Slumdog Millionaire and The White Tiger - What do they share in common?

To begin with 2009 has been a peculiar year, at least when it comes India, its offerings and the recognition it received. Me being an Indian, being born in India, national pride and all that, I am keeping that completely at bay. What I may write may not be the most politically right point of view either. Still I am convinced I have a point to make.

Slumdog Millionaire and The White Tiger, what do they stand for, probably the Indian Diaspora in the 20th century. Is this reflection of India - panoramic? Let me put it in a different way, is this the shade of India, which we wish to showcase. Whether we liked it or not (I mean the Indians) and whether we really agreed to what was represented, we were hardly left with any choice. Both these works were received well, I must say, more than what we all Indians put together were able to achieve in a decade.

Now what is interesting in this whole success journey is, that this view of India and its people is what took the world by storm. Not the fact that Indian is a growing economy, not that we are trying to bring the retail and mobile revolution across the nation, not that we have much more English medium schools now or that we are now a more liberal nation or that our we more secular.

So what we perceive to be the Indian image or the image which we wish to highlight is not where the moolah is. The real moolah still lies in India's image as a nation which thrives. How Indians intrinsically have a different DNA, which makes them thrive, in spite rain, hell or fury. It is the Indian spirit, the undying, unrelenting Indian spirit which triumphs.

So how different is the Indian spirit from the human spirit which triumphs. Its absolutely at the same level, but there is more charm, there is more awe and there is more appeal in the Indian circumstances in which these characters allow the spirit to triumph. Its different from the pursuit of the American dream, it cannot be associated with the French romanticism, like how Javed Jaffrey used to say 'It's different'.

So whether we like it or not, whether we believe in it or not, India still remains a far different entity from what we wish to portray, far different from what we believe we actually have evolved into. So this is how things are, good for us, but not for what we thought what we were good for. But for what we thought we need to get rid of sooner the better.

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Slumdog Millionaire - 8 Academy Awards including Best Motion Picture.
The White Tiger - Man Booker Prize
Danny Boyle, British film maker and producer, his acclaimed movies include Trainspotting, The Beach and Slumdog Millionaire.
Arvind Adiga, Indian journalist and author, The White Tiger is his debut novel.