How do you reach your destiny?
Do you cheat?
Do you just get lucky with it?
Do you have to be a genius?
Or is it just written?
Danny Boyle tells you the answer in this movie where a boy, born in the slums of Mumbai as a Muslim minority, plays along with the whims of Allah, before finally reaching his destiny. His very own one.
THE FEEL
Overall, upon finishing the movie, my first thought was that - life is harsh, and there are thousands or even millions of way to live it. This was played out by the various characters in this movie. Perhaps people tend to argue that, what they have or have reached in life today was somewhat predestined by circumstances at birth - some were born to a wealthy family and some weren't; some had the opportunity to go far in education and some didn't. And I think that is why the director chooses to tell the story of Salim and Jamal: two boys, brothers in fact, born to the same mother, bred in the same community, went through the same tests in life, but ended up with stark differences at the end of the movie. One chose to live in the mode of survival-at-all-costs, even to the extent of betraying his own conscience and the God he was brought up to believe in, while the other chose to stay true to himself and the virtues born by that of natural law. In the process, their paths diverged, crossed, re-diverged, and crossed back again, before each faced the impending destiny that was already on the walls from the moment they decided upon which way to trot their lives' lines.
THE METHOD
The technique of having a twin or triplet parallel story line is nothing new, but I must say that Boyle's ending all of them in a go, coupled with the near double montage climax of Salim preparing his own death by filling up a bath tub with money, Jamal calling his brother to answer the most expensive question he was ever asked in his life, and the flashback of how it all started with Latika and Jamal, drilled both the message and the vision home. The use of the clock-ticking sound in the show, the sound of Salim spraying filthy money all over the bath tub, and the silence and serenity in which Latika answers the call of Jamal, worked wonders in pushing the plot over the edge and embedding the movie in audience's hearts.
THE VERDICT
There were some furore when the movie hit fame by winning a handful of awards. People say it is degrading the lives of Indians in specific and the image of India in general. Well I say well done to the crew for telling things as it is. Because the truth hurts, and people only react in fury when they are hurt by an inconvenient truth (no pun intended, Al). The bird's eye view of the slums Jamal and Salim grew up in, the scene where boyhood Jamal jumped into you-know-what to get out of you-know-where to obtain Amitabh Bachchan's autograph, all did nothing but strengthened to truth of overwhelming poverty of a minority community in a fast developing nation. Perhaps the guilt should have been felt by the powers-that-be in India, and not Danny Boyle's crew.
