Wednesday, May 6, 2009

February 2009: Voices of the same poverty


And my somatic longing for that Londoner continues to pester me. Having nothing better to do I watched that movie yet again. It makes me wonder if the West really has a soulful desire to see and show India with the sordidness of her destitution. A British gentleman once said that you open a cupboard in India and a family of 16 falls out. Such ignoble truth unnerves me; such blemishes are unsavory to many ears. Is criticizing the movie irrational? Is to say that I could not concentrate on the movie as my eyes were stuck on Dev Patel just a reliable escape route? Why is it that even though everyone knows that a large part of the Indian population empties their bowels on rail-tracks, the depiction of this on celluloid unsettles the Indian sentiment? The answers call for a debate. And another debate on this ubiquitous subject is truly infernal. Chuck the movie. The panache of Dev Patel off-screen and his unrelenting presence have promised not to spare me. It is obfuscating as to what is more tetchy -the Movie or the Man?

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