Slumdog Millionaire

I have to admit that I am quite embarrassed by the excitement among the Indian community about the Slumdog Millionaire’s Oscar wins. Do we really have the right to feel any sense of pride about that movie? Agreed it was shot in Mumbai, and has a cast of Indian actors but what else would you expect in a movie about a boy from Indian slums – Regis hosting Who Wants to be a Millionaire and Angelina Jolie as the love interest, shot in Vancouver? The movie was written, produced and directed by British – they made the movie and hired Indians as appropriate. It was not an Indian creation. It shows the worst of India – the slums, exploitation of children, the filth and lack of proper sanitation facilities. I found the film quite depressing despite its happy ending.

The only silver lining was the win for A. R. Rahman's music. He is a talented musician and combines various genres with ease and always produces beautiful music. I was happy to see his talent getting wider recognition and reaching more people.

Can good sense be taught?

I was recently watching this special report on CNBC about how we got into the current economic mess. The cause of the mess seems to be basic human flaws – greed, lack of judgment and jumping on the bandwagon. If Tom was making money flipping houses then, Jerry wanted to too. People knew they were making bad loans but they still continued to make them. A factory worker never stopped to think "can I really afford this house, ever?".

I felt this anxiety during the housing boom too – the prices are going up, we should buy soon. My husband, however, kept saying that the house prices are rising too fast and don’t make sense, and held off on buying a house then. And I used to think the best decision in life he made was by marrying me! I am really impressed by his judgment, skeptical mind and the fact that he never felt the need to do what everybody else was doing.

Now I wonder, if judgment can be taught? Can we take active steps now to teach our kids, and not just mouth the words but actually instill the fact, if something looks too good to be true, it probably is. Can we teach them that we don't have to keep up with anybody, and buy a fancier car just because our friends have one? Or is it just nature - some are born with it and some are not.

China building fire

The leading internationl news today was about a high rise building completely burned by a fire in China. One reason the building couldn't be saved was because the fire fighters did not have equipment that reached beyond the twelfth floor. I was immediately reminded of all the new construction of very modernistic high-rise buildings in Bangalore and Gurgaon . Do the fire departments there have equipment to extinguish a blaze on higher floors? India is no stranger to enthusiastic and unsafe fireworks use during Diwali season.

Religion does poison everything

I came across this story in the New York Times about girls being attacked in a college town in India for visiting a bar. That college town is ‘my’ college town so the story hits close to home and brings back memories of somehow being made to feel guilty because you got molested – “Well, why were you out after dark? Probably to meet your boyfriend. Heh heh” Even if that is the truth, how does that give anybody the right to molest a woman?

For all the globalization in India, the only progress seems to have happened there is in the consumer culture – there is more stuff to buy and fancier pubs to visit. The reverse logic of blaming women for the crimes committed against them and that of suppressing women continues. Rapists are not brought to justice, and most women are still scared of going to the police to report a crime. The political parties continue the ‘talibanization’ of the culture by recruiting a moral police – a way for insignificant men to feel powerful. Women drinking in a bar is against the 'culture', but, pray, tell me what kind of culture condones assaulting women? No wonder these men call themselves 'Lord Ram's army', the very same Ram who went to great lengths to rescue his wife from a kidnapper, and then denounced her and eventually abandoned her in a jungle while she was pregnant, because she had been with another man, namely, the kidnapper. It was all about Ram's honor - when rescuing his wife and when abandoning her. By the way another traditional name for Ram is 'Best among men'. Sigh. As Christopher Hitchens says – religion does poison everything.