Er, aren’t we going OTT?

I really don’t wish to be a party pooper for the swinging actors and support staff of Slumdog, it’s not often your work gets noticed on a global scale, and that too at the Oscar soiree. And therefore I quite understand some degree of excitement. It’s another matter, of course, that till the goras don’t recognise our work, we haven’t achieved real glory, and I wonder when that medieval mindset will evolve. I mean, we don’t need some faceless Oscar jurors to tell us Rahman is a genius, we knew that a decade or so ago.

Fact of the matter is, SM is a Brit film, produced, directed, shot and written by Brits. Purely for the international audiences. That the setting happens to be India is really our only role to play in this western production. The setting could easily have been Congo or Chile or Bangladesh, and the story of rags to riches and triumph of love would have worked equally well. And once the setting becomes India, obviously the producers would need the locals to provide the local touch. Clearly, for a movie set in Mumbai, Robert De Niro could not have played the police inspector and Tom Cruise could not have played the game show host and Pearl Jam would not be chosen to score the music track.

Also, Bollywood stars like Anil Kapoor and Irfan Khan play minor, support roles, so I just don’t get the balle balle they have been noisily doing all over TV studios. Looking at the way Kapoor has been going all out to milk the film, one would imagine he has been nominated for Best Actor at the Academy awards for Roop Ki Raani, Choron Ka Raja or something like that. If at all, the two Indian gents who should be doing these OTT gigs are Rahman (who did a great job as always) and the writer of the book on which SM is based. And the last two appear the most dignified in what is clearly Danny Boyle’s moment, a Brit moment.

The other reason it’s laughable to even suggest this is an Indian film, is the treatment. The absolutely high-octane, super-fast back and forths, and the highly mobile camera work is the sort of treatment that works in the west. In India, we prefer linear stories, shot with ease and labour to let the emotional quotient flow smoothly. I stick my neck out and forecast that in India, this film will only do well only in the metro multiplexes and that too mainly because of the hype. It’s NOT meant for desi consumption, our masses will neither comprehend nor appreciate this sort of jagged cinema.

Which is also why I get amused when I hear protests about Boyle exploiting our slums. There’s no question of that happening in SM simply because the film runs at a nuclear pace, and the camera angles are so wild and angly, no frame stays with you for more than a second. So that argument is rubbish. I have seen more poverty and destitution in zillions of Bollywood films. And you know why Boyle treated the film thus? Because it’s meant for western consumption, their audiences would hate a film that lingers depressingly on the lives of our slumworld. And it’s not because Boyle is sensitive to the subject. He never made the film for us.

Bottomline: Guys, do party by all means. Just keep a lid on things out here. It’s not very classy to feed on someone else’s work and ideas.

Ramalinga Raju did no wrong

The reason why the Satyam dude did what he did, is cos he must have felt he’ll get away with it. And he probably will, once all the dust settles and the media focus shifts to the next terror attack.

It’s the same reason violent men rape women with impunity. Netas and babus fatten their Swiss accounts. RTOs dish out driving licenses like dog biscuits. Cops turn into paid encounter killers. Rioters burn and loot at free will. Intelligence officers watch T20 cricket matches ignoring warnings. Striking oily men hold the entire nation to ransom. And this list is endless. It’s the same reason… we’ll get away with it.

We either don’t have the laws, or we don’t have the will to implement them, or lack the machinery required to enforce them. Which encourages people to turn into rogues.
Unless we instill the fear of punishment into our collective psyche, unless we believe we WON’T get away with it, we will continue to make a joke out of this nation.

So there’s no point in fishing out the knives for Ramalinga Raju. He is one of us, he only behaved in a way the rest of us Indians do.

The only way forward is to totally re-invent the law in this land. Where justice is done swiftly and proportionately to the crime, and is SEEN to be done.
The question is: the people who should be doing the above are the ones that will get the most hit, so why would they bother?

So let’s quit castigating chors like Raju. We are all Rajus in one form or another.

Thot for the day

Received this as a text msg. Sad, but true:
"Politicians divide us, terrorists unite us."