Sitting inside a crowded movie theatre in Nariman Point, South Mumbai [Images], surrounded by other pasty-skinned foreigners and a few overtly wealthy Indians, I was forced to stifle an audible groan.
"What will we survive on, Jamal?" Freida Pinto [Images] had asked.
"Love," Dev Patel [Images] had replied.
Enough was enough. For an hour and a half (and for Rs 250), I had watched a right proper Brit and a middle-class Mumbaikar stumble through cheesy dialogue, all the while pretending to represent the Mumbai slums.
'It's official,' I thought. 'Slumdog Millionaire is massively disappointing. It's inauthentic and vain. And it's making a mockery of Hollywood's annual awards season.'
The realisation saddened me because I tried hard to like the film. Desperately, in fact. From the moment I had first heard of acclaimed director Danny Boyle's [Images] plan to shoot a movie in India, I positively swooned.
'My India, my Mumbai, no longer a crude caricature!' I had gushed. 'The world will finally see her as she is!'
I told all within earshot how badly I wanted to see Boyle's masterpiece. I made a Slumdog Millionaire [Images] poster my desktop computer's wallpaper and compulsively watched and re-watched the film's two minute trailer.
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