After a lot of resistance , i finally rented Slumdog Millionaire, the movie was good but i still cannot see what the hype is all about ? Should i be fascinated about the screenplay , the story idea ? Yes I am in awe of the idea that the kid relates to all the questions in the contest with his real life experiences and AR Rahman has done it again and this time with just one song.
But sadly that experience ends there .
Here are a few issues i am struggling with ......
What is intriguing is that all the well played moves by the PR department and sudden explosion of media publicity is done all the wonders.
Now there are a couple of ways to look at this situation , the first and foremost is kind of a trite ,banal question about representation , Out of hundreds of movies released in India each year ,what kind of movie gets to represent the Indian ethos?
In spite of the fact that 80% of India lives in villages and me being an Indian has to be cognizant of the hygienic conditions,poverty there is some thing inside telling me that the USP of this film was the depiction of poverty ,corruption,underbelly of Mumbai and not the lovely story idea.
My point is that anyone can make a movie about rampant violence in African countries, epidemic in Ethiopia, crime in inner cities of America, but the real beauty of film making lies in telling the stories without accentuating the sad reality.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
BacK from India
Came back from the customary year end India trip , its a strange feeling when we are back specially for people like me who have this perennial question of settling down lingering in the mind.These days when i go to India i feel like a detective trying to find out truth about things in India, I keep thinking, can we come back ? will we be beaming with joy when we come back or are we happy in the US.
The highlight of my visit was my sisters car driver was the one giving me a lecture while driving the car he was like Sir come back to India , what is there in America , its only money no happiness. Those couple of lines from the driver sent my thought process in a different tangent , i was thinking about this guy who barely makes his two ends meet and would qualify as poor person in India was telling me about the Western society and was asking me to come back to India to take care of my aging parents.
Its always interesting to hear the rationale of people on the topic of expats returning home , there was a time when everyone was asking me to come back to India and would almost read out excerpts from the books like "It happened in India" and India Unbound books . But this time when the same topics started the general mood was hang in there in the US
The highlight of my visit was my sisters car driver was the one giving me a lecture while driving the car he was like Sir come back to India , what is there in America , its only money no happiness. Those couple of lines from the driver sent my thought process in a different tangent , i was thinking about this guy who barely makes his two ends meet and would qualify as poor person in India was telling me about the Western society and was asking me to come back to India to take care of my aging parents.
Its always interesting to hear the rationale of people on the topic of expats returning home , there was a time when everyone was asking me to come back to India and would almost read out excerpts from the books like "It happened in India" and India Unbound books . But this time when the same topics started the general mood was hang in there in the US
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Holidays are here ...
I feel the best time to visit USA is the December , there is something magical about the holiday times here and i am not stealing this line or thoughts from a Disney commercial.
By the way I went to India for a wedding and stayed in Poona and Hyderabad.This time I found out that I am a happy traveler all i need is couple of drinks some good music and an aisle seat and i can do the 14 hour flight easily, We had a stopover at Hong Kong for a coup
I took a taxi from Mumbai to Poona , with the Nov attacks in Mumbai and the yearly Dec 6th tension in the air ,i arrived at the CSI airport at 2 in morning ,things were pretty normal as compared to what i had anticipated.
The ride was uneventful with a single stop for chai and cigarette before we entered the Mountains Western Ghats,I was on the famous Bombay Poona expressway speeding away at the break of the day.I always get emotional when i go to India its something in the air which gets me in that mood.I guess you need to be away from the country for couple of years to get that feeling ,its a strange feeling and probably an indescribable one its like now after living almost a decade we want best of both the worlds, when i am in bay area i miss hyderabadi byrani and the irani caafe and when i am in hyderabad i miss the quietness , cleanliness, of bay area. In short i believe that we have to make a way in between these two non intersecting paths and make peace with life.
So with all these thoughts i finally reached Poona and started my so called vacation.
By the way I went to India for a wedding and stayed in Poona and Hyderabad.This time I found out that I am a happy traveler all i need is couple of drinks some good music and an aisle seat and i can do the 14 hour flight easily, We had a stopover at Hong Kong for a coup
I took a taxi from Mumbai to Poona , with the Nov attacks in Mumbai and the yearly Dec 6th tension in the air ,i arrived at the CSI airport at 2 in morning ,things were pretty normal as compared to what i had anticipated.
The ride was uneventful with a single stop for chai and cigarette before we entered the Mountains Western Ghats,I was on the famous Bombay Poona expressway speeding away at the break of the day.I always get emotional when i go to India its something in the air which gets me in that mood.I guess you need to be away from the country for couple of years to get that feeling ,its a strange feeling and probably an indescribable one its like now after living almost a decade we want best of both the worlds, when i am in bay area i miss hyderabadi byrani and the irani caafe and when i am in hyderabad i miss the quietness , cleanliness, of bay area. In short i believe that we have to make a way in between these two non intersecting paths and make peace with life.
So with all these thoughts i finally reached Poona and started my so called vacation.
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