So we have a real-life slumdog millionaire now. What's the problem with a fiction just remaining in the realm of fiction? It was a good movie.
Oh, BTW, didn't any smart-ass MBA professor type get the idea to use the movie's story to teach some mumbo-jumbo to the bozos? Remember that guy who used Lagaan to teach management? How shameless. But then the MBA business is all about cheating and making money. So, smart cheaters (which is an anagram, interesting enough, for 'teachers') cheat some MBA students who must eventually wise up and realize that it's all about maximizing cheating. Anyway, I digress.
I've a bone to pick. I'm somewhat suspicious of this story being peddled of this commoner guy suddenly showing smarts and winning a million dollars on a game show. I think the show is fixed. Pretty.
I had sort of predicted to myself back when the show started on 15 August that we'll have a winner of the jackpot around Diwali. How prescient of me to have seen the future!
The participants this year all seem to be poor guys from poor states of India with heart-rending sob stories for life stories.
How do we know that the producers do not fix the process of selecting who'll be selected to try for the hot seat in the studio? Is it truly random? Why do not really talented people come on to the show?
Perhaps everyone knows and agrees that it's an obvious conceit. But then why don't people protest? Is that ok? Lies are ok then. It's ok for Bachchan to be a flagrant liar?
Some of the questions on the show of course can be beyond silly. I remember one question from the first episode where it was asked as to who unfurls the tricolor (the Indian flag) from the Red Fort on the day of India's Independence? Well, every kid in India knows that it's the PM who does that.
Is it that there's this deeply embedded class system in India? Perhaps there are two Indias (oops ... I'm taking this from John Edwards' Two Americas).
There's an India that's smart and corrupt and knows that everyone is corrupt and everyone is in on the loot. And then there's the other 99 percent of India which is simple and stupid and thinks it's all fair, believes in stupid gods, makes gods out of duplicitous movie stars, cricketers, etc.
It would be so sad if there are hundreds of millions of Indians out there who watch such game shows thinking that it's a true quiz show ... not a faux, fixed game show.
Perhaps people deserve the heroes they have. We have third rate movie stars who preen and more and people for some reason worship them. Some of these stars make a big deal out of kissing or not kissing some co-star or something. Some females make various rules as to how much of their body parts they'll show ... how much of their skin they'll put on the silver screen. As if there's anyone who thinks for a moment that these females are there for any reason other than their boobs and white skin and other body parts.
In all this pandering to false morality, I've always had this thought in my mind — what about when male and female lovers in a movie hug or squeeze or roll on the bed or whatever else that they do as per the allowed morals of Indians. Is there no sexual component to it? Is it just pure acting? Just because you're an actor, you can completely get rid of your sexual reactions for the duration of the acting?
Well, I do not think so. If I was very close to a fancy female star, I'd feel it sexually even if I was acting. Of course, the fragmentary nature of movie making perhaps dehumanizes the participants and makes them realize how it's all a bit of a charade anyhow.
Think of doctors. They all learn the details of biology and of hormones and about the biology of love and sex. But does that mean that doctors don't fall in love or don't enjoy sex?
I remember — out of the bulk of 600 + or 800 + pages — from the novel Doctors about how in an entry-level medical school class, the teacher asks the students to explain what happens during an erection and the female lead character explains before the male students. Fun ...
I wonder if Indian medical college students and teachers are that open-minded or not ...
Oh, BTW, didn't any smart-ass MBA professor type get the idea to use the movie's story to teach some mumbo-jumbo to the bozos? Remember that guy who used Lagaan to teach management? How shameless. But then the MBA business is all about cheating and making money. So, smart cheaters (which is an anagram, interesting enough, for 'teachers') cheat some MBA students who must eventually wise up and realize that it's all about maximizing cheating. Anyway, I digress.
I've a bone to pick. I'm somewhat suspicious of this story being peddled of this commoner guy suddenly showing smarts and winning a million dollars on a game show. I think the show is fixed. Pretty.
I had sort of predicted to myself back when the show started on 15 August that we'll have a winner of the jackpot around Diwali. How prescient of me to have seen the future!
The participants this year all seem to be poor guys from poor states of India with heart-rending sob stories for life stories.
How do we know that the producers do not fix the process of selecting who'll be selected to try for the hot seat in the studio? Is it truly random? Why do not really talented people come on to the show?
Perhaps everyone knows and agrees that it's an obvious conceit. But then why don't people protest? Is that ok? Lies are ok then. It's ok for Bachchan to be a flagrant liar?
Some of the questions on the show of course can be beyond silly. I remember one question from the first episode where it was asked as to who unfurls the tricolor (the Indian flag) from the Red Fort on the day of India's Independence? Well, every kid in India knows that it's the PM who does that.
Is it that there's this deeply embedded class system in India? Perhaps there are two Indias (oops ... I'm taking this from John Edwards' Two Americas).
There's an India that's smart and corrupt and knows that everyone is corrupt and everyone is in on the loot. And then there's the other 99 percent of India which is simple and stupid and thinks it's all fair, believes in stupid gods, makes gods out of duplicitous movie stars, cricketers, etc.
It would be so sad if there are hundreds of millions of Indians out there who watch such game shows thinking that it's a true quiz show ... not a faux, fixed game show.
Perhaps people deserve the heroes they have. We have third rate movie stars who preen and more and people for some reason worship them. Some of these stars make a big deal out of kissing or not kissing some co-star or something. Some females make various rules as to how much of their body parts they'll show ... how much of their skin they'll put on the silver screen. As if there's anyone who thinks for a moment that these females are there for any reason other than their boobs and white skin and other body parts.
In all this pandering to false morality, I've always had this thought in my mind — what about when male and female lovers in a movie hug or squeeze or roll on the bed or whatever else that they do as per the allowed morals of Indians. Is there no sexual component to it? Is it just pure acting? Just because you're an actor, you can completely get rid of your sexual reactions for the duration of the acting?
Well, I do not think so. If I was very close to a fancy female star, I'd feel it sexually even if I was acting. Of course, the fragmentary nature of movie making perhaps dehumanizes the participants and makes them realize how it's all a bit of a charade anyhow.
Think of doctors. They all learn the details of biology and of hormones and about the biology of love and sex. But does that mean that doctors don't fall in love or don't enjoy sex?
I remember — out of the bulk of 600 + or 800 + pages — from the novel Doctors about how in an entry-level medical school class, the teacher asks the students to explain what happens during an erection and the female lead character explains before the male students. Fun ...
I wonder if Indian medical college students and teachers are that open-minded or not ...