Sunday Posts

Rubina Ali is in news. Of course, she is - she was the girl child in Slumdog Millionnaire . That movie which made news, won Oscar and infuriated some of our chatteretti . I recall reading a stunningly insensitive piece written by Arindam Chaudhuri , the education entrepreneur, media owner, movie producer and aspiring politician, somewhat the pinup boy of the shining entrepreneurial India. There, he argued, that Slumdog Millionnaire is a shame, it shows India in a bad light - something the Westerners still love to do - and undermines India's progress. I have read chat room postings - this is not real India - and followed the blog chatter accusing non-residents like me being insensitive to the shame of the slums. I obviously made no secret that I liked the movie immensely, as I did like The White Tiger, Arvind Adiga's Booker Winning effort, both of which were united in celebrating the spirit of the underdog. I did think that the real progress in India is being made as Jamal...

I have finally seen Slumdog Millionaire as I am back to my movie times, long intercontinental flights. As I write this sitting in my favourite writing place, in the lounge at Dubai Airport, in the middle of the night, I must be honest in stating that parts of the movie was too graphic and painful to watch for me, and hence I skipped parts by channel switching between this beautiful movie and almost meaningless Quantum of Solace. But let me talk about Slumdog Millionaire. This is every bit as good as its Academy Awards [and other] honours suggest. Brilliant script and editing, some stellar performances, great music etc have already been mentioned in many other places. Dev Patel and Frieda Pinto surely are outstanding new faces and I am sure we will see more of them in the coming years. Irrfan Khan is very special, and he does a great cameo; so does Anil Kapoor. But I am no movie critic and will not pretend as one. I would rather return to my favourite subject - modern India. The star of...