India , Such a beautiful country !! Winter , summer and spring all come and go leaving all of us amazed at the extremes which exist here ,
then there are times when the nature can not get better , cool breeze , mellow sun , a farmer ploughing his field , birds chirping , country women
involved with their house hold work , kids playing with Grand pas and Grannys , Industriaists working hard for better brand name, professionals wroking hard
to acheive better results , Showing our military strength in 26th January parade , scientists representing India in outer space , Indian men and women making
a significant proportion of intellectual/rich society , Indian writer getting a Booker and a movie about India getting an Oscar .
Can it get any better ?
I was reading Times Of India " deep Focus " a few days back when I stumbled on an article Real Bharat , Reel India. This article was about the evolution of Indian Film Industry and media since independence.
In 1947 , Father Of the Nation Mr. Mohan Das Karam chand Gandhi said that the real India lives in villages. After the success of Slum Dog Millionaire and The White Tiger , most of us have started thinking that real India never went away , it was still there during our journey from a newly independent nation to a developing country.
As the article says thanking Arvind Adiga , Simon Beaufoy and Dany Boyle that with this new book and this amazing movie real India is back in focus , I could not stop myself from disagreeing to the fact that the picturization and description of the India in these two instances of amazing art ,is a presentation of Real India, i would say it is merely a view point rather than the true picture of the Real India at present.
I would like to quote Mr . Narendra Jadhav , vice chancellore of Pune University and author of the Dalit family story "Outcaste : A memoir". He said "I don't think Adiga and Boyle have shown the real India. There is a silent revolution happening in India, with millions of people who have lived on the margins for centuries, now experiencing positive changes in their life. Adiga's The White Tiger and Slumdog Millionaire show the bad side of this change. That's also a reality but it's not the real India."
I agree that the India living in the slums and the India of the driver turned entreprenure of The White Tiger is a bitter truth . But it is not the complete picture.
Lets disuss the movie first.
Indian film industry has seen many trends and its not that these slums are shown for the first time , many a number of times we have seen our Hero , singing , dancing , playing role of an ideal son , a friend or a lover in these slums , where he grows up to fight with the bad of the society. But the picturization was never so real as we have seen in the Slum Dog Mllionaire. Based on the page-turning novel Q & A by diplomat Vikas Swarup , This movie is one of the commendable efforts by any western director , and as I have seen the movie I can say with confidence that Danny Boyle has done a great job.
As Shashi Tharoor said in his artile Vikas Swarup's novel is about an orphan boy called Ram Mohammed Thomas who is about to win a TV quiz show based on Kaun Banega Crorepati and is arrested on suspicion of having got that far by cheating. He's rescued by a female lawyer who gets him to tell his life story and explain how he, an uneducated slum kid, knew the answers to such difficult questions. Ram then tells a number of stories, each of which explains how he knew what he happened to know. Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy has changed pretty much all of Swarup's stories, introduced a romantic element and even re-baptised the hero (who is now Jamal Malik). But he has retained the novel's structure and premise, and Danny Boyle has brought its spirit alive in a way that i believe even Swarup would appreciate.
And It is amazing to know that the movie is filmed in the slums of Dharavi with small hand held cameras, so the on screen life in slums is pretty much same as the real lives there. I an sure Danny and Simon would have touched India to get to know it to some extent , but even though they managed to know it fairly well in this particular field , this is not all of India , and for sure not the complete real India . As said in some article that I read , this part of the society is like a gangreen affected leg of mother India that we have , i am not sure if forgotten , chose to, ignore , would be a bad word to say , rather it got neglected for so many socio - political reasons that an ordinary Indian like me is not aware of , what our policy makers are doing about it , I am not sure though.
Real India at the time of Independence was a new born baby on the globe which was already sucked up by many foreigners, so had a lot of poverty , misery and disorganization . And ofcourse droughts and floods took over it one by one many times . That time almost whole of India lived in villages and with beginning of Industrialization they started moving to urbanisation. Slums might have presented the real India more accurately at that time but I cant be sure about that either .
At present Real India ,I believe, constitutes of people who have grown up to be sucessful in various aspects of life and retained the essence of Indian Culture. Real India now is a mixture of scenes of successful professionals , Industrialists , scientists ,writers , farmers etc etc . and "Slum" is just a photograph in the whole album.
Now coming to the India shown by Arvind Adiga's Booker Prize winner "The white Tiger" . I think this is an even narower represntation of India than that of Danny BOyle's creation. This picture of real India is merely a way as an illiterate driver sees it. I shall not get into the reveiew of the book here that I would be discussing some other time . But if you have read the book you would realize that the driver has not tried to bring out the good of the society rather the whole emphasis is on the bad from his father dying in the government hospital to the bribe to the minister's sidekick and other election related events.
So saying that The White Tiger shows real India , if not absurd , is not the complete truth.
Drawing a conclusion from all this :
I can say that a good work of art of any type a movie or a book does get a reward , and sure they got Oscar and Booker. And somehow their presentation of India is also a realty , but thats not a complete picture. I find it analogous with the situation where when you go to see your probable " to be bride" for the first time and only her hand is shown to you to decide whether you want to get married to her or not. Thats as incomplete and irrational as the depiction of Real India in these two fine creations.
