Indigestion !!!

Come 22nd February and the country of more than a billion will gaze at the Oscar ceremony in the Kodak theatres. This time is a special occasion as many like me are optimistic that the Oz of Indian music, A.R. Rahman will come out in flying colours. Although the movie, Slumdog Millionaire, had a cold reception in India, the work of Rahman was highly appreciated. The musical tsar received 3 nominations while the movie got nominated for seven others. Hope this time A.R. Rahman fetches an Oscar to India which will probably come after a long gap of almost 18 years.
However, the point of discussion is not whether Rahman will win the Oscar or not. What really matters is the wide response the movie got in the west. The movie depicts the black side of developing India and in a way is an eye-opener for us. However, the way the movie was received by the western media with such pleasure and words of admiration reproduces a feeling which is not new and by no means vague.
Not long ago, Arvind Adiga’s debut novel, The White Tiger received the Man Booker Prize for literature. What was the subject matter of the book? The rags to riches story of a ‘halwai’ and the outline of the book is nothing but in reality India is not booming but growing in disparity between the poor and the rich. The point to be noted is that Arvind Adiga spent a greater part of his youth and life in places outside India. This was another of the many cases when the western media and people alike gave thumbs up to the book, more precisely the subject.
But if that is the case, I want to ask these so called reformers or for that matter the self examiners, why is the population of the Indian middle class growing at an unprecedented rate and has overtaken the entire population of the US? What compelled George Bush to put a part of the blame of global food crisis to ever increasing consumption of the Indian middle class?
The answers lie in the growth and its future prospects of India and the authority it is gaining over world matters. No wonder then that the west still perceives India as a land of snake charmers and magicians. The saga of growth and achievement that our nation has unfolded in the past decade or so has gone beyond the digestive capabilities of the west. But now that the tide has gone beyond control, the west identifies these so called reformers and boosts them.
To conclude, we the youth of the country should not be influenced by works like The White Tiger or for that matter Slumdog Mllionaire but instead get inspired to work harder for the country and in turn increase the envy, even more.