BIKeINSTEIN
Herald
Did i say we love you for what/who you are? :hap2:PiXeLpUsHeR said:Having come from a middle class environment myself, it is hard to understand how some people live. But if you guys think that America is so developed that it doesn't have some pretty bad slums... you are entirely mistaken.
Personally I did not feel this movie is deliberately intending to portray anything bad about India.
Where I live in San Francisco you can go to area's where homeless people have shanty towns setup... These people are often homeless by the necessity of their own drug habits, not because they cannot be fed or have baths or a place to sleep, but because doing so would mean that they would not be allowed to drink or do drugs to obtain those comforts. Instead... what we get is homeless people begging on the streets for drug and alcohol money.
There are area's that are so unsafe that there is often news of gang related shootings and places the cops don't even want to go and definitely not a place to go if you are white.
This is just the Bay Area and most major Metropolitan area's in the USA have places like this.
So what I am trying to say is that this movie (which I really enjoyed) was just about life and one persons struggle to change his life. This could have been in the slums of New York, Africa or any other of a million places.. it is really about the idiosyncrasies of life.
Please people... either enjoy or don't enjoy the movie.. but please don't make politics where there aren't any.
One of my art teachers told me something that I will always remember as great advice.
If a piece of art (in this case a film) invokes a response.. be it negative or positive.. then it has done it's job because a negative response as much as a positive one has evoked an emotional stimulus and has made you think about it, and this is usually the goal of the artist in the first place.
And that i wish you always stay in touch with us.
Though i always wonder why does a guy from the US hang around in an Indian forum so much?:bleh: I am not complaing though.:thumb:
Maybe if you make a movie called "BatDawg Billionaire", maybe i can star in that. :lol:
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I will just add this having read this whole thread. :ashamed:
We , as in most positive people with their hearts in the right place and minds at the right pace, react to this as maybe "ho-hum, just another movie" or "wow-a good movie" or "wow- what a story for hope and success in the face of adversity", etc etc.
And in most likeliness, we (which also includes me and other sensible friends who have watched the movie), neither are in denial nor running away from the "truth" prevalent all around us.
Hoping for a better tomorrow and wanting to look at/admire/appreciate and maybe achieve or atleast expressing the desire to achieve the nicer and better things in life is not being in denial or trying to run away from the truth.
Yes- extreme poverty in the shadow of immense wealth is a truth here.
Yes- we have dirty, murky slums in every city- with some Metros actually on the verge of turning into one huge slum overall.
Yes- women still get raped every few minutes in India.
Yes- the girl-child gets killed more often than we drink tea/coffe.
Yes- abortions happen on the sly,.
Yes- corruption has penetrated every section of society.
Underworld, extortion, bomb-blasts, slum mafia, begging mafia, land mafia, drugs mafia, ...
Yes, yes, yes.
It's the TRUTH- the stark, harsh, cold, bitter, piercing TRUTH.
But there is a difference between something being true and being "the only truth". :cool2:
And that is where, maybe, some minds may falter to distinguish between "just another truth" of a developing nation (or even a developed nation for that matter) and "the only truth". :hap5:
Coz we all know common sense as always and compassion is quite a rarity in these troubled times where every person/child is being bred to "fight" for survival or personal gains.
Bred by circumstances.
I say maybe, as it's just a fear and i cannot confirm and that is one fear i do not want to become a reality.
(Though one of those early rebuttals to Amitabh Bachchan's blog was indicative of that. :no
If one's mind is hammered with only negative views for sometime, that person is bound to develop a negativity on that topic, atleast subconciously- which does affect general opinion on that matter.
Some may have wrongly assumed India is only one big slum.
Like till sometime back we were only beggars, street magicians, fakirs, snake-charmers, ...
Now we are telemarketers too. :rofl:
But when a westerner (yeah-yeah, couldn't help mention it), an acclaimed artist and one whose crew has also claimed to have shot some scenes with hidden cams to provide authenticity to the subject, primarily shows a lot of negative elements on a certain topic, there lies a risk of it becoming "the only truth",
about Mumbai and India in general, in certain ignorant/biased/prejudiced minds.
And that is what shouldn't happen in this case. :cool2:
I hope more people, here and everywhere watch the movie in the right light and do not read too much into what's shown.
Coz as it is, those very people who may pass caustic comments, for or against it, are mostly not going to do anything at their end for a better tomorrow, for the society/nation/world in general .
But their loosely-spoken words can cause unnecessary dissent and disharmony over something that needn't be a controversy in the first place.
It's a work of art by an artist and like any other- love it or dislike it but just leave it at that.
