What disturbs me most about this on going 'Slumdog' story is the fact that the realities of slum life are uncomfortably too personal now. I sat in a movie theater and was touched by a story. I was entertained thoroughly only to find out later that what I saw in that movie was less of a story and more of reality.
And that disturbance has grown inside my heart ever since.
The media has followed many of those slum kids from the red carpet right back into their one room shacks in Garib Nagar, "the city of the poor."
Rubina Ali's story continues to make me uncomfortable. It makes me frustrated and angered towards the way others are living. I think much of the world of Slumdog Millionaire viewers can share those same feelings with me. What is interesting to note is where we have projected our anger.
On the filmmakers themselves.
We want to point the finger at them for exploiting the poor in order to make an estimated $326 million in the box offices. It's not enough for us to hear them say they have set up a trust fund titled Jai Ho, in order to ensure these kids have a future. They have contributed $747,500 in charitable donations to help slum kids in Mumbai. They have even offered to move some of these kids out of the slums and in to nicer neighborhoods (albeit, the place that was offered was 1,000 miles away from home).
But we remain frustrated. Disturbed. Uncomfortable.
Why? Because of the picture above. We all fell in love with Rubina Ali on the big screen. But we had no clue that she actually lived the life of a slumdog. What we can't get over is the stark reality of slum life. It is foreign to us. We do not comprehend poverty to that degree. We only know it in the sense of the homeless shelter downtown where most people can be fed every day if they like. We don't know it in the sense of a one room slum house that is flooded with sewer water. That is Rubina's current situation as of last Wednesday, April 29th 2009. (And I get grouchy when a quarter inch of water finds its way into my basement and gets the carpet wet.)
Perhaps the filmmakers of Slumdog have blessed us more than they have done us a disservice. They have succeed in making the realities of slum life personal to a Western world that is far removed and even more so apathetic towards such realities.
So the question now remains, "Where do I project my anger?" Rubina Ali's situation is nothing more than INJUSTICE. To make life more comfortable for her does not change the fact that 837 million people still call the urban slums their home.
Their home.
What if you lived in this neighborhood?
Where, now, must we rightly project our anger? To what must we apply ourselves? I don't think the answer is very simple but our hearts will remain restless until we begin to do something.
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