DANNY WHO???

How did Danny Boyle do that????

a) He cheated b) He is lucky c) He is a genius d) It was written.

And the right answer is……………………….

d) It was written.

I did not believe in destiny until very recently... Until last month, that is. Then everything changed. I succumbed to the temptation of going to a theatre and watching the ultimate movie. Slumdog Millionaire!!! Against my own instincts, I must say. But the hype and hoopla had assumed a pitch that could not have been ignored. With so many awards and so much TV time and newspaper columns and all of that, it became irresistible.

As I walked out, I had an eerie feeling of being alone… I also had this terrible feeling of turning suddenly into an unpatriotic being. It came to me with an absolute certainty that this movie, Slumdog Millionaire is mediocre at best, and very average. I could not come to terms with this sort of undeserving popularity for such a movie. However, I knew that I have to believe in destiny from that very day. Not because Jamal won the 20 million or whatever prize against all odds but Danny Boyle, a director unknown to the majority of film watchers after several decades of film making, with his career going nowhere, could receive such acclaim. There was no other explanation: It was written.

It was as if everything I had thought to have understood about what a good film is all about was wrong. There are very few people around , if any at all, who think it is a somewhat poor imitation of a Bollywood masala. I happen to be one. As I get more views I realize that even the people who criticize it seem to be doing it because they feel indignant at our country being shown in poor light, or that this is part of a fresh neo-imperialist design to insult the third world etc.Some think this is a prelude to kick-start business opportunities in countries like India to outsource sound-mixing and music industry, by appeasing Indian filmworld and artisits.Some cynical views say it is plain sadism in exposing the Indian underbelly and weaknesses of its people and make a buck out of it.

My own quarrel with this movie is none of these.

Firstly ,I feel its theme is very shallow, heavily manipulated which you do not expect in a movie , purportedly deserving such high honor. So many implausible twists, poor character sketches, nothing seem to flow naturally from human nature. It is so unbelievably audience-targeted so to say. For a start, there is everything that is from Indian dark side. Slum violence, religious strife,, hero worshipping ,rape, murder, forced begging, child prostitution, squalor and filth, dancing on the platforms, blinding of children, and you name it. There is a guest appearance of the Taj Mahal and burglary by street children.. There is the interrogation and torture of an innocent contestant through a whole night, electrocuting him etc. with absolutely no criminal charges.(but he appears the next morning as fresh as a morning flower!!!).Yes these things do happen here. But the real problem is that he shows almost all of these happening to a single person ,manipulating a plot beyond any aesthetic limits just to please the inner yearnings of an untrained audience. Just look at the central theme ----of the life experience of a single contestant spookily stacking up one after another providing all the correct answers of a game show. The host of a mega-show belittles the contestant ,calling him a low grade chaiwallah or something and the entire audience laughs with this. What was that again??? I think it is clearly in bad taste for a Director to do that in the first place. And that does not speak highly about the people who applaud the craft of a mediocre director either. This is fine for a movie producer who is in the business of money making providing cheap entertainment. But that cannot have anything to do with a great movie .Something is wrong..

The biggest problem with this movie is that if you have to enjoy this movie you cannot take anything about it serious even for a minute. You can have the so called suspension of disbelief. Fine. Do as much of contrivances in your plot. Stereotype as much as you want. But we cannot sit there for close to three hours and take these lying down minute after minute. There are tooooo many things ,totally indigestible that you have to swallow, just to force some enjoyment. Just not worth it.

Take the name. ”Slumdog millionaire” apart from being derogatory to some people is downright prosaic. Even with a miniscule artistic sense, you would probably put that in the last 10% of a list of 100 prospective titles for this movie. Slumdog Millionaire is a smart venture by Danny Boyle. A very clever movie by him. It has great audio visual appeal. It can be described as a watchable film whatever that means. But to call that a great movie is somewhat terrible. It is probably the antithesis of what I consider to be a great movie and more importantly that will be the ultimate dishonor to some of the greatest artists and their immortal works in the field.

Then there is the love story part of this movie which is really pathetic to say the least. Dev Patel and Frieda Pinto who are now walking the red carpets all over the place are very mediocre actors. I am sure everyone who appreciates the art ,and who have watched their performance a bit carefully knows it. Anil Kapoor’s tone and his veiled hints of his own great contributions is somewhat exaggerated. I would have appreciated if Mr. Boyle had lifted the very same plot above the commonplace and the routine commercial tricks and crafted a movie which claimed some artistic merits .Slumdog Millionaire missed the bus completely.

Why the movie became such a hit ,was possibly due to the same reason why crorepati game shows catch the fancies of ordinary human beings: the vicarious pleasure of seeing an ordinary man or woman like them walking away with millions of rupees. Danny Boyle knew how to take that out of an Indian context and sell it to a global audience. That has nothing to do with movie as an art form of course.

