It’s election season again in India, and with an 80% reduction in Bollyflix released this year (a side effect of the finance crisis), the real action is in political ads. Recently, Congress bought the exclusive rights to play Jai Ho at its rallies for a whole year, much to the dismay of the BJP which objected that “Anyone should be able to use the song. ‘Jai Ho’ should not belong to any one; it belongs to the country.” [link]
Congress wasn’t just interested in playing the original song, it actually redid the whole thing, gutting the original and producing a muzaked easy-listening patriotic version for use in a political ad:
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The BJP struck back with Bhay Ho, a dark tale of international terror:
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Both of these clips hint at what a mainstream Indian studio would have done with Slumdog, assuming that they had been interested in the concept at all.
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In both of the ads the original song, a fairly straightforward pop hit, was replaced by something even sweeter and simpler. So too would the already simplistic original story have been dumbed down still further, with the mild amounts of conflict and tension in the film replaced by saccharine and pablum.
In this swadesi version, Jamal’s life in the slums is minimized and his time in Maman’s orphanage replaced by some benevolent charity or government organization. Jamal will then grow up to be a key member of India’s space program, an exemplar of India Shining.
For dramatic purposes, Salim will have been separated from Jamal during the riots, and experience which embitters him and turns him into a tool for India’s enemies. Jamal, on the other hand, has no idea that Salim survived. When Salim sees Jamal on Crorepathi, he has a change of heart and sacrifices himself to save Mumbai from the terrorists who, working with a gangster, had planted a nuclear device in the city.
Latika would still be in the story, but as a pure chaste virgin, not a gangster’s moll who had once been raped by Salim. She would be a school teacher in the countryside, a representative of the virtues of old India which need to be brought together with Jamal’s brains for the country to be whole.
Add in lots of dance numbers and item girls, and you’ve got a major Indian hit!
An ovarian illness leaves Lathika incapable of producing children (this should help to extend the plot to the required 3.5 hrs); she and Jamal take in and raise children orphaned by farmer suicides in Maharashtra (this should provide for a nice child-empowering montage song a la Unnaal Mudiyum Thambi).
This is actually stuff for deeper sociological reflection especially considering Amardeep’s earlier post on anti-bollywood films. Is there any “innocent” India/life that most Indians crave for (when there is none actually in reality or is being eroded or lost to “modernity”) that gets reflected in the simplistic Bollywood movie formulae that still gets made and makes money…? Or the pleasure of entertaintment needs an escape from the burden of reality in spite of it being monotonous ? Or is it due to lack of imagination or driven purely by economics ?
uuf! we have to stop living in the time-warp of the 90s when bollywood used to churn out movies full of tinsel and dream sequences… there is sensible cinema coming from bollywood (dev d, gulaal, tare zameen par being cases in point)… bollywood has even tried (in vain) to make fun of itself (dhoondte reh jaoge, luck by chance)… hindi cinema, as we know it, is maturing… but then, we just love to hate bollywood, don’t we?
Interesting choice for the voters. On one hand you have the Congress Party which fields mass murderers of Sikhs like Sajjan Kumar and on the other hand you have the BJP. After the BJP defends ass clown Varun Gandhi for talking about cutting the hands of Indian Muslims, the BJP raises the crazy against Indian Christians too. Wonder who is the next target. Decent voters will probably sit out this madness.
And yet Indian commentators said that Slumdog did poorly in India because it was too realistic and lacked song and dance. Bollywood may be different from the 1990s, but when a fantasical Dickensian romance with a happy ending is accused of surplus verisimilitude, that’s revealing.
Desparate attempts by both parties imo; Congress’s appropriation of the song is particularly cheesy imo. If they actually ran on some decent policies people might take their campaign seriously unlike these gimmicks.
What kind of people get elected when decent voters don’t participate?
It did badly in India because, well, the audience finds it lousy.
GreatBong’s review is prescient and that’s exactly how Indians have reacted to the film,
The Congress ad is cheesy and leaves out Narasimha Rao – the architect of the India of today, who made a decisive break with the dead hand of socialism past, and also stood by his Finance Minister who is now PM. Understandable because the Congress is simply a collection of feudal interests. The BJP ad is a straight anti-incumbent campaign, although it looks like too little too late. The overwhelming uncertainty that is still the burden of millions with no end in sight or on offer – what with Manmohan Singh promising to eradicate poverty in 10 years! What a cruel joke, that’s what Indira Gandhi promised in 1971! The Congress as Deeshaa correctly puts it is a pro-poor and pro-poverty party. Its policies are aimed at ensuring a stable population of poor people whom it can patronise and depend upon to be voted in to power.
