slummy mummy

I saw Slumdog last night. Finally.

What a film. I’m still jangling with the quick-beat soundtrack, still reeling from the colours and sheer brilliance of production. Still feeling distinctly queasy. 

"Feelgood film of the decade!" wrote News of the World. Are they f-ing crazy?

Despite the immaculate ending – the reunion of a modest slumdog lad and his impossibly pretty childhood sweetheart – and the cheery cheeky Bollywood credit-roller, I wasn’t left with any warm fuzzy feeling. A scene very near the beginning put paid to that.

It was the scene when a small boy had his eyes put out by opportunist scum that fed from the slums’ young down and outs. A small boy with a beautiful singing voice could coin in more begging money if he were blind... I was choked for the remainder of the film. And I couldn't care less if Jamal was ever reunited with his love. I know that it was a triumph of love over loss, but it kind of seems irrelevant that two people have found love when the backdrop is one of ongoing desperation and filth, one that Eros seems to have held his nose and flown over.

I came home and tried to wash my mind with 27 Dresses on cable, but it just made it all much worse. I love Katherine Heigl, but really, a film about the trials and tribulations of a wedding? It has its place – but that place is in the viewing lives of people who are unaware, or who have pushed Slumdog thoughts to the back of their mind. Which inevitably, among the chaos of packed lunches and work committments, I will do shortly. But it certainly does not have its place after a film that hints at the trials and tribulations of getting food to mouth, getting through the day without mutilation, making it through to adulthood.

One is aware that some very very nasty things go on in the world. But one isn’t really aware – in the let’s stop and think a while kind of aware – exactly how nasty these things are. Credit to the actors for hitting it home so well. Although I wish they hadn’t.

Selfishly, I like to bring it all back to me and how I’m feeling about children and homelife. It puts it in perspective somewhat. But if perspective is the culmination of right and left eye working independently, the it’s essentially comprised of opposing views.

Left eye: After the film I immediately came home and stared at my children as they slept, having convinced the babysitter I just had something in my eye and really I was fine and she could go now. I looked at the lashes resting on their cheeks, and their chests slowly rising and falling with contented slumber. They, in hibernation, are beautiful. Why do I shrug them off so often? Why do try to escape their demands and ‘imaginative play’, the sort which involves me be a wicked witch or a dog-owner or a cushion-built campfire companion? Here I am fortunate enough to have the luxury to enjoy my children; what some of these slum mothers would give to be able to play with their children, rather than working fingers to the bone just to feed them! I have a chance to make my children brilliant people; these women barely have a chance to keep them free of disease. I have the chance to show my children the world. They don’t have a chance.

Right eye: But then I stopped my self-flagellation and thought: really, given the situation of most children in the world, mine have it lucky. I don’t have to work 18-hour days knee-deep in dung, and I don’t have to prostitute my own kids to feed the family; so really, I give my kids a safe and nurturing environment. Who cares if I let them watch a bit too much tv? I’m not a bad mum, I’m just a mum.

Somehow I think the left eyes have it. The right’s attitude seems a bit wrong, a bit hollow. And as soon as Slumdog comes out on DVD I’ll be watching it regularly as a reminder. Even though I’ll be subjecting myself to an echoing ache of helplessness every time, if it can pull me from my mire of self-pity and slummy mummy attitude, it’s worth it.

Comments

[felicity]

I also can't get that scene out of my mind. I went to Mumbai last year and watching Slumdog was like going back there. I'm so glad it won Best Picture.

[Alice Martrin]

Great article. I saw Slumdog a couple of weeks ago and had similar feelings. However, I have been an avid reader of all novels Indian for quite some time, so it didn't come as such a shock to me, as I've been reading about it. But somehow actually seeing it happen on screen, as opposed to letting your imagination do the work, was worse.

I too came home and watched my sleeping children, thinking how lucky we all are to live where we do. We really have nothing at all to worry about do we?

Some books - if you're interested: A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry. The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga. Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts. Q&A - the book Slumdog was based on. All these books give a horribly real depiction of the abject poverty two thirds of Indians live in.

We're going to India in April. Part of me is very excited, as I have been wanting to go ever since I started reading about the place. But another part of me is dreading it. How will I actually feel, as a rich westerner, witnessing such poverty and being helpless to do more than give a few rupees?

Thanks for sharing your insight. Maybe this film will highlight the problems of the Indian street children and something may be done to help them? One can only hope.