Slumdog millionaire: a windfall

Slumdog millionaire loosely based on Vikas Swarup’s Q & A and directed by Englishman Danny Boyle managed to create a lot of hype after its release last month here in India. The movie is about a boy from the Indian slums who ends up becoming a millionaire as he answers all the questions put forth to him during a quiz-show (The Indian version of ‘who wants to be a millionaire?’). And what a coincidence that all these questions are somehow related to his past life which takes the movie into flashback intermittently. Even if we consider this absurd coincidence as a cinematic liberty, I’m still unsure if the movie really deserved all the kudos that it received from around the world. So imagine my surprise when this movie has now ended up bagging the supposedly prestigious Oscars in more than one category (eight to be precise). Apart from the fact that the movie is based in India and has an Indian cast at the helm, there is another Indian tinge to it. A.R.Rehman one of the most revered Indian music directors created waves around the world when he won the award for the best music director at the Oscars for slumdog millionaire. It is no doubt a great achievement for both A.R.Rehman and Indian cinema as a whole to be recognized thus on the world stage. And yet there’re few questions that no one seems to heed:
1. Did slumdog millionaire deserve the Oscars?
2. Are we as Indians justified in celebrating the success of this movie at the Oscars?
Let me clarify that I’m neither a skeptic nor a cynic as some might suggest but there’re reasons why I believe that the movie was over-hyped after all. To start with, the movie deals with nothing but mere clichés about life in the slums and therefore has nothing new to offer. I do accede to the argument that the movie had to focus on the abject poverty and unhealthy conditions that are known to exist in slums but evidently as you watch the movie you realize (at least that’s what I realized) that poverty in India is used as a medium to entertain rather than trying to create an awareness about it. And dear director, no Indian kid is foolish and desperate enough to jump in a pool of shit to meet the bollywood icon Amitabh Bacchhan. Of course it is well within the rights of the director to make a movie the way he wants to. But an Oscar for a movie that actually ends up glorifying poverty makes me wonder about the very credentials of the golden statuette. And by the way, there are many highly deserving masterpieces of A.R.Rehman that have gone unrewarded. What was so different about his music in Slumdog millionaire? Someone please enlighten me on this.
Besides why the director has made the slums in India a subject of his badinage is something we need to ponder and not cheer about. The govt. of Maharashtra reportedly went to the extent of providing suitable housing and educational facilities to those kids residing in the slums who got an opportunity to be a part of the movie. What about others who continue to wallow below the poverty line? Don’t they deserve these basic amenities of life? This is indeed an ironical situation which we’ve very conveniently chosen to ignore and continue to do so.