Sunday, January 25, 2009

Slumdogs? eew! Not in here!

The outcry has been oh-so deafening, even my cumulative ear-wax of 3 months couldn't save me!!

  • "Shiv Sena protests screening of Slumdog Millionaire alleging it hurts the religious sentiments of the Hindu community."
  • "Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan rubbishes Slumdog Millionaire for portraying India as a 'third-world, dirty, underbelly developing nation'."
  • "Slumdog stars sued for 'defaming' slum-dwellers."

...patronising westerner intentionally insults the DIGNITY OF INDIA and its billion-plus pious (Dettol-sanitised) population...with his derogatory portrayal of (the otherwise beautiful, down-to-earth) Indian way of life. Uff! They probably didn't know we have Aishwarya Rai on offer for purpose of all international projects!

And what about the incidental fact that India is really a third-world, developing nation? Or that we are a people limited in our way of thinking...willfully blind to our own excreta? What about the fact that we beat our saffron-white-green-breasts because Mukesh Ambani resides in a 60-storey mansion, while 85.7% of the population subsists on less than $2.50 (PPP) a day? Or the fact that our dignified faces beam when Sunita Williams flies off to outer-space (it matters not that she wasn't even born in the country! She does have the requisite remnant Indian gene)? (Perhaps the Big Bee has answers to these questions...would he care to blog?) What about the fact that Mr.Marathi Manoos is terribly proud, for some mysterious reason, of the Dharavi bungalows (I dare not call them slums for fear of being lynched)? Or the fact that we use (and will continue using, for a long, long time) religion and god as excuses to avoid owning up to our pathetic selves, even though 'god' has been dead for quite somewhile?

What about the fact that this face is real...?

"Who cares? We need a scandal. Nolimus Aut Velimus. So like the Americans and the British we can be true Social Democrats and at last be able to shout, 'We're upto our necks in shit, it's true, and that's why we walk with our heads held high'."

-Dario Fo, Accidental Death of an Anarchist

Jai Siya Ram!

2 comments:

Ankita said...

Put it as a comment on Big AB's blog(does Sir allow comments?).I always remember that Fo quote,too!

Took said...

I care not for the Big A, B or C...a person getting paid 115 crores to churn out that sort of opinionated bullcrap is an insult to most mankind, but especially to the generation that venerates him as a 'wise' man...I'd expect better opinions out of a common man off the street.

Now Fo is a man i'd pay to read...115 crores and more!!