I would close with a few lines from a poem by former president of India Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam
"See there the Earth shining in glory
how come it got its light?"
A sweet and soft reply comes:
"It is not the mere light,
It is the light of knowledge,
It is the light of service,
It is the light of peace."
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Monday, February 02, 2009
The big question.. Poverty ? Beggars?
Imagine a day when there is no one who is going to sleep without feeding his family ?Can you?
Let me help you in visualising that, a family living under a huge fly over dirty as hell ,begging and crying ,
little kids playing in dirt ,some of them sleeping so carelesely at a place where you might not even feel like spitting.
Now lets paint a bigger picture :
India is a country with a population over one billion and more than 50 percent of it living right above or below poverty
line in, better known as its shortform BPL. If you do not understand what is "BPL" - let me explain - This line is an imaginary line just like Line of Control between two countries. And beleive me BPL is exactly as disturbed as LOC.
Please catch the sarcasm in the following paragraph :
Our government identifies people living below this imaginary line all over country through a high class
and higly sophisticated method which has exactly no tolerance for errors, and then they tag them as BPL. There are many benefits and schemes for
these people. They get medical and other facilities for free, and food also , they are to get almost 700 gm of
sugar perhead from the local government low cost shop for a very meagre amount , that also they can hardly make.
God !! these poor people are difficult.
This saturday afternoon , while i was still in my blanket pretending that I was fast asleep because i was too lazy to
get out, I realized a huge difference between a middle class society and a better one .And this realization came along with a question.
That is : What actually happened to the high and comaparatively higher middle class in the process of evolution that
they lost all the compassion and kindness or why are they so scared of being compassaionate.
The difference that I am talking about is the one that a family, in a lower middle class or a higher middle
class of a relatively smaller city , always has a small pot full of wheat floor for a poor man knocking ,
shouting , singing or playing some musical instrument in worst possible way on your door while on the other hand same
is not the case with any family in a better society , atleast i have never seen that. Ah!! Poor men in a small place are
luckier than poor of a better place. Atleast someone is enjyoing smaller cities , not that people dont enjoy them ,
they are not enjoyable for people who live there ,though it is for people who visit them once in a while when they
try to get out of their busy lives.
Ok , So coming back to the topic , why did this happen?? how come they lost all the kindness which apparently is a very important human emotion . I am sure people living in Better cities and taller buildings
have enough food in their houses that they can feed a poor everyday as I have seen them feeding their dogs better than
most of the people in my village feed their kids.
So what is it that is suppressing their ability to feel what poor feel and give back a little to the society if not to
make it a better place to live in but aleast for a more selfish motive " PUNYA ", a sacred phenomenon in Hindu Society that
guarantees heaven after death. I am sure there are such concepts in other religions too, pardon me for my ignorance
about other religions I am still trying to understand my own religion so never got a chance to look outside.
So again coming back to topic ,what happened to those people with Maruti 800 to Luxury Cars ,( can you beleieve there
are places where Maruti 800 is considered to be luxurious as they can not afford a better one ), and from Nokia 1100
to Iphone in their hands , with Koutons to Gucci or Armani covering their paunchy figures , why cant they let one rupee
from their wallet go to a poor person , when they can pay thousands to a corrupt givernment official or give thousands as donation to a stupid scoiety which only blabbers about the welfare of human being and then spends that money in its own welfare by improving the qulaity of services of its club .
I found answer after a lot of thinking that I did before going to sleep lastnight and found that there
are some people who in this hautch-pautch life style , have lost their compassion and concern for other human beings ,
worst of them have lost concern about their families too.
But obviously everyone is not like them there are people who are kind and compassionate and wish to do something about
poor.
But they dont, for many reasons some them are :
1. They have read somewhere that they should not promote beggers on roads.
Fair enough . Oe should never give another man a rupee just because he is a begger and pleading for a coin or two.
But my friend why dint you read the other part of the line where it is said that " make them able to earn their livelihood.
"
Because for sure the one rupee that you give is not enough to feed them. I know what are you thinking now ,
how can I do something like that , I am a person of little means but I can always look for people who are with
help of others trying to do something good , why not go and help them. Please do not think that it is impossible
for one person, with a small job where he has to work whole day and then take care of his family and other earthly
human affairs, to do anything in this regard. Atleast do your bit , dont worry about others. These little bits add
together and someday they will make difference to atleast two lives. One that you changed and the other is simply yours.
2. Now there are bad people also around who try to take advantage of the good man inside you , robbers , fake and forced
beggers ( I find it funny that being begger is also some kind of a job and there are "Owners" of big " Begging firms"
who force people to be begger ( rather than apponting them :) ) and then they pay them on a monthly basis with food and
all.
Somehow I have turned into being an optimist and I can see a positive point in all this also , i.e. atleast they are not
going around pick pocketing and kiling people , but another question , is begging better than mugging someone???
I am not sure , how confused am I?
