winning by love and truth

Rating: Null/10 (12 June 2010)

Slumdog Millionaire, is a well made movie. Fine camera work, background music, perfect acting and an excellent editing effort. The original novel must be well researched, thought of and written to make many of the tasks for the film maker easier.
Now, I do not understand why there is so much debate regards to the movie, Oscar and the theme keeping in center, India 's poverty, slums and other flaws? I could see the movie as a refined theme of truth and various situations where any human being has to make choice between truth and lie, love and hate or inner voice and outer ruckus..
The protagonist, Jamal faces various situations, starting from the moment where he and his brother lost everything, including mother, during hindu – Muslim riots and he had to choose to call a hindu girl whom he did not know much, to their shelter. And he chooses to give her shelter despite his brother reminding him of the hate between two communities. In fact the character of the girl is a metaphor for love and truth throughout the movie and life of Jamal. It is presented to him in various forms- pure, unexploited form in the beginning to exploited, manipulated, twisted, defaced, laden with threat etc forms and he, forever, chooses love while attending to his inner voice.
The protagonist reaches to a height of his success keeping in focus his inner voice and his love for the girl, which is truth, honesty and symbol of true unconditioned love.
The paradox is well shown between his brother and him. Both are ambitious, want money and material world. But choices and approaches are extreme. At the end both get what they aimed for, but one dies flooded in wealth and another mingles with life and joy despite of millions of rupees.
Jamal repeatedly mentions during the police interrogation that he just answers the questions he is asked and there is no manipulation or a fraud. In fact he has answered all hard questions and difficulties in his life with honesty and inner voice. The quiz master is a metaphor for harsh realities of life or the people around. He asks difficult questions, ridicules his social background, makes cheap comments and is jealous of him succeeding all the way through his life, even to the extent that he misguides him at one point. He even tries to trap him in police net and eliminate him. But the natural way of answering all the questions of life and keeping in focus love and truth makes the protagonist of the film win through the most difficult situations. Even when apparently being helped by the quiz master, he may not be smart enough to judge the trick of the quizmaster. But he thinks of not winning by fraud and chooses another answer.
While editing, the filmmakers have smartly used certain questions, like having answers –'satyamev jayate' and 'shri ram dhanush' where harsh truth is pinching and it is effectively shown that jingoism of 'satyamev jayate', even if not known by Jamal and being answered by public, does not change his course of life and just choosing the right path and love makes him triumph.
So, my dear, the movie is not about the struggle of life as it is perceived commonly. But it is about making choices in life. A struggle in its ordinary meaning is an endeavor by a human being to firefight a difficult situation. In that there is much less to listen to the inner voice and making a right choice. So, this is not a routine struggle of a poor chap to fight through the harsh life, but it is a narration of a natural way of winning over just by love and truth.