Small Talks

India had her representation in the motion pictures arena before. She has also embraced awards in certain categories, like in 1982 for Gandhi, Bhanu Athaiya, the costume designer won the maiden Oscar while later on in 1992, Satyajit Ray, a pioneer in movie techniques received his share as a life time achievement award (The Academy Honorary Award*), which was presented to him when he was very ill, his last illness if framed properly.

* The elite recipients of this award are in the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Warner Bros, Walt Disney, etc.

This time round, almost after 18 years since Ray, the Indian Music Maestro, Mr. A. R. Rahman knocked the doors of the World winning the two golden statuettes of The Academy Awards. The music of Slumdog Millionaire have touched the heart and soul of billions of people who has in them, a dream. The movie, primed the Indian Slum-life and how an Indian dreamt big to become the rich after winning a quiz contest. Kaun Banega Crorepati, which is the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire changed his life. The character sweetly played by Dev Patel supported by Frida Pinto and the Indian greats like Anil Kapoor, Irfan Khan and others comes out directly from the dungeons of Indian basement.
These awards came in along with the BAFTA (British Award) and the Golden Globe. The list for Slumdog Millionaire which bagged 8 out of 10 categories, has three Indians in it.
A.R.Rahman and Gulzar presented jointly for the lyrics and music of Jai Ho...
A.R.Rahman solely for the Original Score of the movie.
Resul Pookuty for the best Sound Mixing.
Apart from Slumdow, we had another Indian documentary called Smile Pinki, a story line based on how a girl having facial abnormalities on the lips regained the beauty of smile after surgery.

(Slumdog Millionaire Poster)

Now the talk:

Since, the movie was directed by a foreigner, Danny Boyle, so can we consider that the movie got such an international hype? May be another Indian missed out the trophy, i.e the Indian Writer Vikas Swarup, whose Booker Prize winning novel Q&A provides the basis of the movie.
They agains showed that India is poor, which is something that we Indians should be ashamed of. No doubt, on technical aspect, Slumdog Millionaire is a must watch movie, but after 60 years of Independence such a thing persists in the nation, there is something more to be sad of than happy.
Mr. Rahman has various other hits, atleast better than JaiHo. For example all the songs from Roja were super-duper hit. This comment is not to take any shine from the armoury, just feel bad that whenever there is a touch of the white skin, then only we have a world class movie. Previously, in Lagaan also, a similar thing happened. The englishman and woman came a played major parts in the movie and then it went ahead in the category of best movie in a foriegn language. Well before Lagaan we had movies like PatherPachali by Satyajit Ray and after that we had Black, starred by the legendary Amitabh Bacchan. The only mistake they made was that they didnt haveany white skinned jerk in the movie!
It feels really sad to have such a thing happen in the field of art and culture!

May be my small talks became quite long and boring, never mind... Jai Ho Slumdog Millionaire.