Dear Members of the Academy,

Many congratulations for putting up a brilliant show this past Sunday night. Isn’t Hugh Jackman superb? Wish you had at least nominated him for Australia, but never mind—his Oscar night performance is sure to fetch him some musicals, if not film roles.

I know how hard it is to be a judge, when one has to select from a range of such breathtakingly good fare. Unlike other critics, however, I think the Academy often redeems its wrong choices. No Oscar for Andy Dufresne from The Shawshank Redemption? Well, give one to Dave Boyle for Mystic River. Did we overlook Ennis del Mar, that stratospheric point in a young man’s career? Applause for the Joker please.

It is with high hopes, therefore, that I put forth my case. In spite of what Danny Boyle and the film’s PR machine would have you believe, I don’t think Slumdog is an authentic representation of India. For one, the plot twists are way unimaginable, and the editing uneven. My problem with Slumdog also has to do with the fact that a film made by a white man is being lauded as an accurate depiction of urban poverty in India.

I don’t know of any Indian director who has been able to show the US in a light that removes his/her gaze from the immigrant experience. Mira Nair made a widely panned representation of Vanity Fair, and now restricts herself to Indian themes. Why then should a Boyle come here and tell us and the world what India is all about? Isn’t this the worst manifestation of Orientalism?

To be sure, India does have some of the problems shown in Slumdog—poverty is rampant—but you do not take the worst elements of a society and make a film that, unfortunately, wins such great recognition. There are many great stories in India waiting to be told, and they do not have to include young children throwing themselves into piles of shit. Why not, for instance, make a movie on the problems faced by young Indian women as they juggle the demands of modernity and tradition?

There is a new movie out this week here, called Delhi 6, made by an Indian who spent his childhood in Chandni Chowk, an Old Delhi area where much of the movie is based. See the movie and you feel his love for the place drip in every scene. I did not feel such a high watching Slumdog. That movie just made me sad to be included with the vast humanity that was being represented.

Anyway, the one good outcome of Sunday night is the Oscar for Rehman. He is a truly deserving recipient. (Incidentally, he has also supplied the score for Delhi 6.)

So dear Members, since the Academy believes in correcting past wrongs with lavish encomiums, can it, conversely, be assumed that an undeserving Oscar will be followed by a long drought? Can I rest assured that Danny Boyle, no matter how great his next project, will not be reading the victor’s speech from a crumpled note?

In anticipation,

Vikram Johri

It was a post on ‘The Board’, the blog of the New York Times editors, that first drew my attention to it. Dated July 1, 2008, it said The Orange County Register, in order to cut costs, was launching a pilot project to outsource copyediting and page design work to an Indian media company—let’s call it X. That the media industry in the US is passing through a serious downturn isn’t news anymore. Scores of newspapers have either wrapped up, or are laying off staff at a hitherto unprecedented pace. But outsourcing?

I was so intrigued by the story that I decided to investigate. X has its headquarters in Noida — a small office nestled on the third floor of a non-descript building. Since I had gone as a job applicant, the HR manager ushered me into the conference room, where I was administered a 60-minute test, comprising, as I expected, an overview of grammar and editing skills, plus basic GK about the US, and an essay.

When I emerged from the test, I sneaked a peek at the work area and was surprised to see no more than eight to ten people glued to their computer screens. I had expected at least 25. When I asked him about this, the HR manager, a stocky fellow, asked me to join him for coffee.

“Most people work nights here,” he explained as we sat with our coffees in the reception area. “Most of the work is at nights, given it’s morning there,” he said, pointing his head to the right, by which, I assumed, he meant America. I too would be required to work nights, he said, adding, “You would be picked up at ten in the evening, and dropped next day at seven am.”

“Is this a pilot, or are you looking at this long-term?” I asked.

“Oh, long-term. Very long-term,” he beamed. “We are in touch with top-notch media houses, including New York Times. An Indian subeditor is happy to take home an annual salary in the range $5,000-10,000, which is a third of what an average copyeditor in the US commands. Why the hell would they pay so much? Even if the industry wasn’t deteriorating the way it is, outsourcing makes eminent economic sense.”

But is this the whole story? While grammar and punctuation follow identical rules everywhere, copyediting is equally about place. How good a copyeditor can one be unless one is familiar with the area one is editing an article about?

