Why Slumdog works.

NOTE- Daddy, this will be my LAST post for the next two months. Rest of you, leave in your good wishes and stuff for my boards. I'm going to need it!

This comes 2 days after the Oscars and since everyone's been talking about whether or not Slumdog Millionaire deserves the 8 Oscars, I thought I'd have my say as well.

Why it worked everywhere. I think the world embraced the movie because it fit everybody's perception of what India's all about. I mean, song and dance? Check. Slums and communal violence? Check. Call centres, brothels, crowds? Check. Maybe it does seem like Danny Boyle concentrated everything India's ashamed of and put it into a movie. Maybe it is something un-Indian claiming to be Indian. At the risk of sounding unpatriotic, whatever said and done, however exaggerated it may be, the movie only showcased the existing downside of the country. Don't get me wrong, India is so much more than all this. Poverty and corruption ISN'T what India's all about. But still, I think we all have to remember that ultimately this is a work of fiction. NOT a documentary on India and everything it stands for. The same thing goes for Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger. He had it all, the cynical, unapologetic style. The unrepentant protagonist unafraid to strip his country's seeming sheen away from everything it was proud of. India's naked Darkness. And it won the Booker.

Ultimately, with all the political incorrectness taken away, Slumdog the movie is a celebration of love, fate and spirit. Its a hundred coincidences put together in the name of destiny, and at the end, you feel good. Its about a guy you might bump into everyday in the streets, getting what he wants despite the odds. Maybe it isn't typical cinematic finesse. Maybe its predictable and corny. Maybe it isn't as dark as the movies today are. Maybe it doesn't deserve the Best Picture Oscar in itself. But with a practically unknown cast, a low budget and an utterly forseeable narrative, what its managed to do is commendable, according to me.

And one of the things it HAS managed to do is bring Indian talent to the fore. AR Rahman's genius goes way beyond Jai Ho and the rest of the soundtrack. But thanks to this, the world can now revel in everything he's capable of. International acclaim is what it takes for us to sit up and notice unsung heroes. Resul Pookutty, prime example. It took an Academy nomination for the everyday Indian to know who he was. Slumdog did its part in putting Indian talent on the map, even though in the process it might have showed the country in not exactly all its glory. It gives two slum children a shot at a life without the penury they faced until now. And in the process, it reiterates that slumdogs can indeed go far.

I'm not entitled to comment on whether or not it deserved the Best Picture Oscar, seeing how I haven't watched the rest of the movies nominated. And I do agree that there was way too much hype shrouding the movie for an honest appraisal of it. And that the awards that came its way were mostly because of its exotic appeal. Nevertheless, Slumdog Millionaire is a movie that should be watched and enjoyed for its creative appeal and its feel good factor. Hey, there's a reason we all love fairytales!

Disgusting

I found this on Ani's blog.

YouTube - crazy racist family @ Tyra Banks show

I'm absolutely sickened. I feel ashamed of the fact that I live in an age where people like this still exist, and where they inflict their views on their children as well. How pathetic can we get?

Don't say anything.

This is a list of women who I think are too pretty to live.

1) SCARLETT JOHANSSON! That face. Enough said.

2) Bipasha Basu. WHY is she so.. chiselled? And HOW do John and her manage to look so damn perfect?

3) Priyanka Chopra. -grins like crazy-

4) Rachel Bilson. She makes me want to adopt her and feed her icecreams for the rest of her life. And coo over her when she pouts because the icecream melted. Ok please tell me she isn't getting married to Hayden Christensen? I thought Adam Brody was the One!

5) Natalie Portman. Gaminesque perfection.

6) Jessica Alba. You can stare at her for ages and not want to be anywhere else for a long long time. Sigh.

7) Penelope Cruz. I don't really get this woman. She looks SO pretty sometimes, she doesn't even look human. I could say the same for Nicole Kidman! Maybe all women turn alien-like when they get together with Tom and his scientology crew.

8) Monica Belluci. Blame my fascination with Italy.

9) Padma Lakshmi. She cooks, she had an intellectual older man, she exudes SUCH endearing imperfection, what with that scar and all.

10) Jyothika. She HAD to be here! :)

The rest- Kate Winslet, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (still semi-celebrity, she should fix that soon. Sky High, baby? Not a good pick.), Sonam Kapoor, MEG RYAN, Shriya Saran, Laura Elena Harring (MY god.). I can't think of the rest.

Okay if this was weird, forgive me, I just have an eye for the aesthetically appealing. :D

The Oscars are barely a day away and I'll be home to watch it! I can't believe I'm this excited, but hey you can't blame me, its like Super Bowl Weekend+Cricket World Cup+SomeBigGig.

