No poor In India’s malls ?

No poor In India’s malls ?
As a member of the IT community in India , I (like a million others) am forever striving to save a few million dollars for our (mainly western) clients. TO do this we often tweak processes and formulae to the 4th decimal place. It was while I was doing this some months back that I realized that educated India has banished the Indian poor to statistics.

There are often “heated” debates on TV and in parliament on what exactly is poor and how many people are below the poverty line in India. It suits the government of the day to put a low figure for a “survival” income. Some months back Montek Singh Ahluwalia drew a lot of flak when he suggested the threshold of poverty to be Rs 32 per per person per day in urban India and a lower figure of 26 for rural areas. Even with this appallingly low figure, the poor in India have been estimated to be 407 million. The opposition parties felt that the figure is too low.. meaning that the number of poor people is significantly higher. While estimates and opinions vary, I have not seen ANY source quoting a figure below 25%.. which in terms of current population means about 275 million ! Now that’s avry large number of people.. nearly equal to the population of the United States.

Interestingly, while we probably have the world’s largest population of the poor (China is a strong contender), they are rarely present in the public consciousness. There was a time (till the 70’s I think) when Indian film makers produced films involving the poor but none are produced now. Bollywood has (and why blame them) gone the “market forces” way. It would take exceptional creativity to make money out of a story on the poor.. and Bollywood is not high on creativity. And the middle class market is anyway large enough to buy escapist fare.. so why dirty your hands ?

And what is true of Bollywood is true or books, newspapers and TV… one rarely sees any coverage on poverty. Now here is the catch.. On the international scene , in the last few years there was 1 film (Slumdog Millionaire) and 1 book (Arvind Adiga’s White Tiger) which focused on the poor in India and were both successful and critically acclaimed.

Finally, an example closer home. Most Indian large cities have at least a coupe of malls. These are usually expensively-constructed, well-maintained and air-conditioned buildings. There is no entry fee. Yet have you ever seen any poor people there ?… although the mall may be a stones’ throw away from a slum ? It is as if the poor have given up on the rest of us and decided to stay away.

Mallika Sherawat and the tyranny of taste

The title of the piece comes out rather like “Harry potter and the sorcerer’s stone” etc, but I couldn’t think of a better one. Ms Sherawat actually used that phrase, to my surprise, in an episode of Coffee with Karan. I am writing this because I admire her. I am sure most readers don’t need an introduction to Ms S. In my own case I had heard of her and her famous assets in the media but did not yet recognise her by face. Till one day while watching the Pepsi snake-wala advert (SRK plays Mr Been, snake charmer) , I asked someone who the girl was and was told it was none other than Ms S.

I still haven’t seen her epoch-making and debut(?) movies Murder and Khwahish. In fact I have seen only one movie of hers, “Pyaar Ke Side Effects”. I guess just like many starlets and successful heroines, she must have been compelled to realize early, that in Bollywood, unless you came with a famous second name, the only way for a woman to get ahead was to smooch and bare her body on screen. And she did that, with some success. But that’s where the twist comes in. Once she became successful and sought after, she did not once apologise about baring her skin or smooching. She said it like it was, and all credit to her.

Not for her the coy, cringing response that is almost a stock phrase for many young newcomers (famous second names included) “I will bare if the scene demands it.” And the scene always seems to demand it, even if the woman is playing an office clerk. Then I saw her on some show, perhaps The Big Fight on NDTV. As was expected, the anchor took a dig at her baring her way to the top (or topless). While she was understandably a bit tense, but the brave lass, stood her ground and never once made an excuse. I have seen only one of her movies, and that’s Pyaar ke Side Effects. She did a very competent job there.

But it was while watching the Coffee with Karan show that I heard her use the phrase “the tyranny of taste” and I was truly impressed. I am not an anglophile, but I think its better to be an educated Sherawat than an uneducated bimbette even if you have a famous second name. And so it came to me as no surprise that Ms S is a graduate of the well known college Miranda House in Delhi. Two famous alumni are film-maker Mira Nair and political activist Brinda Karat. May the force be with you, Ms S !!