Tolerance is our middle name

Saw the movie slumdog millionaire two days ago.... lovely movie... will watch it again in the theatre soon.

I guess I have not seen many a movie that depicts poverty as the background.. I have seen 'city of god' and that has ghetto in the background.. but not many others. And especially not many Indian movies - I can recall a couple of Kamal's (tamil) movies that had the poverty portrayed eloquently - varumaiyin niram sivappu, some aspects in mahanadi, nayagan... but they are only a handful.

Well, that's OK... movies are primarily a means of escape from reality for all of us at most times. But, I say - don't criticize movies like slumdog saying they are a foreigner's view of India.

Poverty is as much an aspect of India as its elephants, cows on the road, palaces, BPOs - call centers, music, sandalwood, etc. I think India is a land of contrasts - much more than any other place in the world. I need another post to talk about this, but let me stick to my original topic here...

Depicting poverty as the shade of India is OK - 'cos there are 100s of movies that are an escape from reality, with its song and dance, with its own style and panache.

Depicting poverty as the shade of India is welcome - 'cos I think we Indians have become insensitive to it. Our tolerance for poverty and the inequalities we see around us has increased so much that we are numb to it. Tolerance is our middle name. O.K. are our initials.

According to wiki, "41.6% of its population is living below the new international poverty line of $1.25 (PPP) per day" and "The World Bank further estimates that a third of the global poor now reside in India"

It seems worse than what I expected - goes to say how much I actually knew about India. Check this wiki to know the facts.

There seems to be some encouraging news, though not enough...

"{Despite this,} India currently adds 40 million people to its middle class every year. Analysts such as the founder of "Forecasting International", Marvin J. Cetron writes that an estimated 300 million Indians now belong to the middle class; one-third of them have emerged from poverty in the last ten years. At the current rate of growth, a majority of Indians will be middle-class by 2025. Literacy rates have risen from 52 percent to 65 percent in the same period."

It also says this as one of the cultural reasons for poverty -

"The caste system, under which hundreds of millions of Indians were kept away from educational, ownership, and employment opportunities, and subjected to violence for "getting out of line." British rulers encouraged caste privileges and customs, at least before the 20th century."

But that is another blog-material altogether...

PS: If you want to see how India compares with the world, check this

Some samples..