Diwali at the Oscars
Like it or not. Oscars is the ultimate high for anyone involved in the entertainment industry and for the audiences if they have their favorites nominated. Winning at an Oscar is like a fantasy for those in the Hollywood industry. It is not surprising for artistes from other countries who come close to that honored body of recognition to be ecstatic and be obsessed.
For India it has always been a body which has never understood our film Industry and its work. But that would unfair to the Oscars which are sought after recognition only because they set their standards that high. So it is only fair that the country explodes in long suppressed joy every time we come close to a nomination or actually win an Oscar.
The last time that happened was when a film made by a outstanding crew of Richard Attenborough gave the world our own Gandhi and made the country sit up and respect his contribution to its freedom something that was slowly being forgotten in the midst of all the misleading campaigns by vested interests about his responsibility for agreeing to break up the country. Yet we applauded with distant happiness as it won 8 Oscars for technical and artistry brilliance with the only common interest being the Indian demography and an Indian story which none in India had bothered to idolize or tell.
So when Slumdog millionaire more rooted with the grim side of the Indian society captures your attention it is only natural for the population to suddenly start treating the film as their own in spite of again a majority of the technical inputs and production coming in from British film industry and Hollywood. And to that it is important to acknowledge the role of the people at the helm of the film to step aside and actually allow each and every character and technical artist take centre stage as the film raked in awards culminating in the biggest of them all the Oscars.
It felt proud to watch the Oscars as our humble man A R Rahman changed the suited booted look of the Oscars and had an Indian style performance in the auditorium ( perhaps never seen before) for his two songs from the film and beautifully fusing it with the third nominees presentation of ‘down to earth’ Wall E. It was pleasantly amusing to see him repeatedly running off the stage. India shown like never before.
Again Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke stood aside when Resul Pookutty rightfully gushed over the award. I thought that was very gentlemanly of them.
And so was Danny Boyle who seemed to be a demi god to the cast of children as he so humbly apologized to Longines for having missed him in the credits for the choreography of the last song.
There could not have been a greater happiness at not having got the credits. What better than being mentioned to the whole world than to be lost in a thousand person credit at the end of the movie?
Slumdog comes close to being a Sholay of sorts. Importantly because it is a film in which you remember the contribution of each and every character that appears even for a few seconds. That is the wizardy of the director. A story is conglomeration of small stories which lead to a bigger emotion. That’s what Slumdog succeeds in and that was saluted by Christian the producer who chose to share his personal moment at the Oscars with the entire cast. That was gallant and exhibits certain nobility that we could do good to learn and practice in our daily lives. To acknowledge all those who make us be recognized.
It was good to see the kids from the various spectrum of economic backgrounds sharing stage and auditorium with probably some of the rich and famous in the world. Hopefully they are not dumped back into their slums. That will be a psychiatric kill for them. I pray to god that having being given this opportunity by god to be among the most recognized faces in the world at the moment they do not have to continue to live at the edge of poverty and that they are spring jumped to a position of comfortable living from where they do not have to look back. I think some cheers are due to Danny, Christian and the co director Lavleen who have lived up to their word till now and have ensured that the kids continue to bask in glory and hopefully have a good life.
Jai HO.
- Thank You! We appreciate your effort.