Slumdog Millionaire

Again and again India is not a poor country, a country which is home of millions of poor people, slowly and steadily they are becoming middle class status as we are giving free basic education and uplift their social status by providing mammoth affirmation actions. Whenever west media come to India first they want to take a photograph of cow in the middle of road, snake charmers, an elephant and slums in Mumbai or Calcutta. Now Danny Boyle joined in parade to make fame and money by glamorizing Indian slums. Why can not he take a movie about British homeless people or drug issue or about terrorism or corruption?

Almost all states in India have similar rule, that is, slum abolishment law, they built huge apartment complex for slum dwellers, some of them went to those new places and some choose to live in slum for various reasons. India is a democratic country and we can’t force them out also. Here I want to quote our former finance minister P.Chidambaram “A project as big as China’s Three Gorges Dam (which will displace millions) would take me the rest of my life in India”.

For example, Asia’s largest slum “Dharavi” in Mumbai, there slum dwellers are rich guys, their business turn over per year is $650 million, almost all own an apartment at suburban of Mumbai, and they choose to live here at slums because of proximity to main city places and joy to be in city’s center place and extra income from rented apartment. Keep in mind, each slum dwellers has tremendous support from government, local organizations, massive affirmation actions but they want to live in slums.

India is a vast and majestic country, one should be very carful about showing India’s image to outside world. We are spending money, resource and time to abolish poverty from India, by even providing controversial affirmation actions. If these movie makers exaggerate Indian poverty, people start questioning about those and create chaos within community, even it may derail our progressive development to abolish poverty. Movie maker’s can help us by providing some suggestions to eliminate poverty, not to make money out of poverty. IT IS NOT FUN. We are 1 billion in population and slowly, steadily will win the race. Can anyone point any country in this world 100% rich and no homeless and no below poverty people?

Reference :

http://www.sra.gov.in/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1010048/

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000965/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharavi

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/world/06/dharavi_slum/html/dharavi_slum_intro.stm


Comments

Anonymous said…
Interesting post. Commercial Moviemakers will make what sells.India's poverty sells. Simple. India is progressing steadily. Those who chose to think that India lives in its slums, the problem is theirs.
11:07 PM
Subba Muthurangan said…
Thanks Sukumar. You are 100% correct.
7:35 AM
Unknown said…
Interesting and well written post.You may want to look at this also..

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/21/slumdog-millionaire-sued_n_159696.html
12:16 PM
Subba Muthurangan said…
Thanks Maheswari and thanks for the link.
7:50 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Coupon Crazy

Coupon, Is it good remedy for current inflation fight? I think it is not and coupons are highly addictive. Yesterday when i was in train on the way back home, one lady sitting next to me, cut and cut coupons from newspaper. I was watching it all, to make things worse, she put all waste into me. She carried a separate bag for coupons, the bag was filled of coupons. Okay, that was fine, she is just trying to save some 1 or 2 dollars. After finishing all coupon cutting, she opened other bag and took 3-4 lottery, the one that we have to scratch.So now she started now scratching lotteries, again all wastes into me. I just realized that what ever she saved now from coupon were gone. One day I was standing in queue at Costco for checkout, a man who was standing in front of me had tons of ton items to checkout. I thought i might have to spent another hour or so to check out after him. He placed all items on checkout belt. As soon as, sales clerk started checking the items, he pulled a coupon
Read more

Google's Killer Application.

Already Microsoft getting heat from Google, that Google is capturing all critical functionalities from Microsoft office suite and developed online based Google Docs suite . From many of small business to individuals now using Google docs instead of expensive Microsoft office suite. Now Google released a "sharepoint killer application" named as Sites . It was just redesign of JotSpot wiki, which Google acquired some years back . I think that now Google can declare war against Microsoft office suite. Google has now all replacement products for Microsoft office. Actually now we are expecting a twist from Microsoft that they will release a online based mini office suite to fight against Google Apps.
Read more

Uncontrolled Musing

When I start thinking about future, my mind exploding without control, particularly current events and state of our economy. There is no definite answer to following questions. Are we at recession or depression or nothing? Occupywallstreet will become a revolutionary movement or just like tea party, it will also subside?   President Obama able to win job bill or it will go under water.   If we are not in recession, what is the status of this market? What will happen to 401k, IRA and other investments?   Are we bear market or bull market or pig? How many more days (months/years) we need to worry about our job?   When will my home value improves? The above all are somehow interrelated, a better economy spurs growth which will eliminate all uncertainty. But no one here able to pin point what went wrong and how to fix it. If we know the answer, we could have somehow fixed this mess already.The issues with unable to fix current state of economy are, Very complicated : This ec
Read more