Slumdog Crorepati

Back in the office today, after 2 days at the mosque scraping paint off to analyse the original paint colour. Hard work. Especially when your on top of a steel ladder 10ft in the air with no shoes on. Now I have to take all the images I took (around 100+) and catalogue each one. Will do it later, after lunch. Lunch is rashers! Gayle, so good she is to me) went and bought some at a meat store. Very hard to find and these ones are quite meaty. The other ones we got were way too stringy and had loads of rind.
Saw slumdog millionaire last week. Brilliant movie and I highly recommend watching it. Not only is it a nice movie but it’s very true to what life is in India for many people. There is no exaguration in some of the scenes, I’ve seen the blind kids singing. You can sometimes forget that 55% of Bombay’s population live in slums, though there’s always a reminder around the corner. It’s amazing how big the divides between classes is here. You’ve got your super rich (TATA executives etc.) and your super poor here. Even the divide between the upper middle class and the rich is a gulf hard to bridge. What to one man in Bombay is wealth is another’s poverty.
There have been a few complaints about Slumdog Millionaire in the Indian media, criticising its name (in Hindi, it’s a very negative word to use for someone from the slums) and its romanticising of poverty in Bombay. I disagree with their arguments, as there is no glory in the boys life in the slums, only in their actions. The slum for them is a place of filth, violence and despair. It is true that Bombay has more to offer than just slums, but it cannot be ignored that the majority of Bombay live below or just above the poverty line.
In a vote in a popular newspaper here, 47% said that Slumdog Millionaire’s title was derogatory while, while 41% said no. I think it is derogatory, but isn’t that the point? The title is supposed to represent the attitude towards Jamal in the movie. He is seen as a Slumdog, he is called that a few times in the film.
Another criticism of the movie is that some of the younger actors, all of whom do live in the slums (such as the youngest Salim character) live in slums. Their parents live in a hut with no lights or running water. How come? In relative terms to the movie the family have received relatively nothing. Natika’s youngest actor was supposedly paid 38,000rs for her role, which was spent according the family on her father’s medical bill (he had broken his leg recently, a crippling thing for a family in their position). Is this fair? Should more money be given? I think it really should be up to the director and producer to decide, and to see that the families of the young actors, as well as the children themselves, get looked after. However, it’s important to see that this money goes to the right hands, and that the families use the money wisely, especially in the interest of the children who acted so well. The families were complaining that they wanted a flat, not money but can’t money buy a flat? One family was given 1.3lakh (130,000rs) over the course of a year which they claim was spent on food. Surely If they had asked for the money to buy a flat it would have been sorted out. And spending a lakh and a bit on food alone seems excessive for a family living in a hut.
At the same time it is important for us in the developed world to realise that Slumdog Millionaire is a story set in India, not a story about India. It does not tell the whole truth, for as there is poverty and slums, so there is wealth and development. I have been living in Bombay for 4 months now (can you believe it?!?!?) and I can tell you you’ll never be in a more vibrant city as Bombay. There is always something to see and do and there is so much life and culture in this city it’s amazing.