So congratulations then to all those who were associated with Slumdog Millionaire. From the producers, director and script-writer to the youngest child actor, it is everyone's success and whatever one might say -- it is not an Indian film, it shows the seamy side of Mumbai -- etc, you got to admit Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy brought a perspective no Hindi filmmaker would ever have. Even dirt and filth in Bollywood films, when it is shown, is so glamourised and artificial that it loses any meaning. The much talked about shit scene (an echo of a similar scene in Trainspotting, also by Boyle) has attracted the ire of all those who feel this is poverty-porn, and it is certainly cringe inducing, but who can deny it is marvellously inventive.

But as a Mumbaiwalla, I have some other grouses. I think the author and script-writer have a very outdated view of even Mumbai's underbelly. The infamous "blinding of the beggar child" scene, for example--when was the last time you saw a blind beggar in Mumbai? No seriously, blind beggars are passe though the legend lives on. The Dickensian conditions, complete with a Fagin may still be around (though I cannot confirm that), but the Mumbai beggar today looks very different from what he/she used to. Ditto the police torture scene. Good sources tell me that even the electrode sequence harks back to another era.

Most of all I think that while life in the slums is tough and miserable, to suggest, as the film does, that the only way out is to take to crime is ingenous. The slums of Mumbai also are home to people who have proper jobs and who are perfectly "respectable"; they just cannot afford proper apartments. A nod in that direction would have made a big difference.

Yet, it is the creator's prerogative to show his vision of things and no one can quarrel with Boyle and co about that. Let us also not forget that two Indians have won Oscars and the film has focussed attention -- largely positive -- on Mumbai so soon after the 26/11 attacks.