Pagal_Aadmi_for_debauchery are you under the congress spell that anything else but them are the wrong choice ? I dont give even want to give 2 f@rking rupees about the indian congress party and their divide and rule politics they have done for the last 50 years. Btw did you know the British created the indian congress party. BJP not against Muslims : Advani. So much for the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty nuthugger. Pre-Slumdog
Dude, al mujahid, have you not been keeping up with the news? the two mass-murder instigators (and perhaps murderers) have been withdrawn from candidacy.
Dude, al mujahid, have you not been keeping up with the news? the two mass-murder instigators (and perhaps murderers) have been withdrawn from candidacy.
I did not know that. Good news! Manmohan Singh should be ashamed of himself nevertheless. He should have threatened to resign in protest when those two murderers were going to run as Congress Party candidates. He apparently loves being PM way too much.
Pagal_Aadmi_for_debauchery and the rest on SM, in keeping with the manner in which ethnic communities are named in the US, with the community serving as an adjective and the nationality as noun, as in Italian-American, Catholic American, Hindu American, Gay American, European American, etc., can we please decide to address Indian groups too similarly as Muslim Indians, Christian Indians etc., While in the case of the US the many petals of the flower are of more recent origin, without that in any way lessening the union, in India the followers of the many different tradition based groups have been together for a very long time. There are many other problems, assimilation isn’t one of them, and thanks for that.
I love Bollywood. It is a genre onto itself and I happen to love dance sequences, as long as there aren’t too many (I think 3 per film would be enough) and as long as the movie is not too long.
Bollywood films have a tendency to go on sometimes beyond even 3 hours.
But then, they are made for cinema goers in India and provide “intermissions” mid-way for bathroom/popcorn break, and I think they are made that way as to be a “complete evening out experience”.
If they could cut down to 3 dance sequences per film and cut down to 2 hour films, I would love Bollywood even more.
This is not an uncommon view, even amongst many voters in rural north India. It is, unfortunately, almost completely wrong. I am not sure what a “pro-poverty” party is meant to be, most parties at least nominally should be anti-poverty. The Congress, however, is not a pro-poor party at all; it delivers some sops and minimal redistribution to assuage discontent amongst the have-nots but that is about all. You simply need to look at how Congress ruled states spend money under Central development schemes like the NREGA or the Bharat Nirman scheme. If anything BJP ruled states have doner better on the former. OF course, the BJP is even less of a ‘pro-poor’ party than the Congress; since it doesn’t even do the minimalist redistribution that the Congress does while phsing through neo-liberal policies.
Innocence lost – too many children are sold by their impoverished families to rich men. Being part of an Oscar winning movie didn’t prevent the little girl Rubina from being sold for 20 million rupees to a rich sheik by her father and uncles. Luckily for her that sheik was fake: http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/271135/THE-father-of-Slumdog-Millionaire-star-Rubina-Ali-has-offered-his-daughter-for-sale-for-pound200000.html
It was a word-play on the phrase “pro-poor” Conrad.
Instead of saying they are pro poor people he’s saying they are pro the state of being poor. Hence, pro-poverty. If your electoral fortunes are dependent on keeping poor people on the dole and dependent on you, one cannot expect you to be too zealous about changing their fortunes. Kind of like why Republicans talk a big game about abortion, guns, and gay marriage but always stop short of doing what the principled (lunatic) fringe voted them in for. Once they get it done whose going to support them?
India doesn’t have a dole.
I don’t understand enough Hindi to parse the changes to the song, and have no real opinion on the outcome of the election but this seems incorrect:
“Anyone should be able to use the song. ‘Jai Ho’ should not belong to any one; it belongs to the country.
I actually didn’t even recognize that it was the theme song of Slumdog and this quote made me think this was yet another ancient patriotic hymn, like Vande Mataram or Gana Mana, that I had simply not heard of. I believe that Bankim Chandra Chattopadhay’s and Rabindranath Tagore’s estates have both lost copyright by now. But no, it’s the credit song for Slumdog written by A. R. Rahman with original lyrics by Gulzar. I could be wrong, but it seems like India’s copyright law is enough like our system that Rahman–or whoever his publisher is–has the right to license public and lucrative performance of the Jai Ho composition as he sees fit. It seems odd for the BJP to lean towards GNU fanaticism. . .
Oh I see now – thanks, I didn’t think of this in th Indian context. I am mostly unfamiliar with American electoral politics, more used to European ones which play out slightly differently.
Cmon! Indian Cinema has moved on. What you are talking about might happen in a B-grade film or even South Indian movies which still sport melodrama. However, most Bollywood fare has matured from the 90s – ie the stereotype you mentioned.
One thing I agree on though – the girl would have had a larger portion to act out if it were made in Bollywood. F Pinto barely has 5 minuted on screen.
217 to nda’s 144 by latest count with 78 seats to go. projected to get 240-250 seats, so only 22-32 seats short of forming the govt!