http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/world/asia/24india.html?ref=world
NEW DELHI — Its depictions of filth and brutality fueled angry blogging and stray street protests. It drew unusually intense scrutiny, from how much its child actors were paid to what the composer A.R. Rahman would wear to the Oscars. But on Monday, as India<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/india/index.html?inline=nyt-geo> woke up to news of the spectacular wins by "Slumdog Millionaire" at the Academy Awards, this movie-mad country went "Jai Ho." The victory by "Slumdog" was embraced as India's own. "What a day it has been for India!" gushed a television news anchor mid- morning. It dominated television news throughout the day. News of a hepatitis B outbreak in western Gujarat State and a southern politician's threatened hunger strike seemed minor news by comparison. "We rocked the world," an Indian percussionist named Sivamani declared. Never mind that "Slumdog" tells a story of stunted, shafted slum children, precisely a story that promoters of the New India have diligently sought to obscure with tales of prosperity and bling. India seized on its Oscar wins as a sign of its arrival on the world stage. Indian television showed Indian dancers in spangly skirts on stage at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles and Mr. Rahman, eyes closed, singing the title track, "Jai Ho" — an exuberant Hindi phrase that literally translates as "victory." Mr. Rahman thanked God and his mother. Resul Pookutty, who shared the prize for sound mixing, dedicated it to his country. In his small town in south India, neighbors and kin were shown passing a big plate of sweets and crying tears of joy. "India has made a clean sweep here," Anil Kapoor, the Indian actor who played the game-show host in "Slumdog," declared in an interview with NDTV, a private television station. On Monday, even the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/manmohan_singh/index.html?inline=nyt-per>, congratulated the "Slumdog" team, along with the makers of "Smile Pinki," a short documentary about a village girl with a cleft palate. "The winners have done India proud," Singh's office said in a statement. The statement did not specify whether the prime minister, who is recovering from heart surgery, had seen either movie. The last time an Indian won an Oscar was for costume design for the 1982 biographical film, "Gandhi," by Richard Attenborough. Many Indians were peeved at the time that a known Indian actor had not been cast to play the father of their nation. Ben Kingsley<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/ben_kingsley/index.html?inline=nyt-per>, who had been cast as Gandhi, is of partial Indian descent. "Slumdog," of course, is not an Indian film. It was backed by two American studios. The director, Danny Boyle, is British, as is the producer and screenplay writer, who adapted the script from a book by an Indian diplomat. But "Slumdog" has almost entirely an Indian cast, along with a British actor of Indian descent, Dev Kapoor, who plays the teenaged lead, Jamal. It is shot on the streets of Mumbai, unlike most Indian films. About third of the dialogue is in Hindi, which is the case these days for some Bollywood movies. It has several key Indian crew members, including a co-director, Loveleen Tandan, a cameraman experienced in shooting on Mumbai's mad streets, Suneil Khandkar, and of course, Mr. Rahman, whose compositions weave sounds from all over the world with a deeply Indian sensibility. Most important, "Slumdog" picks up on key motifs of the classic Bollywood fairy tale: the plucky underdog hero, sibling rivalry, ghetto gangsters and a beautiful damsel needing a rescue. Small bursts of outrage greeted the film when it first opened, including a protest in front of Mr. Kapoor's house several weeks ago, where children held up placards that read "Don't call me dog." In this week's issue of India Today, a weekly magazine, a filmmaker named Priyadarshan called it "absolute and intentional exploitation of India." "India is not Somalia," he wrote. "We are one of the foremost nuclear powers in the world, our satellites are roaming the universe." Amitabh Bachchan, the original underdog hero of 1980s Indian cinema, pointed out in his blog several weeks ago that "a murky underbelly exists and thrives even in the most developed nations." On Monday, he went on to congratulate its Oscar winners. Vir Sanghvi, writing in his blog on Monday, said he was "thrilled" by the victory by "Slumdog" and the sight of so many Indians on stage at the Academy Awards. "Even when Gandhi won the Oscar for Best Picture all those years ago, we never felt that it was India's victory," he wrote. "I don't know if this is a breakthrough for India or whether we will be able to follow it up. But some things seem clear. Anil Kapoor is now the world's most famous Bollywood actor — and it couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Nobody will be able to talk about world music without including Mr. Rahman as its leading star." In a Delhi suburban mall called the Great India Place, moviegoers stepped out of the morning screening of "Slumdog" with a mix of praise and suspicion. "The best part of the movie to me is that they are showing real India, not the Bollywood India," said Shankar Tripathi, 18. A woman who identified herself only as Parul, 19, suspected that the movie won accolades because it was by a British director. "This movie is showing poor India and that is liked by Westerners," she said. A sobering response came Monday from Dilbur Parakh, who heads a charity-run school where two of the film's youngest stars, Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, 10, and Rubina Ali Qureshi, 9, are enrolled. The children still live in a sprawling shantytown called Garib Nagar — literally the enclave of the poor. The filmmakers pay for their school fees. To Ms. Parakh, the story of "Slumdog" echoed the stories of hundreds of Indian children she had met. "This is the way it really is," she said. "We can't ignore it. We have to face it. I mean Indians as a whole." That a Briton made the film did not much matter to her. "It really is an Indian story," said Ms. Parakh, who also heads Aseema, a Mumbai nonprofit that runs the school. "He happens to be a foreigner. An Indian could have made it." Munni Qureishi, 28, Rubina's mother, said the people of Garib Nagar had stayed up much of the night in anticipation, then greeted Slumdog's victory Monday morning with firecrackers and boisterous handmade drums. Mrs. Qureishi, who has worked as a housemaid since childhood, said she looked forward to welcoming her daughter back home with flowers and her favorite food: Chinese-style noodles. "She has crossed the ocean. With God's blessing she will return."
