Danny Boyle has not made a movie.... he has made history. I watched'Slumdog Millionaire' in stunned silence... I was entirely unpreparedfor its impact... benumbed by its content. This is cinema at its mostpowerful - searing, raw, brutal and honest. So honest that there aretimes you can't bear to watch... and yet you are unable to tear youreyes away. Mumbai's ugly secrets stand exposed... its many wounds aredisplayed right up there, for the world to see. One part of me said,''I wish he hadn't made this film and stripped my city so cruelly....revealed its nakedness..." The other part was protesting.... wildlyprotesting. I hated Boyle's portrayal of Mumbai .... felt protective,felt betrayed.... but also felt the truth. Which is why it hurt.Continues to hurt. There is no exagerration in Boyle's depiction.Mumbai's underbelly is as sordid as shown. Gangsters control India'smost glittering metropolis.... the underworld's tentacles areeverywhere - from child prostitution to supari murders. Boyle hasexposed this underbelly in a manner that makes one squirm, cringe,reject and reluctantly accept - Mumbai is not for the faint hearted.Neither is this film. And if you can't stomach some of the scenes - toobad. Don't flinch. Don't look away. This is Mumbai meri jaan. Wherekids watch their mother being hacked by communal forces and flee thebloodbath, only to come back to the same spot again. This time as apart of the evil force themselves.Redemption?? Who knows what this iscalled. It is chillingly authentic - we see the same kids each time westep outside our home and they come up to the car window, beggingpiteously.... getting shooed away. We rarely meet their eyes or 'look'at them. These are the street kids that grow up to become pettycriminals, syndicate bosses, politicians (!!), dons and killers.

Boyle tracks them with precision.... surgically analysing theirtrajectory from the most miserable of Mumbai's slums (Dharavi's innardsare photographed graphically..... poetically) to the time, Jamal, theprotagonist, wins two crores in a quiz show. That's Mumbai, too.Anything is possible here. There are countless Jamals waiting in thequeue for their turn to come ("mera number kab aayega?"). For some, thewait isn't in vain. During its dying moments, 'Slumdog...." offers hopeand solace for the wretched of the city. In that sense, it is deeplymoving, even philosophical in what it is saying.

Strange. It took aforeigner to penetrate the facade and show us who we really are. Allthose desi filmmakers who win awards and parade as geniuses for makingamateurish, derivative movies that pretend to tell the asli story,should use 'Slumdog..." as a reference point.... an education. Kahan'Metro', 'Traffic', 'Corporate' etc etc aur kahan 'Slumdog..." We areseparated by leagues and oceans . Technically , Bollywood is alreadythere. But that's where it ends. Our scripts and stories arepathetic.... and worse, most ideas are stolen or 'borrowed'. Which iswhy none of the present lot of top bracket filmmakers in India can everaspire to get anywhere close to 'Slumdog...' They simply don't possessthe errr.... testicles.... for the job.