Slumdog...the Buzzword of the Season!

In my family, I take all the good and bad initiatives. Now this, for Slumdog's sake is not a lie. Be it making a list of groceries needed for the week, or killing the odd cockroach in the kitchen, launching a verbal assault on the indecipherable Tamil watchman, or getting a couple of movie tickets over the net...I wear the pants in the house, willingly or otherwise...I swear on Slumdog, I do!
So this time around, I got the tickets for Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle's much-talked-about baby...and boy! I liked it.
Before readers jump to conclusions, let me clarify, I am a bit confused. To praise Slumdog whole-heartedly is too common a response to the film. To question Boyle's sleazy portrayal of slum-life in India is fashionable. But I don't want to indulge in either of the two trends completely.
Slumdog has impressed me with the storyline, to start with. You'd of course say, go and read Vikas Swaroop's Q & A...why give Boyle a chance? Well, now that I haven't read Swaroop, and now that I have seen Boyle, let's go with that.
The movie begins with a battered Jamaal (the quite adorable Dev Patel) at the police station, having to answer for his brilliance at the popular game show, Who Wants to Be A Millionaire. He is a 'slumdog' (I guess we will ignore the British audacity in that word, for the time being) who has had a dream run at this game show, and won an obscene amount of money (I am not quoting the exact sum because I cannot count beyond two zeroes). The game show host (a smarmy Anil Kapoor…pretty disgusting) thinks Jamaal has pulled a fast one. Being a slumdog, he has no bloody right to know the answers to all the questions...and we have our young hero with the cops.
The story unfolds in flashback, as Jamaal tells the police inspector (a thoroughly under-utilized Irfan Khan) the story of his life. It is here that we learn...Jamaal is no prodigy. He is a mere Chai Walla at a call centre. He just knows the answers to all the questions due to some incredible coincidence. Each and every question is linked to some phase in Jamaal's slum life, and each, as it unfolds, leaves you moved...at least I had a lump in my throat.
I will not disclose the climax, or even the story...no point in that absolutely. All I can say is that the pathos in the film has left me speechless at times. There is this incident, where little Jamaal is in the lavatory, battling it out in the wee hours of the morning. His brother Salim locks him up from outside. Suddenly there is a roar and we hear that Amitabh Bachchan's helicopter has arrived somewhere nearby, where the superstar is shooting for a film. Young Jamaal, like any other filmy Indian, is desperate to meet his hero. He fights an internal war, and jumps into human excreta, to escape from the bathroom, and have his tryst with his idol. The theatre screams with laughter, as Jamaal fights for an autograph, smeared with muck. However, what I couldn’t help but notice is the pathos of the scene. This is what poverty in India is about. Fighting for what you need…for what you desire. Never mind if you’re a six-year old. Grow up…quick!
There are countless such moments, where you feel, Boyle has come up with a well-researched film. The Alexander Dumas reference that runs through the movie, culminating in the climax, is brilliant. However, as any westerner would, Boyle goes back to stereotypes at the very end of the movie, where we have a song and dance sequence…a very predictable Bollywood touch.
Even otherwise, the sore point of Boyle’s project is the absurd obsession of the West, with Mumbai and slum-living. It reminds me of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Bombay Dreams, where the hero, Aakash harbours dreams of escaping from a Mumbai slum-life to a world of riches. Coincidentally, there too, we have A.R. Rahman, crafting the background scores. That brings me to Rahman. Slumdog has good music. But not for once do we find it mind-blowing. Not for once do we hum it…worth a Golden Globe? I wonder why we, Indians, lap up anything that the West decides to give us! Should we accept a Golden Globe just because the critics out there suddenly decide to listen to this brilliant musician from India? I mean, for Slumdog’s sake…just because you’ve never listened to a Lagaan, or a Rang De Basanti, or a Roja does not mean this man was quite plain and unnoticeable all this while!
Enough of my opinions I guess. In all, Slumdog Millionaire is enjoyable and moving. But it would be interesting to see Boyle making a movie about Indian urban middle class…settled in…umm, say Delhi…having decent jobs…having sufficient money for food, money for shopping, money for an occasional trip to Maldives, or even the Great Barrier Reef, money for the latest mid-segment car in the market…would he do that? Not sensational at all? Or at least not as stupidly alluring to a westerner, as poverty is, I guess. Poverty for them remains an aphrodisiac!