Enough has been said and written (and probably continues to be said and written) about whether it unfairly ‘sells’ Indian slum-life; whether it’s Oscar-material, etc, but here’s another aspect to the raging debate.
This particularly concerns you if you’re a parent of a young child around 7-8 yrs. It struck me as odd when I discovered over the weekend that 2 of my friends had actually walked out of the film, midway. Why? Because they’d taken their little kids along (one a boy, and the other, a girl, in said age-group, to separate theatres, so it was 2 independent instances) and they thought the going was becoming too ‘graphic’ (not my choice of word, but theirs) for their little ones to be exposed to.
I must say that I was a little more than dumbfounded on this reaction. First I’m told the movie has an ‘Adult’ certificate, so what the hell were the parents thinking of before taking their kids to such a movie? I know, I know – no one bothers about an A certificate anymore. That’s fine, but then the risk is yours I suppose—it’s a bit like thinking of a quick answer when your kid catches you watching a porn film—you’ve got to be smart enough to figure out a way of explaining to the child.
Second, almost since then, I’ve been thinking whether they were justified in removing themselves from the scene so as not to expose their kids to such material. More so, I’ve been wondering if I might’ve had a similar reaction if I was in their place.
Though I must admit I’ve long forgotten what it’s like to have kids that young, I refuse to believe that I would’ve acted similarly. Here’s why.
To start with, what was offensive? The dirt and filth of a Mumbai slum? The abusive language? The violence? Now, though we might want to shield our slums from the rest of the world for pride and image reasons, can we really turn a blind eye to their existence back home? Anyone who ignores slums and the people living there is just deluding himself—we all know that they are a definite by-product of urbanization and migration that happen in any developing country. And because we’ve all heard real stories of prostitutes from red-light areas sending their children to schools and scooter-rickshaw-walas’ sons topping Board examinations, we equally understand that ‘rags-to-riches’ is a very plausible paradigm. In an era where we encourage our children to become more aware of the community and treat have-nots compassionately, are we going to cover their eyes when a street beggar walks upto the car window to ask for a couple of rupees? Or are we going to ask them to look the other way when they see very young children of construction-workers playing with pebbles and mud in their makeshift shanties? Hopefully not.
Abusive language? Which of our children has not heard the choicest of expletives in the public schools they attend, or often at home, from siblings and ourselves? Do they not watch violence being glorified in every second Hollywood or Bollywood movie as it is?
What then, could a more reasonable response be? In my case, I would’ve probably had a dialoge with my kids back home, after they’ve watched such ‘disturbing’ scenes in a movie. Then told them that apart from a bit of overdramatisation that is necessary in films, all that’s real. Maybe I would've even taken them to such a slum and made them experience it for real, because as we all know that is the only the real way to teach them. Surely that would've impressed upon them the fact they’ve been lucky to’ve been born here rather than there.
In any case, we all know deep inside, whether we admit it or not, that even very young children are capable of understanding and assimilating a lot more than adults like to believe. And here, we’re talking 7-8 year olds!
Of course, every parent has a right to bring up his child the way he wants, or knows best. But let’s face it, we all know that that children who face what we call ‘hardships’ actually perform much better in later life, irrespective of their formal ‘education’. And later in life, we often regret not putting our kids through the grind enough (‘Oh, how I wish you’d been to hostel—it would’ve made a man out of you!’).
So maybe, this is just one way that we can help our children get real, even though it costs them a temporary nightmare or so?
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