Jadoo teri nazar

The politics of Slumdog Millionaire and Shekhar Kapur

Slumdog Millionaire is essentially about protagonist Jamaal Malik’s triumph in achieving love of his life, Latika, against all odds. There are two antagonists in the story, one in the present (Anil Kapoor as a game show host) and another in past flashbacks (Jamaal’s older brother), and both create hurdles in Jamaal’s physical and mental worlds before he triumphs over them, both literally and symbolically. He triumphs not necessarily because of sheer hard work or any inborn skill but rather because ”it was written”. And, through his journey, we meet many characters, mostly evil, and witness various horrors of the society he lives in. The drama in the story is intense and most people will enjoy the film. Performances are well extracted and big credit for that goes to flawless casting. Technically too, the film triumphs; editing is crisp & effective and cinematography is dazzling.

I saw the film almost three weeks back and have been talking about it with various people. Although I found the film bit over the top and over dramatic at few points to suit the story, overall I did like the film as evident from my short review above. But, it was not the film’s merit which I was discussing with people, rather this time I was more talking about the political questions which crossed my mind after watching the film.

Polar Bear?

As extreme cold grips Montreal, with “feels like” temperature dropping to -36 degree Celsius, my friend is really pissed off and his interesting ‘perspectives’ often amuse me. He joined the faculty as Assistant Professor last year only and hence is experiencing the infamous Montreal winter -in it’s ‘full glory’- for the first time. Also, the fact that he originally comes from very warm areas of Hindi hinterland in India, makes his life in this type of weather even more challenging.