Girls sort through plastic caps in Holambi, a slum outside of Delhi, as a way to make a few extra rupees. Here's my article on Slumdog, which was published in the
Austin American Statesman, today, February 22, Oscar Sunday.
If India is the center of the world, I am at the center of the center. I'm feeling my way through the gray narrow corridors of Asia's largest slum, Dharavi, in Mumbai. I'm keeping my eye on the ground to prevent tripping on a pipe or dipping my foot in a drain.
Shards of sunlight filter through the tin roofs above, and little girls in threadbare dresses stare up at me as I pass by their doorways. After several tight corners, and another wobbly corridor, I'm spit out onto a square acre of trash. This is an ugly place.
If you have seen "Slumdog Millionaire," one of the films gunning for a best picture Oscar tonight, you've been here, too. The film's director, Danny Boyle, did something most Indian directors have avoided: He filmed in India's most extreme reality, the slum.
Boyle isn't the first or only director who has shed light on the lives of slum children (and to be frank, I don't think his priority was to make a socially conscious film). Mira Nair, director of "Monsoon Wedding" and "The Namesake," tried to do the same in her 1988 film "
Salaam Bombay!" What struck me about watching Nair's film recently is that nothing has changed. The film was made two decades ago, but it could have been made yesterday. It, too, was up for an Academy Award — best foreign film — but it didn't win. Judging from the condition of today's slums, it didn't effect much change, either.
This is the way 55 percent of Mumbai's population lives. According to a recent World Bank report, 42 percent of India's people live below the poverty line. Make no mistake: That's not the fault of the film.
There are two kinds of viewers: those who open their eyes to an alternative existence, where indoor plumbing cannot be found, and then after two hours return home to their double-ply toilet paper. Then there are those who see a movie, dwell on it, do an Internet search or two, and maybe do something about it.
"Slumdog Millionaire" is about a boy who is orphaned in the 1992 Hindu-Muslim riots and later beats the odds and lands a seat on the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" (pronounced "Mil-en-air!" by the film's slimy show host).
That "Slumdog Millionaire" has taken the world by storm is a bit of a mystery to many Indians.
For middle-class viewers, the movie is missing signature Bollywood dance numbers (with the exception of a lovely jig at the end) and has been a nonevent. The middle class grew up seeing slums and doesn't particularly empathize with the people who live in them.
Upper-class Indians choose not to acknowledge this existence. India is shining inside their plush, temperature-controlled, chauffeur-driven reality — and they don't want to change that. "Slumdog" looks outside their tinted windows and contradicts India's emerging market growth story.
The people the film is actually about — the slum dwellers — either haven't heard of it or don't have the money to see it. Would you blow a day's wages to see something you live in every day? Of those who do know about it, many are offended by the word "slumdog," which is a machination of the film's writers, not an actual word used in Hindi parlance. "They think we're dogs?" slum dwellers have asked. Of the few who have seen the movie, they haven't imbibed a message of hope. Luck or destiny landed Jamal, the film's protagonist, a seat on the game show, not hard work or merit.
So, who is the film for?
For you, Whole Foods shopper. For you, Sixth Street girl. Would you believe that it is your trash that ends up in India's slums? Dharavi has an annual turnover of $665 million because its inhabitants are creating products for Western consumption (Wal-Mart sources products here) and recycling our junk (old air conditioners and plastics from the U.S. and United Kingdom land here).
"Slumdog" is a colorful, exciting and vibrant kaleidoscope made for your viewing pleasure. The story, set to a rump-shaking score, has rags-to-riches triumph and romance. It gives shape to what you've heard about India: that people are poor, that beggars abound, and that it is flat, hot and crowded. "It's just as I thought," you might think, as you leave the theater.
"The film, although enjoyable, is exotica served up for a Western audience. ... The filmmakers are looking for awards in the West, not understanding in the East," said Sundar Barra, adviser to SPARC, an Indian organization working to alleviate urban poverty.
Barra pointed to several liberties the writers took with the script. First, children would never read "The Three Musketeers" in school. Second, they would never stoop so low as to jump into a vat of human waste to get an autograph. And many have pointed to the casting of a British Indian actor with an unmistakable accent as a slum boy.
Like a James Frey memoir, you can't take any movie to be 100 percent bona fide. Dwelling on the film's flaws misses the point. The elements that are true are what matter.
Yes, there are child prostitutes. Yes, thousands of children emigrate from villages to Mumbai each year to make a living. Yes, there is a very real culture of begging. Yes, children are mutilated to garner pimps more money.
Happy or not, growing or not, incredible or not, India and its poor exist, have existed and will continue to exist in wretched conditions that none of us would wish on anyone — unless someone does something.
"Slumdog" is a friendly reminder. A gentle poke. A whisper that the fantasy hides a harsher truth. It's OK to enjoy the delicious joy ride through Jamal's life. I certainly did. But I hope we don't find ourselves watching another such film about slum life in India two decades from now. "Slumdog" might offer moviegoers an alternate reality, but it isn't an alternate world.
What are the odds that "Slumdog Millionaire" will win an Oscar? What are the odds that you will do anything to change what you saw?
What is your final answer?
Photo: Michael Rubenstein
