Love, poverty or the weekend that was

Do you learn about love from the movies? Not the running around the trees, letters in blood and death before parents seperate us garden variety love that has thankfully died a quiet death in the face of the multiplex public.

I'm talking about love for where we are - I saw that in two back to back movies I watched last week. Zoya Akhtar's 'Luck by Chance' and Danny Boyle's 'Slumdog Millionaire'. Extensive media coverage means that I know by now that Akhtar's movie took seven long years to put out. May I please compare her to the potter who'll pateinetly churn her wheel, molding clay over and over again till she makes the perfect piece. The movie is a charming jewel - all facets perfect. The casting of established stars playing caricatures they themselves are very familiar with - the gentle superstitious producer and the star mother mixed up with modern stars playing themselves - Kareena Kapoor and KJo!! The movie is about a world that Akhtar grew up in, has seen the brutalities and the glamour up close and is finally ready to let us in on. But it's never a sly outsider's opinion like say Madhur Bhandarkar's take on various industries (who strikes me very much as the boy who was picked last for the cricket team everytime in his childhood) It's affectionate realistic look at her world.

The second movie I watched was Slumdog Millionaire. The hype kept me away for two weeks - that is my standard period to test any movie really in the multiplexes. And blown away from the very first scene of police station torture, to the beautiful 'Jai Ho' dance at VT station. It took an outsider to come here and show us something we know happens everyday, just a little down the road from where my comfortable apartment with its broadband connectivity and espresso machine is, and lock away in the part of our mind with all the other gory bits that we don't want to face or talk about. We'll talk about the three olympic medallists who've finally given us a reason to hold our heads somewhat level (not high just yet) but not about the circumstances they worked in. We'll trumpet the number of billionaires India is steadily churning, but not about the million starving people. Danny Boyle has dared to show this, and though it hurts I know he loves us. He loves us like you love your spouse - you know all the little warts and the bits we protect from the outsie world and think are ours to deal with and complain about, but noone else can criticise. It's these bits he clips and polishes and says it's ok - because after all there's a lot of misery but there's still hope, there's still the truth and there'll always be love.