I have felt the tension of my mixed identity my entire life. Growing up, I just wanted to be like the other kids. I didn’t believe in what was being forced on me and the attention I received for being so different made it worse. Eventually I dismissed the culture completely. My discontent led me so far as to avoid anything related to my Pakistani heritage, books, movies, music, people…anything. Something changed. I saw “Slumdog Millionaire” only because it was required for one of my film classes. To my surprise, I was fully engaged in the film from the start to the Bollywood finish. The film portrays India candidly, which is what drew me in. The dusty streets teeming with people reminded me of my life in Pakistan and visits to India. Seeing the children beggars who were forcefully mutilated in the film brought back the feelings of seeing these abused children in real life.

Taken from a Sepia Mutiny news tab source;

http://unlvrebelyell.com/2009/03/26/veganize-me-a-taste-of-india/

Good observation. I think I will also start calling SDM an India film. Why not?

And come on, we all know it was a good movie. Not the greatest film ever made, but a good flick nonetheless, and definetly not a waste of a taxpayer’s time or money.

Don’t hate. Appreciate.

Don’t worry. The people who use it don’t have any idea what it means, either.

If they were smart enough to know what it meant, they’d find their own phrase rather than steal one that’s been used a million times because they have absolutely no imagination to use their own words.

It’s not an indian movie

I’ve come around on that point. Elizabeth–the movie– had an Indian director but the story and the actors were all English or Anglo. It won some Oscars and nobody called it an Indian movie. It was inconceivable. Likewise, Slumdog has a British director–almost everything else is Indian or of Indian origin. It too won some Oscars and now it is a British movie! Ok, ok, I too think of it as a British movie but that’s only because I have been so brainwashed into going along with whatever the white man says. Thank god for Indians (in India). They’ve set me straight on so many of these points.