India is apparently rejoicing right now. Slumdog Millionaire swept the Oscars with 8 awards, including Best Picture. Not bad for a film that nearly didnt make it to the cinemas. Yadayadaya….

I am not so thrilled. I dont think it deserved the awards it got. I am thrilled that AR Rahman got the awards, I think he is a brilliant composer. And although Slumdog is probably not his best work to date, he deserves the recognition. I dont have a problem with that.

What I do have problems with is the Best Picture title. And I say problems because there is more than one. Apart from the fact that the story, the acting, everything else about it, was average at best. It certainly wasnt the best movie out of all the nominees. However, thats by the by. That’s for the judges to decide.

Coming back to the problems I have, first of all, I have a big problem with the title. Does anyone else find it extremely derogatory? Gali ka kutta. Just because it is a story about some of India’s most deprived people, it doesnt automatically mean they are slumdogs. I find it even more irksome that some British firangi decided on the title. What does he really know about slums and dogs? He paid 20,000 Rs to the kids who played Jamal and Latika as kids. I guess he knew enough about slumdogs to know that this would be a huge amount for them. I wont even get into the way he has treated these kids, because that can be a post in itself.

However, I can live with the title. But what really gets my goat is why, time and again, stories of poor, deprived and filthy India get so much international attention, and stories that depict other aspects of India dont even get so much as a nod. Satyajit Ray’s entire career was based on selling what he called the ‘humanity’ of India. Authors like Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and more lately, Aravind Adiga have jumped on the same bandwagon. And then Danny Boyle follows. When Vikas Swarup wrote the book, it was more of a Forrest Gump type of story….a story of being in the right place at the right time. But when Mr Boyle made it into a movie, that got sidelined. It became more of a story that made the white man all over the world feel thankful for his cushy life, and feel pity for people who werent as lucky as him.

The posters for Slumdog Millionaire at the local cinemas here describe it as “The feel-good movie of the year” and “the triumph of the human spirit against all odds”. I disagree completely. Now Lagaan was a feel-good movie about the triumph of the human spirit against all odds. But the rest of the world didnt see it as such. Taare Zameen Par was a beautiful movie about a very relevant topic. But how many people outside of India have even heard of it? Now Sheila Dikshit has announced that she is waiving off the entertainment tax on the movie because it has boosted tourism in the country. Had you heard about that? Apparently, the slum tour industry has taken off!

Slums are very much a part of India, but there is just so much more to India than just slums. And it saddens me to no extent that the rest of the world doesnt see that. There are discussion forums on travel to India where people are wondering whether there are any ATMs in India, and whether they will be able to find cutlery in the country, or should they bring their own when they come over. And we only have ourselves to blame for that, for we have built this image of India in the world.

So no, I am not rejoicing at Slumdog Millionaire taking the Oscars by a storm. And I am not even that patriotic towards India, but I am still very offended by this movie.

The video speaks for itself, watch it! I couldn’t stop laughing!!

Not too long ago, we celebrated (in a manner of speaking) Jack’s 6 months with us. And I realised that I always keep thinking of posting the various antics that he gets up to, but somehow or the other, when I actually sit down to write something, I forget about it. So today, let me introduce you guys to the various personalities that make up Jack.

Tech Support. His all time favourite activity is to sit in the MOTH’s lap when he is working on the computer. He just sits there and watches what the MOTH is doing. Watches the screen. Sees him typing on the keyboard. The best part is when the MOTH stops typing for a while. Coz then, Jack takes it upon himself to carry on the task of typing, no matter what. So he helpfully extends a paw, and presses a few buttons. And then looks up sweetly at the MOTH as if to say, “There. The problem is fixed, so carry on.” Couple of times, he has managed to hit the crucial delete key, with quite hilarious responses from the MOTH!

Animal Tester. No decent, hard-working cat would ever allow anything new to come into the house before making sure it is fit for human use first. And Jack here is no different. Anything new that we bring into the house gets thoroughly investigated by him.
New shoes for the MOTH? Jack had to try them on himself first before giving the MOTH the go-ahead.

Security Personnel. The same principle applies to any new person who comes into the house. The other day, we had a guy come over to fix the front door that wasnt locking properly. And the whole time he was doing it, Jack sat right there, keeping a watchful eye on him. He checked out every tool in the handyman’s toolbag, sniffed every screw that he had in his jar, he was more thorough than airport security! In this aspect, Jack has a bit of an identity crisis, he definitely thinks he is a dog!

I mean business, Mister!

Cat-Man-Do God help you if he is hungry. See this video, and you will know exactly what I mean!

