Slumdog

After a long time, I watched a fantastic movie about India by a Britisher. It's strange how we only appreciate things written, made about us by foreigners. "Gandhi" too was made by a Britisher and we liked it more than any of the films that we did on any of our founding fathers. That's how it is. We like foreigners talking about us.
Let's come back to Slumdog Millionaire. It exposed the darker side of India, India's underbelly. We always wish to show our glittery side, the tech parks, New Delhi, nowadays Bombay's Taj. Danny Boyle exposed the other side and he didn't seem to have even a hint of hesitancy while he did that. If you watch this movie with a foreigner and if you had painted a very rosy picture about India in his mind, you would stand exposed. I bet you can't see him eye to eye. Because he will know you lied or you did not tell him about India's underbelly, deliberately.
The film shows people stand in queue to shit, the place a makeshift wooden platform with a hole. It shows orphans lured with false promises, and gruesomely blinded by crudely scooping their eyeballs with a spoon. It shows small girls dragged into prostitution.   It shows communal violence. But I, personally, did not feel bad about any of these things that the film showed, because I cannot deny any of these. All these things happen in India.  I cannot do anything but feel sorry at what is happening, to say the least. One side of India is rotting. But we successfully hide it from the world like the other side of the moon that we never get to see.
Nothing that reflects truth can offend a reasonable thinking mind. All the above instances are true, so if you get offended, you are unreasonable. You are a pseudo-reasonable. You are cheating yourselves.
However, I did not like one particular thing in the movie. It made me reconsider my decision to watch the movie. I felt like walking out of the hall. I hated the director. For I thought it was the age old British thinking molded by their observation of the behavior of their Indian coterie, their chelas. World, real India is not bad as Danny Boyle portrayed it, atleast not bad at its heart like shown in the movie.  Wondering what I'm talking about?  It's that part of the movie, the often repeated ridiculing of the "Chaiwallah".  If it was shown as someone's personal comment, I would ignore it. But the way was shown - the host of the show ridiculing Jamal because he was a "chaiwallah" and the whole audience expressing its consent by a killing giggle, is something that I couldn't accept.  On screen, it translates as something reflecting the sentiment of the public, in the movie. Well, if Boyle intended that, he's not exposing but lying. This is not India and you shouldn't amuse the world by ridiculing a nation.  When the audience and the show host laughed at the "Chaiwallah", I coudl hear the whole world laughing at India.
Apart from this, as I told you earlier, I liked everything.  The casting was apt. Dev Patel was a refreshing face.  Freida Pinto's suddenly a star.  Irrfan Khan is now the official Indian face for Hollywood.   Rahman's "Jai ho" can make the whole world dance. 
I saw a white man sitting across the aisle watching this song not even blinking his eyelids even once and with an unintended, involuntary smile on his face.  The world likes India.  Irony is, if you show the glittery side of India, its malls, metros, expressways, tech parks, the world isn't interested. It has seen better such things in the West. The world, unfortunately, seems to like to see India's underbelly, our darker side. Let's see how things change.

I hate you but can't ignore you. Grow up Indian media

Another weekend gone. Another tragedy witnessed. Not one but many. Two most significant - 1) around 35 policemen killed in a naxal attack in Chhattisgarh, 2) 6 metro workers die in a bridge collapse in Delhi. Observe the order in which I've put it. I have lots of respect to the metro bridge collapse dead. But which is more important? According to me, it is the naxal menace which is posing a threat to the very democratic polity that India stands for and the very principal that won us freedom - non-violence.
Why do some people think that a metro incident is more important than the tragic incident that happened in Chhattisgarh. We lost so many policemen in the tragedy. Aren't their lives valuable. To be frank, the media hasn't told me yet the final figure. I don't know if it is 35 or if it is 36 or whatever. The media doesn't care. But the death toll in Delhi "rose to 6", according to the reports that I last heard. May be the media is accurate when the toll is in single digits and it "doesn't matter" to make a few this way or that way when the death toll is in its double or triple digits.
India is the international terrorism's worst affected nations or so does one Mr. John Kerry in USA feels. But we do not seem to care much. Body bags don't affect us much. Perhaps because we are a billion strong nation and can spare a few thousands of these innocent police and army personnel to terrorism. But when the "Metro Man", E.Sreedharan resigns, that makes news. For godssake, show some sympathy to the valiant policemen that risked their lives to save other lives in Rajnandangaon (did we even know where it was before this incident?) including a brave young IPS officer, Vinod Choubey. He, like others, might have studied hard, slogging days and nights for months for his UPSC exams. He might have celebrated when he got 100 or so ranking and went into IPS. He like many others might have tried in vain not to be recruited to the police under the Chhattisgarh cadre. He was there, as an SP only to die, ignored. I am not telling that an IPS officer's life is special. I feel very bad especially when I see bodies of jawans lying in a pool of blood. Indian blood, probably, leaves no stains. That's how we forget our dead so easily and move on.

India's nuclear policy

It has been more than a decade since India tested its nuclear capabilities and let the world know that of its desire to enter the elite club of the Nuclear Weapons States. India is still unwelcome there. Not surprisingly, Pakistan immediately imported a nuclear bomb from China and conducted a "test" of its own less than a week later. So there you go, two of the most quarrelsome neighbours in world were armed with nuclear arsenal in a matter of a few days. Not a welcome development for world peace.


However, my point is -- was India's move to go nuclear a strategic blunder?
Well, that's left to one's own opinion. But, in hindsight, I think what India did was indeed a strategic blunder. Till the day India tested those nuclear weapons (the yield is still disputed, another issue), India had a very significant upper hand over Pakistan in the conventional armament department. With an air force (sans Pakis' f16s), army (more than double theirs) and navy (though we have a ten times larger coast to guard), so advanced, everyone in the world would say then that we can run over Pakistan multiple times in no time. But then what happened when we tested and they "tested in response"? It was back to square one. India undid its hard work that it had put in in the conventional armaments department for the previous 5 decades, in one shot. Blown to bits. Now, both were nuclear armed nations. Would you strike a nuclear armed nation and risk being blown by another nuclear bomb yourselves? Can there be a war between India and Pakistan now? Who would win, who would lose? Both would lose. We might annihilate Pakistan, but if they succeed in dropping an A-bomb on say a couple of western Indian cities, can we afford that? Perhaps Bombay is more valued than the whole of Pakistan. So, with this logic, we would still lose even with a completely ravaged Pakistan.
Now, it's back to square one. No matter how strong our military is, we will still lose a war if there's one between us and the Pakis. If we had maintained a covert or no nuclear weapons at all, we would still be a nation one up on the conventional front.
It's all history now. But while I write this, I think going nuclear has advantaged us on another front. While we lost ground to Pak, we've gained the same with China. They were to us what we were to Pak on the conventional plane. Now, we are same. We both are nuclear. Can they afford a bomb on Shanghai? Nope. It's back to square one there too !! Wow !!
Well, there were some good brains working out India's strategic policy during those times, perhaps. I think Pak was a decoy while our main target was China. Masterstroke, if it actually is what I think it is. Don't know.