There are many points that I can keep adding here but the thing is when on the one hand we have poor who beg everyday
to earn enough to eat everyday some of them genuinely poor and some fabricated and just too lazy to go out and work on
the other hand we have selfish who do not consider giving back anything to society. I need to get going now my friends
are waiting , we are going for LUCK BY CHANCE, I would finish with one line please do not be any of them neither the
first kind nor the other.
Ciao
Let me help you in visualising that, a family living under a huge fly over dirty as hell ,begging and crying ,
little kids playing in dirt ,some of them sleeping so carelesely at a place where you might not even feel like spitting.
Now lets paint a bigger picture :
India is a country with a population over one billion and more than 50 percent of it living right above or below poverty
line in, better known as its shortform BPL. If you do not understand what is "BPL" - let me explain - This line is an imaginary line just like Line of Control between two countries. And beleive me BPL is exactly as disturbed as LOC.
Please catch the sarcasm in the following paragraph :
Our government identifies people living below this imaginary line all over country through a high class
and higly sophisticated method which has exactly no tolerance for errors, and then they tag them as BPL. There are many benefits and schemes for
these people. They get medical and other facilities for free, and food also , they are to get almost 700 gm of
sugar perhead from the local government low cost shop for a very meagre amount , that also they can hardly make.
God !! these poor people are difficult.
This saturday afternoon , while i was still in my blanket pretending that I was fast asleep because i was too lazy to
get out, I realized a huge difference between a middle class society and a better one .And this realization came along with a question.
That is : What actually happened to the high and comaparatively higher middle class in the process of evolution that
they lost all the compassion and kindness or why are they so scared of being compassaionate.
The difference that I am talking about is the one that a family, in a lower middle class or a higher middle
class of a relatively smaller city , always has a small pot full of wheat floor for a poor man knocking ,
shouting , singing or playing some musical instrument in worst possible way on your door while on the other hand same
is not the case with any family in a better society , atleast i have never seen that. Ah!! Poor men in a small place are
luckier than poor of a better place. Atleast someone is enjyoing smaller cities , not that people dont enjoy them ,
they are not enjoyable for people who live there ,though it is for people who visit them once in a while when they
try to get out of their busy lives.
Ok , So coming back to the topic , why did this happen?? how come they lost all the kindness which apparently is a very important human emotion . I am sure people living in Better cities and taller buildings
have enough food in their houses that they can feed a poor everyday as I have seen them feeding their dogs better than
most of the people in my village feed their kids.
So what is it that is suppressing their ability to feel what poor feel and give back a little to the society if not to
make it a better place to live in but aleast for a more selfish motive " PUNYA ", a sacred phenomenon in Hindu Society that
guarantees heaven after death. I am sure there are such concepts in other religions too, pardon me for my ignorance
about other religions I am still trying to understand my own religion so never got a chance to look outside.
So again coming back to topic ,what happened to those people with Maruti 800 to Luxury Cars ,( can you beleieve there
are places where Maruti 800 is considered to be luxurious as they can not afford a better one ), and from Nokia 1100
to Iphone in their hands , with Koutons to Gucci or Armani covering their paunchy figures , why cant they let one rupee
from their wallet go to a poor person , when they can pay thousands to a corrupt givernment official or give thousands as donation to a stupid scoiety which only blabbers about the welfare of human being and then spends that money in its own welfare by improving the qulaity of services of its club .
I found answer after a lot of thinking that I did before going to sleep lastnight and found that there
are some people who in this hautch-pautch life style , have lost their compassion and concern for other human beings ,
worst of them have lost concern about their families too.
But obviously everyone is not like them there are people who are kind and compassionate and wish to do something about
poor.
But they dont, for many reasons some them are :
1. They have read somewhere that they should not promote beggers on roads.
Fair enough . Oe should never give another man a rupee just because he is a begger and pleading for a coin or two.
But my friend why dint you read the other part of the line where it is said that " make them able to earn their livelihood.
"
Because for sure the one rupee that you give is not enough to feed them. I know what are you thinking now ,
how can I do something like that , I am a person of little means but I can always look for people who are with
help of others trying to do something good , why not go and help them. Please do not think that it is impossible
for one person, with a small job where he has to work whole day and then take care of his family and other earthly
human affairs, to do anything in this regard. Atleast do your bit , dont worry about others. These little bits add
together and someday they will make difference to atleast two lives. One that you changed and the other is simply yours.
2. Now there are bad people also around who try to take advantage of the good man inside you , robbers , fake and forced
beggers ( I find it funny that being begger is also some kind of a job and there are "Owners" of big " Begging firms"
who force people to be begger ( rather than apponting them :) ) and then they pay them on a monthly basis with food and
all.
Somehow I have turned into being an optimist and I can see a positive point in all this also , i.e. atleast they are not
going around pick pocketing and kiling people , but another question , is begging better than mugging someone???
I am not sure , how confused am I?
There are many points that I can keep adding here but the thing is when on the one hand we have poor who beg everyday
to earn enough to eat everyday some of them genuinely poor and some fabricated and just too lazy to go out and work on
the other hand we have selfish who do not consider giving back anything to society. I need to get going now my friends
are waiting , we are going for LUCK BY CHANCE, I would finish with one line please do not be any of them neither the
first kind nor the other.
Ciao
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