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Indian Writings in Literature

Notes dingy huts that became quite attractive and saleable. When Satyajit Ray's films starting from
Pather Panchali (1955) to others began to make waves in Europe, there were murmurings that he
summed to be promoting a persistent image of poverty and deprivation. But it is pertinent to note
here that Satyajit Ray's motive was not to expose the sheer filth and darkness of India, nor did he
ever aim at making a commercial film. Obviously the picture was depicted by a writer of India
origin, but steeped in foreign culture and spirit who looked at Indian not through the green lens
of the West, and never visualized or processed to show India in poor light; for his chief aim was
to tell stories about a land and people he loved, and for whom he deeply felt and passionately
thought. This brings us to the much talked of successful film Slumdag Millionaire which, like the
White Tiger tells a moving story about the poor. Like many of the earlier stories, it depicts the dark
and naked picture of India, of course, in altogether a different setting and necessary love and
genuine feelings for the motherland and that too by pleasing the western eyes. The well-known
novelist and screen play writer T.N. Murari in his article 'The Love to See us Poor'. (The New
Indian Express, January 25, 2009) makes pertinent comment on the success of White Tiger and
Slumdog Millionaire.
Their international success reassures the world which views us through the grim prism of our
poverty, that India has not changed - much. India Shining,' 'Incredible India,' 'India Inc,' unsettles
the western nations. They need the poor as long as they're at a safe distance, stuck in India. Our
poverty gives them a sense of superiority and they feel threatened with whatever little success we
have had. We still have the poor, the vast slum, farmer suicides, to reassure them that the India
they know and bold at arm's length, is still with them. Recently a friend in London forwarded me an
email from two of her friends travelling in India. They had been in Delhi and did not even notice our
lutyen's Delhi, the glittering shopping malls, the Meres cruising the roads, but wrote at length about
the dirt, the poor and the crippled. I do have other friends abroad who have no wish to visit India
- our image of poverty frightens them. India still elicits the opposite extremes of emotion - love and
hate. History has not been kind to us. Two centuries of British colonialism did impoverish India in
the 1600s, India produced 22.5 percent of the world's GDP and Britain a mere 1.8 per cent. By 1870,
we were reduced to a poor third world country while Britain produce 9.1 per cent of the world GDP.
Today, we're the Horaitus Alger of nations. Similarly commenting on the final impact of the film the
famous art critic Bardwaj Rangan in his article in Indian Express (January 25, 2009) observes:
The problem isn't one of plausibility that this slumdog's life was built around the exact kind of
episodes that would, one day make him a millionaire - because that is the very stuff of fairy tales
whether from the Brother's Grimm or Bollywood.
The problem is when something this ridiculous begin to be taken as real, as representation of a
nation's reality more than a mere movie.
Because a movie - a shrewdly constructed artifice that explodes joyously on the big screen - is all
the Slumdog Millionaire is meant to be. Let's embrace the heartbreaking moment such as the one
where Jamal and his brother as children nod off on top of a train and link their hands in each
other's to keep from plummeting into the countryside hurtling past beneath. Let's lose ourselves
in the long distance romance underscored by the exquisite ache of AR Rahaman's love theme. Let's
cheer our throats hoarse at the end when the impossible is rendered not just possible but inevitable.
But let's not whip ourselves into a lather about it - for a few images of picture postcard squalor
cannot begin to highlight the complex realties of our country.
Finally another art critic comments in his thoughtful article with a relevant question:
Poverty sells. Will the world then see us differently if we had no poor? I doubt it. They love our
poverty too much to believe we've banished it. Forever. (Murari) Murari arrives at a true evaluation
of Indian writers in English depicting India for what the western people believe, like and appreciate.

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