Slum Life: Destitution or Dynamism?
Even before it cashed in on eight Oscars, Slumdog Millionaire had sparked a global conversation around the film's depiction of slum life in India.
Critics say Slumdog's dramatized images of destitution, squalor and prostitution send a distorted message to audiences. It also overlooks the resilience of India’s hardworking slum-dwellers, Gautaman Bhaskaran writes in the Japan Times:
Is this not what the developed West wants to see of India: its underbelly of crime, corruption and poverty that appears all black, dark and depressing, with little gray or goodness?
Meanwhile, economist Howard Husock draws a more hopeful message from the film: that slum life is not, in all cases, inescapable.
By finding a hero who rises from shacks and degradation, the film reflects a surprising new consensus that even as slums proliferate around the world at a greater scale than ever before, they could, with the right mix of policies, be the launching pads for upward mobility rather than dead-ends.
Over the last half-century, slums around the world have been transformed from temporary settlements into thriving urban centers, Husock writes in Forbes. In Mumbai’s Dharavi slum (where Slumdog was shot), small businesses are multiplying at a staggering rate.
But residents in Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum, are less concerned about entrepreneurship and infrastructure than they are about a redevelopment project that would demolish their community. A plan to convert shanties into upscale apartments and office towers would uproot Dharavi residents from homes where they’ve lived for years — in some cases, for generations.
"This city has always been about diversity of habitats," urban planner and activist Rahul Srivastava told India’s Economic Times. "We have low-rises and high-rises, villages and slums. Why can't we make slums acceptable living spaces?"
Digg
Facebook
Google Buzz
LinkedIn
StumbleUpon
Twitter
Printer-friendly version
Comments
Slumdog Millionaire ignites conversation
No matter what people may think about how poverty was portrayed in Slumdog Millionaire, it has definitely sparked a discussion. I have seen poverty-focused editorials, op-eds, and news articles inspired by this film printed in local papers, Newsweek and even the current Entertainment Weekly. But my favorite place to hear it discussed was at a party attended by upper middle class suburban moms. When I heard a woman say "I had no idea that level of poverty existed in India or anywhere!" I was satisfied to think that the film had broken through to her so that she would open the dialogue about global poverty in as unlikely a place as a birthday celebration.
Slum life, Its tough
I personally feel that the life in slum is a normal life people live. Lifestyle when compared, gives you the feeling of good or bad. A person enjoying in Slum may not be able to do the same as a Millionaire. A life spent in heaven will be compared with the life in Hell. but what about the one for whom his house is the heaven.
The house could be a palace, a 3 bhk flat, a duplex, a single bhk flat a slum or a drain pipeline or may be a road side footpath. The happiness is not with money or the facility, its actually with the environment, which gives you pleasure. Its the people who makes the difference. Why we are being called a social animals. we require our families, friends & lovers around with us.
Most of the relationships are being maintained by blood relations, but the slum runs on human relationship. 'relationship' is often used where 'relation' would serve, as in 'the relationship between inflation and unemployment', but the preferred usage of 'relationship' is for human relations or states of relatedness - A particular manner of connectedness.
A rich father investing money on his children to study in the best IIM of the country, but still they are struggling to get a job. Have you ever thought of struggle in the areas where impoverishment is so much that one has to fight for daily food too. Anytime its possible for a poor boy to enjoy the position of a Millionaire, but I can bet that non of the Millionaire will have the guts to spend a single day in Slums.
SLUM LIFE DESTITUTION OR DYNAMICS (they are the turning point )
The term “slumdog” has raised an outcry among the people of the
slums who have been protesting that they are not dogs but the future of India. In India,
the term ‘dog’ does not evoke the image of a cute, furry domestic animal
but rather a mangy pariah that eats dirt to survive; and
spreads disease to those who touch it.the Slums shows that location of a city/state or country where poor and needy peoples live in majority and their shelter known as JHOPADI or JHUGGI .slums are the turning point of any country because the developement not in straight line but depens upon the hard work of that Slums which have no respect in the eyes of rich/richest person because of their poorness,
not only in India they are found all off the developed and developing countries.
.
India is not all about abject poverty, slum life and
the destitute. I would love to see an Indian film that
does not necessarily focus on an Indian wedding, life in
the slums, rags-to-riches, destitute poverty or prostitution
or child abuse….I would love to see a ‘Vicky Christina Barcelona’ or
something that provides a glimpse into the Indian experience that
natives and visitors know and enjoy.
Future of slums
It is interesting to explore the idea of transforming slums into urban centers. While the positive effects of this transition are salient, its drawbacks are often ignored by government and private enterprises. Most slum dwellers cannot afford to live in the same communities if they are redeveloped into upscale apartments. But this seems to be a sad reality that's taking place in many developing countries.
I've recently learned that many residents of slums are not only the very poor sector of the population; they are educated and do fairly well. Nonetheless, it is difficult for them to find affordable housing in the cities. If the problem of inadequate housing is not addressed, along with population growth in India, slum dwellers will only seem to increase with time.
Production of Space.
Most of the communities in India (such as Bengali), are succumbed in 'Culture of Poverty'(a theory introduced by an American anthropologist Oscar Lewis), irrespective of class or economic strata, lives in pavement or apartment. Nobody is at all ashamed of the deep-rooted corruption, decaying general quality of life, worst Politico-administrative system, weak mother language, continuous absorption of common space (mental as well as physical, both). We are becoming fathers & mothers only by self-procreation, mindlessly & blindfold. Simply depriving their(the children) fundamental rights of a decent, caring society, fearless & dignified living. Do not ever look for any other positive alternative behaviour (values) to perform human way of parenthood, i.e. deliberately co-parenting of those children those are born out of ignorance, real poverty. All of us are being driven only by the very animal instinct. If the Bengali people ever be able to bring that genuine freedom (from vicious cycle of 'poverty') in their own life/attitude, involve themselves in 'Production of Space’(Henri Lefebvre), at least initiate a movement by heart, decent & dedicated Politics will definitely come up.
- Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay, 16/4, Girish Banerjee Lane, Howrah-711101, India.
Post new comment