Indian cinema has truly come of age with Slumdog Millionaire winning eight Oscars. Many will argue that the movie was not really Indian since the director was a foreigner, indeed several top actors such as Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan did not even deign to accept the role that was finally played by Anil Kapoor. But this is the spirit of globalisation — you take some part from one country, some part from another, and mix it in a heady brew! The bulk of the brew was Indian, so it was an Indian award. It was a film about India, it was a film in which the scores were by an Indian, the actors were Indian, and it was made in India. So let no one doubt that Made in India won the awards.
More important, if Slumdog was the first good Indian movie in a long time, the criticism may still have been a valid one. This is not the case. A whole host of Indian films, and Indian directors, fall in this category of world class cinema. Monsoon Wedding, Malamal Weekly, Lagaan, Bend it like Beckham ... the list of unusual and well-executed themes goes on. The Oscars for Slumdog is recognition of India arriving on the global scene. Jai ho!
Sudarshan Mehta, New Delhi
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