Slumdog Millionaire and the Nigerian Dream!

[Sola]

From Thisday

If you have not seen the multiple Oscar winning movie; Slumdog Millionaire, and you are one of those people who hate to hear or read details about a movie because you still want to watch it, then now is the time for you to put this article down.

Before I saw the movie, I had heard and seen from previews that the story was about a guy from the slums in India who went on to win the grand prize in that country's version of the popular game show, 'Who Wants To Be a Millionaire', against all odds. It seemed like a typical feel good story; one where the underdog conquers all at the end of the day. Thus, I was not really moved. But the buzz around the movie kept growing by the day and as it swept award after award, I became curious. First because America has never really accepted that Bollywood (India's home of movies) is a good place to make movies and secondly because those same Americans were the ones now handing out the awards to this Indian based movie even if with a mostly British crew. I decided that I would see the movie before the Academy Awards came around and thanks to a very good friend, I was able to.

The opening scene was enough to make me want to see the movie through to the end; a young Indian man is seen sweating and looking tense. Sitting across him is a bulky man, dressed in a cop's uniform, smoking and puffing in the young man's face. Then he says something (probably in Hindi) and lands a slap on the young man's cheek. Then the following appears on screen: 'Jamal Malik is one question away from winning 20 million rupees. How did he do it? A: He cheated. B: He's lucky. C: He's a genius. D: It is written'. I was hooked already.

I am not a movie critic; neither am I about to start out as one here so I will not delve into whether the movie was a brilliant work of art or whether the actors did their jobs well. I am more interested in what the story tells.

Jamal Malik is the average Indian kid who grew up in the slums of Mumbai. He had an elder brother, Salim but they were almost contrasting characters. While Jamal was the calm one with a heart and liked to think things through, Salim right from his childhood, was the one who liked to be in charge and played pranks (I shudder right now at just remembering how he locked Jamal up in the toilet when Amitabh Bachan the great Indian star, came to visit their community and Jamal had to jump into a pile of human feces just to get an autograph)! As children, they could speak no word of English and were typical slum kids. Then at some point, there was a religious attack on their community, and their mother, who was their only parent, was killed as a result. They naturally were forced by her death, into the streets.

That night, they met another orphan Latika, and Jamal took an instant liking to her while Salim being typically unemotional, did not want her near them. As time went by she joined them and they got taken off the streets by a man who initially seemed like a messiah but later turned out to be no good. He used them and loads of other children to beg for alms on the street in exchange for a crammed shelter and food. He even went as far as making some of the kids disabled so that they could look like genuine beggars. When Jamal's eyes were about to be plucked out, the kids escaped, leaving Latika behind.

They found a new life organising fake tours around the world renowned Taj Mahal and Salim had started becoming violent. Then they found Latika who had now become a belly dancer, took her back after Salim shot and killed the evil messiah and ran off to an abandoned hotel. Then Salim turned on his brother and threw him out just so he could sleep with Jamal's Latika.

Jamal found a new life working at a call centre and one day searched out his brother on an online phone diary, found out he was living the good life illegally and that he had more or less sold off Latika to his boss as a maid/partner. Latika looked really unhappy and scared when he saw her and Jamal found out that one of the few ways she stayed happy was by watching the popular Millionaire game show. Jamal at that point decided that he would go on the show as a contestant even though he had no formal education or was not anywhere near a genius.

Anyone who watches the show in Nigeria knows that the first 5 questions are usually a walkover or at least the first two; but not for Jamal. He exposed his ignorance when on the second question he used a lifeline even when it was a question I as a non Indian knew the answer to. Imagine a Nigerian not knowing what is written under our coat of arms (okay now you are trying to look it up right?)

After that question (like the first question), he knew the answers to most others simply because he had come across them unknowingly in his struggles while growing up. The first question was on Amitabh Bachan his idol and it was a walk over. The third question was a religious one about an Indian God, Rama and he knew the answer from when his mother was killed in the religious clashes. Another question was on a song written by a famous Indian poet and he knew the song from his days in the beggar's shelter. Yet another question was on the former American statesman whose picture appears on the $100 bill. He knew that from a tip he got from an American couple who saved him being beaten up thoroughly. He went on like that and even with the question on who invented the revolver, he knew it from when his brother Salim shot the man who had turned them to beggars.

