Slumdog

Nice, fun movie. Haven't read the book and most probably, will keep it that way.
I'm sure an Indian director will never capture the raw, seamy Mumbai like Danny Boyle has. At the most we have Bollywood movies showing a few chases across shanties and some dark gullies and then it is back to the lavish mansion of the arch villain or the middle class house of the hero.

What's with the hoo ha about showing poverty and the reality? About 52% of Mumbaikars live like that. A handful of areas can count themselves slum free. And they don't have to go very far. Chances are, there will be a convenient slum tucked away nearby, which is a great source for all the 'help' that helps maintain these very same highrises.

Why would the western world be interested in seeing our duplicate Palm Beach roads, designer flea markets like the one on Colaba Causeway, glass buildings and flyovers anyway?

Like I was seeing a bunch of photographs of a tourist on Facebook, and it showed a seriously dirty vegetable market with the typical stale and rotting leftovers all around, a dustbin with more things around it than in it, dogs, chicken pecking at unmentionable things, people buying unmindful of the filth all around, we all know it well, and her comment was, "who wants to see a clean tidy market, this one has so much character."

No way am I defending squalor, but to have people disgusted by what has been shown is almost like hating what the mirror reveals. Wake up and smell the stink.