The movie Slumdog Millionaire is good, the cast has done a great job, and the director has been able to bring out the contrast in modern India. But there have been many Indian movies which have very cogently brought out stark realities of the modern capitalist society. These movies created a genre in the eighties and early nineties and were so appropriately termed “Art Movies”. These movies portrayed India’s grim realities; they portrayed the rich-poor divide; they portrayed the existence of man in horrid squalor but these movies never reached the pinnacle of box office.
Yes they won some awards but remained on the fringes of making it even or being somewhat profitable venture on the box-office. But why Slumdog Millionaire has turned out to be such a huge box office success? The reasons could be many. One obvious reason is the rags-to-riches story. And here the protagonist, a slum dweller strikes it rich in a contest of wits and brains. But there have been scores of movies on the battered rags-to-riches theme and none as successful as the Slumdog Millionaire. So the reason of its success lies elsewhere.
The year 2009 is the year battered by the worst financial crisis in the history of mankind. The worst crisis because of the gargantuan sums of money involved; the worst crisis because of many financial giants just melting away and the worst crisis because it has jeopardized lives of millions. Don’t you think the world presents a reverse story from that of the Slumdog Millionaire? What would you call this… “Millionaire Turned Slumdog” or “MansionPooch Pauper”? And what an irony here too, the real Millionaires have been turned pauper by the subprime crisis or the Slumdogs of US who dreamed of becoming home owners. Or to say the Slumdogs who wanted to become Millionaires.
So who is watching the film, the Slumdogs who want to become millionaires or those millionaires who are facing the slumdog future because of the pink slips? Or all of us who have suddenly found so much of spare time because of no or less work pressures. The world today presents a bleak economic picture, everyone is looking for a miracle; be it Obama or Manmohan Singh.
The movie Slumdog Millionaire presents a miracle in the times of financial distress. Let the world learn from it, the Slumdog is the buzzword today. Let there be a slumdog revolution of sorts. Slumdogtravels, slumdogtours, slumdog greetings, slumdog cards…. This is not a gimmick; this is the reality of 2009. The big spenders are passé; thrift is the order of the day. Welcome to the Slumdog World of today.
