Slumdogs or Dumbdogs?

The Oscar fever is subsiding (!!!????) ….Is India flying high as Anil Kapoor screamed into the microphone? May be, if not all at least a quarter of its population is. Yes…Slumdog Millionaire has won eight Oscars…a few Indians have won Oscars too!! As Indians we should feel proud about it. Not because they have won the Oscars per se but because they and their work have been recognized by an entertainment agency considered supreme (rightly or wrongly) in the world. The President and the Prime Minister of India have congratulated the winners…more politicians will follow suit, may be with cash awards too. Political compulsions perhaps! I have nothing to lose and I will be very forthright therefore. As I watched the ‘tamasha’ on TV, the mockery of the slum dogs and the dumb dogs came to light. I’m sure even the diehard fans of Rehman or Gulzaar or Pookutty would agree to the fact that these men have created better works than this. Why the Oscars now, then? The irony is we need the British or the foreign label for recognition. Unless and until a foreign body, preferably from the west certifies our works we cannot and will not believe in ourselves. Sad but true. But for Danny Boyle and his crew our work would perhaps have seen no light let alone the Oscar limelight. Isn’t it sad that we still have to rely on the white man or the English voice to be able to ‘succeed’? Secondly, for the white audience the voice of their m(a)en is more authentic and more credible than that of the native –he knows and understands better the cruelty and the poverty of the slums in India …..he can capture it all, with all its myriad hues in no time, too because he comes from a land that ‘knows’ India…How ridiculous…. haven’t we made films on the same theme earlier which more poignantly told the story of the slums… haven’t we heard before better songs of Rehman than Jaiho? I have and Of course we have. But without a Danny Boyle and his men, you see!! So who cares? So is the Oscar something that we must feel proud of or is it something that should make us feel if not ashamed at least a bit uneasy? I don’t know. But I think it should definitely make us think.

The Mangalore episode

Yet another controversy has surfaced in Karnataka and it is quickly doing the rounds in other states as well - yes, to drink or not to drink, or to be more precise, should Indian girls drink (alcohol, of course) and if they do wouldn’t that be going against Indian culture? We were a witness to hours of debate on almost all TV channels with no mutually agreeable solutions in sight. Simply because the issue at hand is as complex as the term culture itself. To further get into what constitutes or should constitute or would constitute Indian culture is altogether another horribly tiring complex process. It is quite evident from all that has been written / discussed / shown / seen that each one has an agenda – the group that attacked the girls, the victims, the government and of course our media. The group in question claims that it is their ‘moral duty’ to clean up the ‘mess’ (and they sure know what that means), the ‘attacked’ believe in their right to freedom in a democracy (and they sure know what freedom means), the government proclaims that it has a moral and legal duty to establish a safe and secure (if not secular) society (they sure know what their responsibilities are) and the media relentlessly running their own trials and giving out fast verdicts faster than our fast track courts and mind you they very well know what their job is. (At times however I feel some of them are in the wrong job sitting in the studio instead of in the courtroom). Who is ‘right or wrong’ here? One says drinking is not Indian culture; another says hurting women is not Indian culture. ‘Who gave you the right to moral policing’, asks the media and the group in question retorts ‘who should’? Did anyone give the right to Mahatma Gandhi to fight? Did Nelson Mandela seek permission from the government to revolt? Although these questions seem logical they are also specious, as answers to each of these would depend on one’s own subject(ive) position. For this very reason getting into discussing the semantics of culture or for that matter Indian culture or who is right or wrong in this context would be a futile exercise. Instead let us look at the implications of this growing addiction to drinking, especially among the youth. There’s no denying the fact alcohol in someway is related to crimes. Statistics / research proves it. Let us look at the increase in crime rates, drunken driving and consider ways and means to control this menace. Alcoholism among the youth is a serious problem today in all metros and especially in a city like Bangalore. No parent wants his or her ward to take to alcohol including the ones that drink. When they can’t control or discipline their wards any more they resort to justification and right to personal freedom in an attempt to hide their helplessness. Let us answer honestly to ourselves if what is happening today is an encouraging trend. Should we ape the west blindly in the pretext of individual freedom? As regards many social issues the west is regretting now. Must we commit the same mistakes in order to learn?