Every Slumdog has his day

So it finally comes to pass...Bhanu Athaiya will no longer be a loner..she has company....and Slumdog Millionaire takes it place in the pantheon of great Indian cinema...the only disconcerting fact being that it is a Hollywood film based on an Indian novel and therefore requiring locations in India,Indian artistes and the Indian touch....kind of like Gandhi I presume....An Oscar sweep and Bhanu Athaiya is part of it....No fanfare then...But no, this time it is different....Even political parties have gone to the extent of stating that this is an example of "Achieving India"..versus "Shining India"...Which I think would have been validated had Lagaan won the award...Bad timing for "shining India" , I guess...

I was kind of surprised when one of the early morning e-mails I read was from a close friend who wrote that he was happy because of SM ....and then there was another colleague who had changed his YM icon to "Slumdog sweeps Oscars"...I had somehow begin to believe that IIM grads were far removed from the world....It was nice to see people connected and reacting to mundane events..But not until I had seen Asif Mandvi in the John Stewart show late that night, that I realized the significance of the event...And what the world made of it....And what Indians made of it...

Make no mistake...I cannot, for the life of me, distinguish bad cinema from good or great.....But having watched Bollywood offerings of all kind so religiously over the past 10 years or so, I know for a fact that I have seen Slumdog before....Not at the Oscars winning everything and anything in sight.....But in much more humbler settings....

So why should we not celebrate Slumdog.....Its after all based in India....And it has Indian artistes....And AR Rahman , we all know, deserves an Oscar with or without Slumdog......

Theres no reason why we should not...As long as we remember that this is not India arriving and conquering at the Oscars.....This is a Danny Boyle film....And this is a beautiful story that has been so enchantingly captured on screen... This is Bollywood from an outsiders point of view...A point of view that moves us to accept that view as our own....

We will be outsourcing movies to India in the future....Thats Colbert take on the Oscars that I hear right now as I type...That day has passed Colbert by long ago....But the real outsourcing deal will have to wait...We are not there yet...That does not mean we cannot celebrate a British film based on an Indian novel and showcasing Indian talent.....We should...As long as we know what we are celebrating, I guess...

As that song goes...Jai Ho....