Poor’s the way to riches??

Well it seems that talking about India’s poor especially those below the poverty line is the way to the big bucks in the arts and entertainment sector. Arvind Adiga made it big with “The White Tiger“, and now Danny Boyle and his team, won the Golden Globes with “Slumdog Millionare“. What’s the common link? that in both cases, India’s poor; the ”underdogs” are the protagonists and their story of rags and poverty is the highlighted issue. It seems talking about how badly fed and nurtured are some (rather a large) sections of Indian population lives, on how they earn their daily bread and their woes for a respectfull livelihood are gaining popularity, rather than the economy which still grows at 5-6 % while the majors are battling a recession. Not just about India, Khaled Hosseini’s novel’s “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns”, novels based in Afgnhanistan’s social issues have had critical acclaim all over. Writing about the poor and opressed seems to have an audience and its nice that people do read of problems other humans face.

It’s good in a way that it still awakens us to the realities of our country, that it still tells that we have a lot to do to bring them to a level of comfort living, but has anyone thought making a film or write a book about India’s growing economy. I bet it will sell. One of the major focus area of Thomas Friedman’s book on globalisation “The World is Flat“ is India’s emergence as a outsourcing destination. Also, other countries have their poor and opressed, think about making a film on Zimbabwea’s problems, you can have a trilogy there. That may sound obsessive, but nevertheless making India’s underprivilaged a matter of black humour isn’t something that can be digested everytime.