INDIA SHINING AT THE OSCARS.....

What a day for India, this 22nd day of February,2009(to us who are staying in India it was the morning of 23rd February),
would be written in Golden letters in the history of Indian cinema.
The Slumdog Millionaire, a movie depicting the lives of certain sections of people & the emotions attached to them won 8 Oscars out of a total of 10 nominations in 9 categories.
The movie is adapted from a novel which shows how a boy from slums of Mumbai
becomes a millionaire by answering all the questions(the answer to the questions happen to come to him in the form of certain incidents in life) in a quiz contest.

To Indians it was more of a special occasion because there were 3 individual Oscar winners from India for that movie.
Allah Rakha Rehman for Best Original song & Best Original Score.
Resul Pookutty for Best Sound Mixing.
A.R. Rehman is a genius & there are very few people who are born with such talents. He started his carreer at a very young age with Roja for which he won many awards. The songs of Roja still freshens & calms my mind. Every time I hear it, it seems to me a new song. The number of hit songs that Rehman gave is innumerable & each one of them is no less than the "Jai Ho" for which he won the Oscar.

I think this Oscar would remain more special because the story is based on a slum in the city of Mumbai, a city which very recently, a few months back was in the news for all the miseries & pain it had to suffer due to the terrorist attcks. So its a tribute to the people of Mumbai.

Now coming back to the Slumdog Millionaire, it was in the midst of controversy because some people were of the opinion that it showcased the slums of India. But to me what I feel that Slumdog Millionaire is a movie of human emotions, a universal love. It showed how a 'chai wallah' entered into 'Who wants to be a millionaire contest' for the only reason that the girl, whom he loves watches the show regularly & would love to see him on the show. To him winning the prize money is not at all important. The movie brings forward the human emotions in its most purest form.

So to all the critics of the movie I would like to say that instead wasting time on criticising it for unnecessary reasons, lets all enjoy this moment of glory that it has brought for us. Especially Indian film makers should start thinking as to why films produced by them on these similar Indian issues & emotions not able to bring same fame & recognition to them.

Regarding slums I would say that yes it has shown slums with all its dirth & filth as it exists. We should appreciate the fact that there is a movie that has put before us this & opened our eyes. Lets ask ourselves what have we done to make their life better?????? Have we done something to improve their living standard???? The answer would be a big "NO".

Rather we must grab this opportunity & do something in whatever way we can in uplifting their life so that their basic needs be fulfilled.

Last but definitely not the least, I would like to add that Slumdog phenomenon is not the only thing that has happened in the Oscars for India, India won another Oscar in the form of "SMILE PINKI" in the category of Best
Short Story Documentary based on the sufferings of a girl with cleft lips.

"""CHEERS TO THE SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE & SMILE PINKI"""