Within the two extremes, one might often wonder; where are the normal average, middle-class Indians? Not people with 5 storey glamour homes but with small but cozy homes in cities, towns and villages across India. Not with a fancy BMW, but a small hatchback, or perhaps just a bike or bicycle?

I suppose stories about these people are not as interesting for an audience, the only time I have (sort of) seen these types of middle class families portrayed is in Historically based films like Parzannia. Though actually “taare zameen par” sort of depicts a middle-class urban family.

But it is interesting to think, whether a film about Pakistan or India, the focus is generally on poverty, or the glamorous elite. My inlaws-to-be are all from a very nice, regular, middle class family from U.P. They are all university educated, and Naniji herself was a principal in a school long before that was common. There are teachers and professors in the family, but even with these nice jobs they cannot live these crazy glamorous lifestyles. They work hard, save their money, and live without a lot of consumer goods the elite of Indian (and the middle class of America!) take for granted.

but putting that personal resentment aside, what really pisses me off is the fact that they represent the elites and the establishment in a country where that class has failed to anything productive for the masses. perhaps, it’s the masses fault for not forcing them to but that time will come, as things become even more desperate.

this really does nothing for my self-esteem as a pakistani. and pakistan isn’t black/white, it isn’t the rich-liberals or the poor-radicals. personally if i want to watch that isn’t too serious and doesn’t involve random terrorist plots, i’ll watch a potwhari comedy like “miki kharo england” (take me to england) or “main vi khukar khasan” (i want to eat chicken too) – sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8Qx709_L7k&feature=related

that’s the slice of pakistan i know, down to earth, good nature people.

People perceive Indian Cinema to be this glitzy all about rich people wearing expensive clothes and not caring about the poor kind of industry…but they just don’t know what movies to watch.

That’s why for the actress in this movie to say it will be something different for the Pakistani audience compared to Slumdog Millionaire she is right….for them it is different!

I saw the Saira Khan documentary. She was a contestant on a reality show called The Apprentice and got a media career out of it. It was an interesting programme, but as you said, the underlying vibe was about raising the self-esteem of Pakistanis and challenging stereotypes and all of that kind of thing. That was kind of annoying, like someone wagging their finger in your face.

Yes, in the past, that part of society was represented in various ways in mainsteam movies. But right now, and for the last couple of decades, Indian cinema, and world cinema, has more or less ignored the urban poor of India.

I was responding to the remarks about the movie by the actress called Aisha who seemed to think it was some kind of revolutionary movie that would set the world on fire and quite stupidly, meanglessly and irrelevantly compared it to Slumdog Millionaire.

I’m not sure how alive ‘mumblecore’ is – it is a worn out template more ripe for parody than for saying anything new, its been done.

Guess you’re referring to faux indie ones like Reality Bites? The talky, almost plotless films are alive and well in low-fi corners of American filmmaking. Mumblecore, the kids call it. Slackistan’s trailer looks interesting. Re boastful and elitist: He was just talking about the rich kids who eventually grow up and take over the family empire. And business empires with large political influence are not exactly unique.

Dude, I am Indian. Or maybe in Indian middle class la la land Pakistan is going to be the next superpower as well .