Author: Shobhan Saxena
Publication: The Times of India
Date: February 22, 2009
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Sunday-TOI/Real-Bharat-Reel-India/articleshow/4167223.cms
Those photographs all but made us smell the
dust. A peasant squatting on parched land, staring at a harsh blue sky with
stony eyes.
It was the image that defined India for decades
- a newly-independent nation of millions, where drought and floods took turns
to torment the people. Writers and filmmakers came from far away to capture
the real India - poor people and scabby dogs sharing space in hot dustbowls.
Now, thanks to Aravind Adiga, Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy and David Miliband,
it's being argued that the real India is back in focus. Is it?
The truth is the real India never really went
away - in real life or fiction. In the '50s and '60s, the best, most popular
Bollywood stories were told by Raj Kapoor, who often played the underdog.
He was a Chaplinesque tramp living on a footpath and trying to make both ends
meet in the big, bad city. The trend continued into the '70s and '80s when
angry young men - born in gutters and raised on the sidewalks - fought pitched
battles with the men who ran the system. In the world of literature, the standards
set by pre-Independence giants such as Premchand were continued by writers
like Mulk Raj Anand and Mahashweta Devi who crafted fascinating stories about
poverty and struggle.
With such a rich collection of stories about
the real India already with us, why do we credit the new kids on the block
with its creation? Narendra Jadhav, vice-chancellor of Pune University and
author of the Dalit family story Outcaste: A Memoir, says, "I don't think
Adiga and Boyle have shown the real India. There is a silent revolution happening
in India, with millions of people who have lived on the margins for centuries,
now experiencing positive changes in their life. Adiga's The White Tiger and
Slumdog Millionaire show the bad side of this change. That's also a reality
but it's not the real India." Jadhav's multilayered saga traces the awakening
of Dalits over three generations. No story about the real India could be more
real than this.
The book, translated into 17 languages, has
been a bestseller in many European countries. It has sold 200,000 copies just
in South Korea. "It's a story of triumph but it's not a rags-to-riches
story. It's a story of courage and hard work. My father never went to school
but I went to the US to do my PhD," says Jadhav, formerly chief economist
of the RBI. "It's a book with universal appeal."
Slumdog's appeal probably lies in its rags-to-riches
angle, but it too made us smell the dust, reminding us of the silent revolutions
sweeping through India.
- sunday.times@timesgroup.com
