Slimdog Zillionaire

As the title suggests, Slumdog Millionaire is Bollywood’s raciest moment, its tautest version, its sudless soap, its chililess masala. It is a test run for Bollywood which has always relied on over-zeal, over-romance, over-thrill, over-emotion and over-entertainment. All that Slumdog does is to reduce the overkill to create a sharper, deeper bite. In providing Hollywood with its finest Bollywood moment, director Danny Boyle gives the slim and svelte Dharavi thriller a universal appeal, a subtle depth, and a lingering tang.

Even if you savour Boyle’s flavour, or relish AR Rahman’s mood-setting and inspiring music, prepare yourself to answer these questions. Does Slumdog Millionaire show India in poor light? Is the West piggybacking on Bollywood? Do we need the West to tell us what India is? Even after four Golden Globes and 10 Oscar nominations, we still wonder whether Slumdog is a good film and whether it really deserves global accolades.

Well, to enjoy Slumdog, you have to get rid of preconceived templates. You have to stop comparing slumdog with swordfish, avoid believing that Dark Knight is a hi-tech slumdog, and start reading enough about Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib to prepare yourself for the injustices of Dharavi. In other words, you need to see Slumdog with a fresh pair of eyes, ears, and popcorn.

Slumdog comes at a time when two books have become talking points: Aravind Adiga’s White Tiger and Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. Did Adiga present the real India? Was he fair to a country that has the makings of an IT superpower? Did he have to remind us about the scum and scam of Indian life? Adiga’s Booker-winning tale asked a simple question: Does the unfortunate underdog even stand a chance in India’s villages?

Slumdog turns life into a quiz show. Only one can survive the struggle; only one can win life’s contest. Phone-a-friend, 50:50, ask-the-audience are also life’s rope-tricks for survival. If Slumdog smells like a soap in Danny Boyle’s hands, it’s because of its unlikely, simply-impossible-to-become hero.

It may not be a bad idea to read Gladwell’s Outliers to understand struggle and success. “We all know that successful people come from hardy seeds. But do we know enough about the sunlight that warmed them, the soil in which they put down the roots and the rabbits and lumberjacks they were lucky enough to avoid? This is not a book about tall trees. It’s a book about forests...,” writes Gladwell.

It’s the predators and lumberjacks that Slumdog focuses on. In a downturn, white tigers, slumdogs and rabbits expose the dark underbelly of India. A boom creates a short-term memory loss. In such times, you need to tattoo Slumdog on your mind to remind yourself of the other India.

Since Ghajini is still playing in theatres, perhaps it’s a good time to compare the idea of exploitation. Certainly, Slumdog looks like a Tihar before Ghajini’s Guantanamo. After all, Ghajini is barbarity giftwrapped as a medical enigma for the audiences. Once you erase the tattoos, you will see the monstrousness of slum life staring remorselessly at you.

Slumdog is not just social footage or a poverty thriller. It has a fast, suspenseful, slackless script. It is peopled with the right cast, edited to Mahim’s pace, and shot with an eagle eye. It ferrets out poignant images we have always taken for granted in our boom-boom moments. It is reality pinching you and making you feel guilty. There’s no post-Slumdog catharsis; you will only be swamped by a tidal wave of awareness.

“When I saw Slumdog Millionaire… I was witnessing a phenomenon: dramatic proof that a movie is about how it tells itself… It is one of those miraculous entertainments that achieves its immediate goals and keeps climbing toward a higher summit,” says cine-commentator Roger Ebert.

That higher summit is Bollywood 2.0. Could Bollywood have done it on its own? A film is not just about local talent churning out well-marketed masterpieces. It is also about global talent teaming up to recreate Bollywood. It’s about finesse, art, sophistication, and universal connect. Slumdog is not just a Hollywood triumph; it is also a manifestation of Bollywood and its time-tested formula. It is simply about quality. It is also about the creation of MacMasala, or Bollwood’s ability to roll out one Oscar-quality film after another.

Vikas Swarup, the writer whose Q&A inspired Slumdog Millionaire, opens the book with a clincher: “Arrests in Dharavi are as common as pickpockets on a local train. There are some who have to be physically dragged off by the constables…And there are those who go quietly… For them, the arrival of the jeep with the flashing red light is actually a relief.”

Well, Danny Boyle’s movie is like the jeep with the red light. It’s a relief for people overfed on Hollywood and Bollywood. It is entertainment with a new bite and class. It is a splendid surprise.