Oscar Glory!

Well, the debate will keep raging on – Was Slumdog worth the hype and all the awards. Yes, undoubtedly there have been better films made in Bollywood itself. And of course, A R Rahman has composed many many memorable soulful numbers over the years and Jai Ho might just be one of them. And more importantly, the Oscar is by no means the only benchmark to judge a quality cinema or music.

But just the fact that this glory for Slumdog Millionaire puts India so very definitevely on the world cinema radar is enough for this nation to stand up and rejoice. India in spite of being the country which produces highest number of movies by far, has so far failed to make a mark on the global level, not because of the quality but mainly because of its lack of association with the bigger names and studios of the world. This win for Slumdog is definitely going to inspire the movie-makers in India to promote their movies at a much larger world-stage and hope to bring to the Indian cinema the recognition that it deserves.

In India, the movies are mostly all about the stars. It is definitely sad because there are a huge number of crew involved in coming up with a successful movie. And yet, all people talk about are the lead actors and sometimes the director, producer, music composer, singer of the movie. That’s why the Oscar for Resul Pookutty for best sound-mixing is all the more significant. In a place where the technicians have mostly been the unsung heroes of the films, this should be something for them to cheer about.