Besides, any aspiring journalist enters the profession with a certain idealism. They want to change the world — or some part of it — and they feel compelled to put their passion to practice at an immediate level. The prospect of working for a company such as X, with its emphasis on unearthly hours and long-distance journalism, can’t but be detrimental to the profession.

I quickly finished my coffee and left.

Revelations that Ramalinga Raju, Satyam’s disgraced founder, has properties in 63 countries put paid to the widely-held notion that South Indians are a “simple people”. I do not subscribe to such generalities, so the news — apart from the jaw-dropping details of the scam itself — did not take me by surprise. But there are those who cannot believe that he of the clan that sport tilaks on their foreheads and make a beeline to the IITs could stoop to collecting 321 pairs of shoes.

Why do we ascribe certain traits to a certain kind, even at the risk of being fooled, or worse, pained? A Bengali film buff colleague is an unabashed admirer of Akshay Kumar. Akshay Kumar! “You cannot survive on Satyajit Ray,” he says. Sit with him and he will regale you with moments of pleasure spent in the august company of Amar, Akbar and Anthony. Ouch!

Then, there is the shoddy refrain, harboured by a few, that Marathis are cowardly. But Hemant Karkare and Vijay Salaskar were Marathi.

Internationally too, stereotyping is alive and present. My maternal aunt cannot bear the fact that a cousin has moved in with a Jew. Had it not been for the lip service she is forced to pay to victims of the Holocaust, I assume she would be more vehement in her denunciation of Jews’ “tightfistedness” (her word). Isn’t that a mere stereotype? And let’s not even get started on blacks — Obama or not.

This brings to mind Ellen DeGeneres’ famous quote from Oscar night, 2007: “What a wonderful night, such diversity in the room, in a year when there’s been so many negative things said about people’s race, religion and sexual orientation. And I want to put this out there: If there weren’t blacks, Jews and gays, there would be no Oscars, or anyone named Oscar, when you think about that.”

There are, of course, exceptions to the rule. I am yet to meet a Punjabi who does not wear his ostentation on his sleeve.

In the brouhaha surrounding the Mangalore pub attack, and the undoubtedly deserved vilification of the manner in which female patrons there were treated, some of the finer — and important — points relating to pub culture have been brushed aside.

Full disclosure: I don’t drink, at home or in a pub, so what I say is shorn of what feminists would term the tendency of MCPs to judge the female sex when they themselves are unreserved worshippers of Bacchus.

Let me set it out loud. I am against pubs and all that they represent. The one time that I was inside one to attend a group meeting of a web forum I was a member of, I hated the ambiance, the loud music, the vacant faces, and the irritating persistence of the usher to smile at all comers.

But this is a personal choice, and there are doubtless those, especially among the young, who like the grooviness and the charge of such places.

My reservation to pubs has as much to do with the culture they represent and the unintended consequences that visiting them has on their patrons, particularly the female kind.

I was in my home town recently, a non-descript city in Madhya Pradesh, and since we don’t live there anymore, our house does not have a steady cable connection. This being Gwalior, it took a few days for the connection to be re-set. So, when I returned home in the evenings, I was ‘reduced’ to watching Doordarshan.

But I was mistaken. DD has revamped its programming and some of its prime time serials broach issues such as date rape and late marriage with a sensitivity you will be hard placed to locate on cable TV.

This programme was the story of a 30-plus woman who, though earning, is under pressure from her parents to tie the knot. They make her meet all sorts of crazy fellows, until a smart young man, allegedly from the US, comes knocking. After a few meetings, he asks to take the girl out to dinner. The parents are only too glad. The boy takes the girl to a pub, mocks her resistance to drinking, slips something into her drink when she relents, and then…

While cases such as these may be an aberration, it is not hard to imagine such a scenario developing when one’s inhibitions are down and one is surrounded by unsavory strangers.

And let me also say it, it’s a woman thing. I have known men who brag about their conquests and show little remorse to indulging in wanton sex. Women, most of them at any rate, are not like that. Even if she indulges in a sexual act with intentioned haziness, chances are she will feel violated the next morning. Then there are the consequences. Men don’t have to worry about pregnancies and abortions. In these politically correct times, it’s criminal to say that there are differences between men and women. But there are! And they manifest themselves in all manner of unimaginable ways.