Slumdog Millionaire: So accurate it's creepy...

A lot of people have been asking me lately what I though of the movie Slumdog Millionaire. It might be because of my stellar reputation as a world-renowned movie critic, but it is more likely because I just spent three months in India. Hmmm... Not sure.

Ok. No critical build-up to my final opinion here. Slumdog ROCKED. It was awesome. Fantastic. Whatever you want to call it. I loved it.

Seriously, if you haven't seen Slumdog Millionaire yet, you need to. And not just because it won 8 Oscars. I would recommend it hands down even if it hadn't won a single Academy Award. I've already seen it twice, I'd easily see it again, and the soundtrack has been playing non-stop in my car for 2 days.

Slumdog Millionaire is a must-see movie.
So go see it. You must.

So why did I like it so much? Why all this hype?

Because Slumdog Millionaire captured poverty in India like nothing I've ever seen. The images of people and places in the movie were so spot on that it took my breath away. I felt like someone was reaching into my memory and pulling out the exact things I had seen and experienced.

In fact, it genuinely was a little creepy, because of the sheer volume of sights and sounds in the movie that matched my trip exactly.

At one point in the movie, there is a little girl wearing a filthy yellow dress picking through a massive pile of garbage. Children like her (called "rag-pickers" in India) were a common sight in New Delhi. Once, as we were driving around a corner in my neighborhood, I saw a little girl, clothes filthy, picking through a heap of trash. I think her dress might even have been yellow. The exact same image.

Later in the movie, two young boys make money by walking through a train, selling things to the passengers. I travelled in the exact same type of train, and yes... little boys tried to sell me stuff.

Slumdog's protagonist, a boy who grew up in a Mumbai slum.

One image in the movie is of a little beggar girl tapping on the window of a car and asking for food by making motions with her hands. The image was spot on, even down to her hand motions and the little bobble of her head.

Then there was the stuff that was so accurate it was creepy. At one point they show a little blind boy begging at the bottom of the stairs in a subway (underground passage). I used to regularly go through a subway to avoid crossing the crazy street above, and just about every time I would see a little blind boy begging.

And to top it all off, there is a song playing in the background of one scene which of course happened to be from one of three Bollywood movies I saw while in India. What are the chances?

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Slumdog Millionaire captures poverty in India well.

But from just reading this you would think that it's a really depressing movie. That it's all beggars and garbage and poverty. And there is a fair share of really difficult images. But in the end, the movie leaves you with a feeling of hope... of redemption. On top of all that, the movie revolves around a simple and beautiful love story.

And come on. Who doesn't love... [SPOILER ALERT] ...a happy ending???

Everything is connected...

For centuries, scholars have viewed the world as a machine… a series of interlocking parts that can be disassembled and reassembled without changing the nature of the whole. But with the advent of quantum physics, scientists and philosophers are beginning to see that all things are actually quite deeply connected. On the surface, separate entities may seem unrelated, but upon a deeper examination, it becomes apparent that they exist only in relationship to each other. Like the parts of a body, no part can exist without the rest.

So what does this have to do with social justice? Just this: everything you do has some connection to the rest of humanity. While that may seem like new-age nonsense, I believe it to be true. Even though we may never come in direct contact with the poor, marginalized and destitute of this world, our day to day lives touch theirs all the time.

For example, imagine taking a trip to the grocery store. You get into your car and drive there, emitting exhaust that is contributing (albeit minutely) to the destruction of the ozone layer, which is, in turn, contributing to more severe weather patterns in sub-Saharan Africa. With drought setting in, families in those regions are having a harder and harder time finding food.

So you get to the grocery store and buy a pound of coffee. Now, unless the label says “Fair Trade,” you have no guarantee that the workers who picked the coffee were treated well or even paid enough to survive. You may have inadvertently supported a company that makes a profit by oppressing its workers.

Next, you pick up a few bananas. But did you know that the huge demand for bananas in America is leading to vast deforestation and pollution (twice as much waste is left behind for every banana produced)? Or that buying bananas out of season requires transportation that pumps greenhouse gases into our atmosphere? Again, the poorest of the poor are the ones that pay the price.

Finally, you pick up a bottle of water on the way to the register. There’s nothing inherently harmful in that, except that a single bottle of water takes more than 6 liters of water to produce. In a world with rapidly disappearing fresh water supplies and where 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, that’s quite an indulgence, don’t you think?

Now, this isn’t intended to make you feel guilty. I only want you to be more aware. To think as you go about your day about how your life is connected with the lives of people all over the world. Awareness is the first step in living your life differently. Sure, changing your lifestyle may not end world hunger or fix the environment… but it’s a start.