But on the final two questions, he was stuck. He had no clue to the answer for the second to the last one even after taking off two incorrect answers. The show went on a commercial break, he and the host went to use the bathroom and while there, the host left a clue telling him that the answer was B. When he came back to the seat, probably because he had grown not to trust people very much, he went instead with D. He was right and was now one question away from the grand prize.

The last question was a question he should have known. He and his brother had always called themselves musketeers (from the famous three musketeers) and were nicknamed accordingly but they never knew what the third musketeer was called; and that was the question. After phoning a friend to find the answer, Latika took the call. She had no idea either and he decided to take a gamble. He simply went with his heart and randomly picked A. and to the delight of the audience, everyone watching at home and me the viewer, he was right! He of course ended up finding his Latika and they probably lived happily ever after. The end

Ever since the success of the movie, most Nigerians have been asking to know when Nollywood would have their big moment as well, but I have refused to comment because the last time I wrote an article on the Nigerian film industry, I was called unprintable names and told to mind my own business by a Nollywood big name. But if it helps in any way, then maybe we should take note that Slumdog Millionaire is actually a British film (and not a Bollywood creation) simply based on an Indian story!

But the lessons I draw from the movie are more for we Nigerians as a whole. First of all, the movie was made with $15 million and that by Hollywood terms is unbelievably cheap. Yet it went on to win 8 Academy Awards. The point being that we do not always have to spend all the money in the world to achieve results. For example, unlike in the past when billions of dollars had been spent to generate power in Nigeria, we should draw a lesson from that and make sure that the recent N303 billion allocation to power this year actually yields results and we are not left with many more stories at the end of the year. Both the Minister of Power and Governor of Benue State, have stated in clear terms that 6000MW of electricity is achievable by the end of this year and we would like to take their word for it.

Another lesson for me from the movie is the ability to discern, go for what you want and follow your heart. A lot of Nigerians especially the young ones today, are clueless, career wise and even when it comes to relationships. Most people, young and old do not live for themselves but to please people around them. Like Jamal did in the last two questions, it is important for every one of us as individuals to be able to dig deep in the most trying times (like with the financial crisis now), take risks and be ready to make responsible decisions for ourselves. They may not always work for us but they are better taken than left undone. We cannot always expect to be guided especially with issues that affect us personally.

Also, we were made to see that the power of persistence does pay off at the end of the day. Jamal and Latika were childhood friends and he had always wanted to be with her but one circumstance after another kept tearing them apart; yet he never stopped trying to have her to himself. He did at the end of the day and it seemed like the perfect time for the both of them to be together; all grown up and with a whole lot of money. So never give up because you may not have realised your dream simply because it is just not the right time yet.

The last and most important lesson for me is the ability to learn from our past and shape our future. Jamal was successful at playing the game because with each question he was asked, he was able to look to his past and draw an answer from there. He was no genius but just a young boy who had a history and used it well to his advantage.

Nigeria's history is unbelievably rich and we all know it. We have gone through the roughest, harshest and trickiest of times while also having experienced good things in the past. But our biggest problem and setback as a nation is that we never seem to want to learn from history. That is why Nigeria is rife with corruption across all sectors; that is why elections in the country keep getting worse with every one held; that is why Jos and Bauchi and Aba are recurring decimals in our polity; that is why we are still complaining about bad major federal roads tens of years after independence; that is why the words 'bad' and 'government' cannot be divorced from each other in Nigeria; and many more.

We live life and make mistakes so that we can learn from them but obviously Nigeria does not live by that rule. Here, we just live life and make mistakes or more like intentional bad decisions. There is a need for us to sit back and look at those mistakes we have made as our country gradually took shape. Doing that and working towards correcting the errors and making sure there is a conscious effort not to repeat them, is one sure way of making progress. There is a lot of talk about Vision 2020 with committees being set up all over the place from federal to state levels but the truth remains that there is no way we would achieve what already seems like a tall dream if we do not learn from our past.

I loved Slumdog Millionaire and was happy for all the recognition it got. Same way I love Nigeria and believe that it is high time we got recognised for what we truly are; a great nation that is purpose driven!

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[TVwriter23]

The crazy thing about that is that there are cheaper movies made in Bollywood and also co Bollywood/Hollywood movies like Bride and Prejudice that was made for around $7-8mill