Meanwhile...

Life goes on in the slums of Bombay...

The story of the Slumdog Millionaire kids just keeps getting sadder. Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, who played Dev Patel's character as a little boy, just had his shanty house bulldozed by the government. Officials in Mumbai say that Ismail's family house was demolished as part of a pre-monsoon season clean up effort, and that his family had no legitimate claim to the land. The family received no prior notice, and were awoken by the bulldozers, having only minutes to grab belongings and flee the premises.

Dharavi slum in Bombay. Image from here.

Caught the eye

As the movie Slumdog Millionaire made the rounds last night at the Oscars, labourers worked at a brick factory in an Indian village. Here.

The real picture

Slumdog Millionaire, has provoked some unusually strong criticism from the average Mumbaikar. They feel that the portrayal of India(n's) in the film is downright degrading and the storyline projects an India whose cup is half empty. Sadanand Dhume on OutlookIndia.com has a different perspective.

Notwithstanding the giant strides made over the past 18 years, Indian criticism of Slumdog also reveals the chasm between the country’s self-perception and projection and any reasonable measure of its achievements. India may boast homegrown programs in space exploration and nuclear power, but -- as a first time visitor to India immediately notices and as the film mercilessly reveals -- it also struggles to provide its people with electricity, sanitation and drinking water. About half of Indian women are illiterate, a higher percentage than in Laos, Cambodia or Myanmar. It is at number 122 -- between Nepal and Lesotho -- on the World Bank index that measures ease of doing business, and 85 on the global corruption index maintained by the anti-graft NGO Transparency International. To put it bluntly, the squalor of the slums depicted in Slumdog is closer to reality than an elaborately choreographed Bollywood dance sequence shot on location in Switzerland.

An individual seems to be taking a leisurly open air leak at one of the numerous communally sanctioned open air garbage dumping spots around the city of Bangalore. I took this picture during a recent visit to India.

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed- interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing sprit- crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing you last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that?

--- From the movie Trainspotting, whose director recently released Slumdog Millionaire.