Cats are not fully grown adults until they are a year old, so he is technically still a baby. And he is Oh! So cute. At the risk of sounding like a potential cat-loving spinster (minus the spinster bit, of course), who needs babies when you have such cute kittens!

Tonight, she is probably sleeping peacefully in her bed. Tomorrow, when she comes into work, her world will be turned upside down. She will find out that she has caused someone to die. Her blood will run cold. Sleep, and peace, will evaporate into thin air.

Everybody kills someone. Eventually. Or so they tell me. It sounds so ghastly. So cold. So matter-of-fact. When they first told me that, it was over a glass of beer. In a bar. After work. It didnt sound so bad then. Compared to the hundreds whose lives you save, a few deaths are to be expected, is what I thought then.

But not tonight. Tonight, the cost of that one life that is slowly slipping away is just too great. It was an innocent mistake on her part. Anybody could have made it. Perhaps it wasnt innocent. Perhaps it was a careless mistake. I dont know. But here I am, at 2 AM, dealing with the aftermath of the mistake. Telling the patient’s daughter that her mother has hours left to live. And there is nothing we are going to do about it. Its the kind thing to do, I tell the daughter. And I find myself choosing my words carefully to try and hide (?) the mistake that has been made. I like to think it is because I want to spare the daughter the trauma of knowing that her mother’s death was avoidable.

I feel filthy. Contaminated. Tonight, I would be anything else in the world, but I dont want to be a doctor. I have now seen the dark side of this life. And it is not pretty. We are Gods, we tell ourselves. We save lives. And when we waste a life, we are too proud to admit it. Going so far as to lie in order to not admit the collective guilt.

I am ashamed of what I have said to the daughter. Yet I know that any other doctor in my position would have said the exact same thing. And that makes me more ashamed than anything else.

Right. Now that I have finally come down to earth after the elation experienced earlier (See? What did I tell you guys?), its time to resume what I started doing initially. Chandni tagged me for the this one, and I have to say, this is by far my favourite tag: to list my 10 favourite fictional characters of all time. Its difficult to pick just 10, but here goes. They are not in any particular order, that would be just too difficult to do.

1. Captain Haddock from the Tintin series. Ten thousand thundering typhoons!!! I love him, and when I was young, he used to have my tummy in knots, because he was just so funny when he was angry! Everybody else in that series was just so boring and pale, compared to his colourfulness! He did wonders for my vocabulary back then.

2. Rhett Butler, Gone with the wind. He is my ultimate fictional love interest. Tall. Dark. Handsome. Charming as the devil himself. I challenge anybody to honestly-hand-on-heart say that they didnt love him

3. William Lovell Kane and 4. Abel Rosnovski, Kane and Able- Jeffrey Archer. I tried to decide which one of these two characters I like more, but at the end decided to list them both. They are both inspirational in their own way. Besides, the book had a great story, and Archer as always, is a master story-teller

5. Howard Roark, Fountainhead- Ayn Rand. Now I have to confess, Fountainhead isnt my usual kind of book. But given that it was the MOTH’s favourite, I had to read it. And the first time I read it, I thought he was just a plain weirdo. But I recently read it a second time, and there is so much more to him than just being a weirdo! His unbridled passion for his work, and his commitment to it at the cost of everything else…. I still think that someone like him could never exist in the real world, but perhaps that is the requirement of being Howard Roark

6. Phantom. My ONLY favourite superhero. No superpowers, no fancy gadgets, it was all just him. And that ring.

7. Hassan, The Kite Runner- Khaled Hosseini For his undying devotion to his friend, regardless of the events that transpired. He was able to truly know his friend, and was one of those people who was glad to recieve friendship, but made no demands of his friend.

8. Noelle Page, The Other Side of Midnight- Sidney Sheldon. I suppose Noelle was just another one of the rags-to-riches story, however, when I read the book, there was something about her that stuck with me long after I put the book down. I guess what I loved about her is that I could never imagine myself making the kind of choices that she made, I would sooner kill myself. Yet, the fact that she made the decisions she made, and carried them through to fruition, and with such class, is why I love her.

9. Atticus Finch, To Kill A Mockingbird- Harper Lee. The perfect father. The perfect gentleman. The perfect human being

10. Jennifer Cavalleri, Love Story- Erich Segal No doubt that this is the most moving love story ever written. She and Oliver made the perfect couple. Her quick wit, and her ability to maintain a cheerful face in the face of all odds, oh what can I say, she was, and still is, one of my heroes!

Now, in turn, I tag anyone else who would like to take this up. But I especially tag Amrita, who I know is gonna love to take up this tag.