But stop. how about so many awards??? And the world going ga ga???

Refer to the beginning. The correct answer is (d)

The place I called home

THE DECADE OF DISCONTENT

For now, I know that nobody is reading my blog.That gives me real confidence and courage. An extended blogger’s freedom so to say.To do a real honest monologue. So here I go,until someone reads it.

To be born to poor parents who belong to an upper caste is like getting thrust into a I Class train compartment without ticket. You know you may get caught any time, and that you cannot get out so you will always make an attempt to appear normal. To be constantly aware of your own deprivations but having to conceal it is not easy business. I was in one of those compartments on a fine morning in May, 1960 and grew up amidst a great deal of contradictions and myriad problems. ..I spent my childhood trying to untangle these, and to get over these deprivations –by sweeping them under the carpet of course-of almost everything normally taken for granted. Call it fun, laughter, comics, toys or good advice….and all of that.

My father had an ego disproportionate with his own accomplishments. It appeared very odd, like a very thin person wearing a huge XXL shirt and I had sensed this contradiction very early. He went around riding a wave of this inflated self-importance which I now suspect ,may have been an expression of a deeper sense of failure. This prevented him from expressing love and tenderness and made emotional engagements near-impossible .He held on to this unprotected ego until his later years ,and gave it a hiatus during the last few months of his life, when it was too late. Years later, still grappling with the upshots of a wasted childhood, I was to discover my own inability to spontaneously express love which I possibly inherited from him . I also realized ,with a gnawing sense of regret,that unexpressed love is both meaningless and futile at the same time ---and is like the coin collections of a scrimpy and ungenerous miser as poignantly noted by Kamala Das in one of her many memoirs---My father however had shown remarkable practical sense and courage in decisions which shaped my future abilities, just as my mother’s love –largely unexpressed but yet discernible - had shaped my character.

I was unable to relate, emotionally or otherwise, with either of my elder sisters, for reasons that are entirely distinct .I took refuge in my mother---the only other passenger left in the compartment--- who believed that forfeiture of all pleasures in life was her solemn duty. I shall return to my mother in one of my next posts but shall just say here that her sacrifices, and her near-masochist tendency to endure suffering, were the real building blocks of my life today.

Outside this train compartment, Kerala’s social life was transforming like the changing landscapes. During the 1960’s Communist Party (Marxist) under the leadership of E M S Namboodiripad was at their theatrical best . EMS, like someone said about Harry Truman,was "all facts and no imagination" , who tried to feed some complex theories of dialectical materialism and stuff, to the impoverished Malayalee Working Class. (He did not know how to imitate the mimicry artists in Kerala like VS, or boost TRP ratings of satellite channels like Karat).EMS came to power in 1957, enacted a most controversial Land Reform Ordinance and was dismissed by the Nehru-led Central Government after two years.He came back to power yet again in the late 60’s but the social impact of these were so huge that it transformed ordinary human life in Kerala beyond measure.. We shall return to the interesting political upheavals of Kerala during the 60’s and how it affected my life in one of the later Posts.

So it was like starting the innings with a few wickets already down. There was no Coach ,no Manager. And I did not know the name of the game ,for a start.

WHAT AM I UP TO??

When you are about 50 years of age that is probably a good time to size up your life. In a sense already late,since your II Half is on and that you may need to quickly find new strategies to score before the long whistle. Good time because by then at least you ought to have become wise enough to look at your life squarely on its face and make a honest assessment.

Someone –obviously a wise man--told me few years back, that 30 ,40 and 50 years of age are milestones before which any man or woman must become healthy, wealthy and wise, and in that order.(Incidentally he looked to be on the wrong side of 50 already, and seemed to have missed at least the first two goals).This was, thought- provoking to say the least .I realized with a start that I had never thought about these necessary (or even bare minimum ) --but not sufficient ---goals one must have in his life. The implication was that if you don’t do it by these times either you miss the bus altogether or at the least it is going to be tough to redeem the losses .It jolted me a bit for a while and as usual I got back to my complacent –read sedentary- and intellectually wanting, ordinary life.

Ever since my sons introduced me---a somewhat technologically challenged, net-averse old-fashioned father-- to the world of blogs I had thought of it as an inspiring idea. Sharing your thoughts ,and to trigger off fresh dialogues ,or monologues with yourselves looked interesting.And the exciting prospect that it may help to rediscover myself during the flagging midlife appeared overwhelming. In the process I can also do a check on where I stood in regard to the wise man’s forgotten aphorism about the 30-40-50 thing.

I have no idea where to begin, how to write or even what to write. What is more ,I have no idea who will read it. But now that I have largely missed my 30-40-50 targets I am setting a new one. To be a good blogger before 60!! God Almighty ,for all his hard work and hope in creating a humdrum human being, should at last feel vindicated !!