Some thoughts….
Slumdog millionaire is a post modern film. It is also so important because it is a film that clearly brings about the dichotomy in two ways of knowing the world; and it is a film about history; knowledge; and how we come to know what we do.
We learn our history through an institutionalized, state sanctioned and governed system of education. But this film is about the history learnt; a history of the city, its events, its dates being at the periphery of the state and the periphery of the city, and yet part of it.
Where history is not linear but inherently violent and it is a lived not learned history. It is lived and created, through systems of survival, streets, tactics, rumors; through cheating, stealing, robbing; be it as a guide to Taj Mahal or stealing shoes of tourists at the Taj Mahal, or knowing that Ram had a bow and arrow on his right hand, through a communal riot. Where stealing or cheating is the only way of knowing and you create your life experiences from these, remembering every detail on the way, absorbing and absorbing, watching, observing. They can either be considered as illegal acts, illicit acts or as stealing from the state’s body or those privileged from the state sanctioned system.
The movie made Mumbai its home; it was the slumdog’s, call centre chai wallah’s perspective, it traversed places and situations that no movie I remember has in a long time. And yet what is love here, love is hope, love is rescue and you need love and you need Amitabh Bachchan, because he makes it seem possible to emerge victorious from the surrounding decadence.
As I lay there watching the movie, all I wanted to do was cry and cry. What was I doing in the United Sates as an urban planner, when the city I loved and I had grown up in needed people with my skills more than ever? What am I really doing here? Mumbai seemed like the planet of slums and yet it was not only Mumbai, I could probably say that about so many other cities like New Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata.
It also made me angry at directors like Karan Johar, Yash Raj, who spent millions and millions of rupees in Bollywood, in fantasgmoria, in godfather like underworld dons, in glamour, and hallucination, when a non-Indian was able to not only understand the fundamental dichotomy of different modes of knowing, but contextualize it in India. Though this is not to say that only “natives” of a country have the intellectual capacity or insight to personal and yet political narratives of a country, but seriously where are our directors? We have had movies that speak from the underdog’s perspective but they have been inherently nationalistic, paternalistic, and parochial. Danny Boyle has shamed the likes of Karan Johar and Yash Raj.
Slumdog millionaire is a post modern film. It is also so important because it is a film that clearly brings about the dichotomy in two ways of knowing the world; and it is a film about history; knowledge; and how we come to know what we do.
We learn our history through an institutionalized, state sanctioned and governed system of education. But this film is about the history learnt; a history of the city, its events, its dates being at the periphery of the state and the periphery of the city, and yet part of it.
Where history is not linear but inherently violent and it is a lived not learned history. It is lived and created, through systems of survival, streets, tactics, rumors; through cheating, stealing, robbing; be it as a guide to Taj Mahal or stealing shoes of tourists at the Taj Mahal, or knowing that Ram had a bow and arrow on his right hand, through a communal riot. Where stealing or cheating is the only way of knowing and you create your life experiences from these, remembering every detail on the way, absorbing and absorbing, watching, observing. They can either be considered as illegal acts, illicit acts or as stealing from the state’s body or those privileged from the state sanctioned system.
The movie made Mumbai its home; it was the slumdog’s, call centre chai wallah’s perspective, it traversed places and situations that no movie I remember has in a long time. And yet what is love here, love is hope, love is rescue and you need love and you need Amitabh Bachchan, because he makes it seem possible to emerge victorious from the surrounding decadence.
As I lay there watching the movie, all I wanted to do was cry and cry. What was I doing in the United Sates as an urban planner, when the city I loved and I had grown up in needed people with my skills more than ever? What am I really doing here? Mumbai seemed like the planet of slums and yet it was not only Mumbai, I could probably say that about so many other cities like New Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata.
It also made me angry at directors like Karan Johar, Yash Raj, who spent millions and millions of rupees in Bollywood, in fantasgmoria, in godfather like underworld dons, in glamour, and hallucination, when a non-Indian was able to not only understand the fundamental dichotomy of different modes of knowing, but contextualize it in India. Though this is not to say that only “natives” of a country have the intellectual capacity or insight to personal and yet political narratives of a country, but seriously where are our directors? We have had movies that speak from the underdog’s perspective but they have been inherently nationalistic, paternalistic, and parochial. Danny Boyle has shamed the likes of Karan Johar and Yash Raj.
