Monday 30 March 2009

Slumdog Millionaire - The 'Real' Story

This story is not to compete with the novel 'Q & A' (Based on which the movie was taken). Rather, this story is based on the real life happenings of millions of slumdogs of our country.

Our (Anti) Hero, Kumar is an agent of a 1500 people strong slum in Saidapet, Chennai. He arranges for water and shelter to the slum with the help of a local politician, promising all the votes of the slum (About 1000) in return. He first arranges for 4 syntex water tanks which were filled 4 times a day. (In residential areas this is done only once a day). Then why so much water here? Because here Kumar sells half the water to the tea shop and owners of that place. Officers are blocked by the politicians to take any legal action and the politicians are invariably bound to Kumar for the 1000 odd votes of the slum. So Kumar lives happily ever after.

One fine day, our hero plans fire in the slum. He picks the least acessible house in the slum, asks its ownr and his neighbours to temporarily remove their belongings and sets the house on fire. A few other houses were also damaged in the process. Fire service cant do a thing as they were not able to reach the place. In the name of rehabilitation, government provides financial and other aid to teh affected. Our middle man hero conveniently takes a significant share of the money and lives happily ever after.

The Government builds houses for the slum dwelllers just outside Poonamalle and encourages them to move to their new homes. The slum people refuse to do so since they all work either as construction workers or house keeping maids inside the city. Instead, they rent their new houses to other people. For the government's records, houses were built for slum dwellers and for the people of the slum, its an alternative form of income. Here, the agent plays a huge role in keeping them in the same locality as it would spell diaster to him and the local politicians otherwise. Except for being located in a slum, all houses has a TV, refredgirator and other house hold appliances that a middle class Indian works his ass out to get.

To make the people come to him often for help, our here enourages the youth and the men of the society to indulge in Drinking, Smoking and Movies to help drain their money. He arranges a TASMAC with a bar in the area for theit CONVENIENCE and he lived happily ever after.

Enough of the story. What transcribed as story is what's happening in all slums of India's major cities, including Chennai. So, are slum dwellers really need to be sympatized for they are? Votebank politicshas given rise to people like our hero Kumar, who is equvivalent to a criminal. But it's also people's ignorance that's to be blamed for. By the way, Dog is a thankful animal which is man's best friend. Call these people slum'rats' insted. That's more like it. Justify Full