I predict..
Best Picture- Slumdog (Yes I know Milk should win, but that's what the Academy does)
Best Director- Danny Boyle (Surprise surprise)
Best Actor- Sean Penn (So I hear)
Best Actress- Anne Hathaway? Rachel Getting Married was supposed to be KICKass. I went and read the synopsis of The Reader on wiki though, so its probably Kate Winslet.
Best Supporting Actor- HEATH LEDGER (duh?)
Best Supporting Actress- Amy Adams :P
Art Direction and Costume Design and possibly Cinematography- Benjamin Button. No questions asked. Though I haven't watched it.
Animated film- Wall-E!
Music, Song- Slumdog, Jai ho.

Wait and watch I shall.

I need..

- chocolate ice cream
- some company
- more time
- a reality check
- to watch a movie or two. Mulholland Drive anyone?
- a box of Bradman's
- self-actualization?
- Janani :(
- those construction workers across the street to STOP LISTENING TO SURYAN FM!
- some Pablo Neruda (Sonnet XI, my god. Its so passionate, its obscene)
- to learn Spanish so I can, in fact, read and understand Pablo Neruda.

Model Practicals tomorrow.
Pip-pip.

I watched Dharm today. I cried.



We talk of being united in the face of diversity. We talk of being a nation of a thousand languages and myriad cultures. WHERE does the crying need for communal violence come in here at all? We're taught in school (even this year) that India is the land of unity in diversity. Fullstop. Why aren't we taught about caste differences and how they tear the secular fabric of a nation apart? Why aren't we told about partition and what it cost everyone? Why aren't we taught that reverse discrimination is wrong too? Why aren't we bothered about Kandhamal and everywhere else there's religious strife? What does it COST perpetrators to just live and let live?! I don't even KNOW what a secular nation means anymore, the idea of it is so abstract that I honestly canNOT imagine. Are instances of violence in the name of religion individual or institutional? How can the majority of today's youth even believe in the democratic fibre of a nation, when religious freedom has been prised away from Gujarat, Orissa, Bombay and so many other places so many times in the past? Especially when they find themselves cynically unable to acknowledge the existence of a God, a religion, and whatever it may stand for?

Face it, across socio-economic barriers, lots of people cannot help but see things through the veil of language religion caste subcaste and every other micro obligation. I don't see the point anymore. What is left for people to believe in? Is this what the beliefs of a gazillion people say? This knowledge, that something so many people in the past have clung on to as the driving force in their lives is actually the cause for such desolation, is supremely disconcerting. I don't know.

May good sense prevail.

Musings.

I'm stuck for words more often than usual. Thought of writing poetry (-snort-), but then so many things evade rhymes, they're stuck there in my head. Where the rest of the things unsaid go. In those awkward spaces between laughter, in the hesitation between those reluctant syllables. There are things that deserve so much mention and yet, STAY there, giving me a head cold.

This didn't make much sense to me either. The Purpose should stare at me in the face wearing nothing but Dobby's tea cozy and I'll feel much better.

Tomorrow, I should work. Really work, I mean. I distinctly lack drive, so a good shake and peptalks are welcome.

Five minutes later

I somehow found myself looking up It Happened One Night quotes on IMDb, and my face just melted into this giant grin. Total mush ya.

Alexander Andrews: Oh, er, do you mind if I ask you a question, frankly? Do you love my daughter?

Peter Warne: Any guy that'd fall in love with your daughter ought to have his head examined.

Alexander Andrews: Now that's an evasion!

Peter Warne: She picked herself a perfect running mate - King Westley - the pill of the century! What she needs is a guy that'd take a sock at her once a day, whether it's coming to her or not. If you had half the brains you're supposed to have, you'd done it yourself, long ago.

Alexander Andrews: Do you love her?

Peter Warne: A normal human being couldn't live under the same roof with her without going nutty! She's my idea of nothing!

Alexander Andrews: I asked you a simple question! Do you love her?

Peter Warne: YES! But don't hold that against me, I'm a little screwy myself!

This is one of my most pointless posts. I promise the ones to follow will be worth wasting your time on. Heh?

But really, who knows, someday I will actually sound like a poem. Or a song. And realise that life isn't about worrying about where you're going, because it just hit me that if/when I do get there, I wouldn't know what to do next. Its ultimately all about the little things that make you smile. I will live like a song in my head.

Thalai sutthing, very much.

Happenings.

The boards are a month and 4 days away, and this means goodbye phone, goodbye internet, goodbye possible time-wasters.

Its been 2 days since I switched my phone off, and I miss it like you couldn't imagine. A heartfelt post on how much I miss it and why it means so much to me will follow, but its schooltime now, and our 2nd revision marks are coming out.

And Vidyuth has a new blog.

Easy.

It still rankles.