men (masquerading as Indians one presumes) forever enter the popular consciousness? And I would love to know what the purists were saying when the entire cast of Slumdog went up on stage and Shri Anil Kapoor proceeded to throttle poor Oscar to death. What the Kodak Theater, and all of Hollywood's biggest stars, witnessed was a show put on by the new India-loud, confident and unapologetic.

Now I have written previously in this blog what I think about the movie Slumdog Millionaire. I stand by my views. I believe that Slumdog swept the Oscars not because it was a great film but because the Academy was engulfed in a wave of Indo-mania. It was different, it was fresh, it was new-it won. Yet what interests me is the manner in which India has embraced the movie-from top politicians congratulating the stars to victory processions being carried out in major Indian cities, the reaction to the movie within India has been overwhelming. It is not the first time that a movie centered on India has swept the Oscars. Close on 20 years ago, Gandhi, a biopic about the Mahatma won a large number of awards. The film included Indians such as Roshan Seth and Alyque Padamsee, yet it never really captured the imagination of Indians like Slumdog has managed to do. I believe this is because India has changed-we are no longer a nation merely identified as the nation of Gandhi. We are a dynamic, vibrant nation, or so we would like to believe, a nation poised to enter the limelight of the world stage. The success of Slumdog, unlike the success of Gandhi, indicated to many that India had arrived.

Whether you like it or not, a large part of India's 'arrival' is due to the growing reach of Bollywood. Casting Bollywood actors and using Bollywood music in a major motion picture would have been unthinkable 20 years ago, and hence the casting of prominent theater personalities in Gandhi, and not, say, an Amitabh Bachchan. Yet today Bollywood has come to be accepted, or at least recognized, by the world at large. Film makers are no longer afraid to tell an Indian story with actors drawn from the Indian film industry. The fact is that Bollywood has become one of India's major soft-power weapons.

Getting back to the Oscars, it is remarkable that when the entire cast of Slumdog crowded the stage and revelled in their glory, the stage didn't collapse. Well actually it isn't remarkable-it is the Kodak Theater after all. And by that same logic, it isn't remarkable that when Amar Singh was addressing a rally in Bijnor, the stage did collapse. The Indian mentality, which many of us share, of 'bhai hamein bhi stage par aana hai' (we also want to come on stage), results in stages around the world being crowded with Indians trying their best to get their heads into picture frames. That the hi-tech stage in Hollywood survived and the ramshackle stage in Bijnor did not is no surprise. All those who talk of India arriving would do well to remember this fact.

Taking India to the World

A friend of mine recently sent me this article. I feel it encapsulates pretty much all that I feel about the film 'Slumdog Millionaire', which as its posters say, is a movie the 'whole world is talking about'. Tipped to win a number of Oscars, and having already won four golden globes, Slumdog Millionaire has been billed as a movie which shows the 'real India' to the world. As an Indian, I feel that this something the movie fails to do.

Make no mistake, I enjoyed watching the film. It was fun. But that's about where it ends. I don't think the film was fantastic. I don't think the music was brilliant. I certainly do not think that the film deserves an Oscar. Yes, I will feel extremely proud if I see A R Rahman and Anil Kapoor walking onto the stage, but I don't think the film deserves an Oscar. Rahman for one has made far far better music-the soundtracks of Roja, Lagaan, Swades to name a few, come to mind.

Most of my American friends loved the film-it was the classic third world story. Yet, the India shown in Slumdog is the India that most westerners would imagine in their heads. The movie reinforced cultural stereotypes. India=poverty and Bollywood. Now I'm not criticizing the film because it attempts to show life in the slums. After all, the slums of our cities are as much a part of India as the malls of our metropolitan cities. However I do feel that the movie does a bad job of showing life in the slums. The real world is a lot more complex than two smiling slum kids triumphing against a series of bad guys.

To put it simply, I believe that Slumdog Millionaire is a movie that is caught straddling two lanes-it provides a cocktail of poverty, love and the 'real' India, all in just over 2 hours. For Western audiences, there hasn't been a movie like this in a long time. It's not too shocking, it doesn't tell them anything they don't think they know, yet its different. It's its not surprising that they are lapping it up. In this respect, Danny Boyle got his film spot on. But for me, it neither explores the problems of the 'real' India in any amount of depth, nor does it have the elements of a traditional Bollywood film. And so it remains a good movie, and just that, a good movie.