Rich mélange of Indian spices

Our world too often seems depressingly homogenized. With only a few changes, a street scene in Seattle resembles a scene in London, which resembles one in Paris, which resembles one in Sydney. It's therefore exciting -- in a guilty sort of way -- to watch a movie like Slumdog Millionaire, a film that reminds us that the world contains vast regions where people still live lives that are not safe, clean and well-ordered -- whose lives are, to the contrary, primal, dangerous, vivid, colorful, scary, horrifying, full of pain and hunger -- and exhilarating.

India is a country in transition. We know all about today's high tech world of Bangalore, the world of software and tech support. We also have vague images of an older India -- beggars, mystics, disease, overpopulation, starvation, and callous exploitation of starving and maimed children.

Slumdog shows us both Indias. The movie opens on the glitzy television set of a Mumbai version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire." A young Indian chai-wallah (boy who delivers tea to office workers) named Jamal answers question after question correctly, reaching the highest rung of the show -- 20 million rupees. But Mumbai is not New York. Before the final round, the show's cynical and obnoxious host has Jamal arrested and horribly tortured by the police to force him to reveal just how he's been cheating. Because, really -- all middle class India knows that a boy of his status would be far too ignorant to give the answers that he does.

The police interrogation presents the framework for the story, a series of flashbacks to Jamal's boyhood and youth, re-enactments of the traumatic events that, once imprinted on his young mind, fortuitously provided the answers to the questions posed on the show. We see the squalor of the Mumbai slums, the gangs of young slum children who survive day by day by their own wits, the unbelievable cruelty of adults who live off those kids, and the rich and immensely varied background of India herself -- including even some beautiful scenes set before the Taj Mahal.

This film could easily have been presented as a depressing sociological tract, calling out the need for slum clearance and protection of children. But it's not. Instead, it's a joyous affirmation of Mumbai slum life, showing not only its chaos and all too frequent cruelty, but also the richness and small daily pleasures experienced by those who live there. Above all, the movie is a love story, the story of a boy who falls in love as a pre-adolescent and never gives up his dream, despite impossible odds and years of separation from the girl he loves.

This isn't the kind of movie where it would ever be in doubt, so let me tell you: In the end, Jamal gets his girl.

The movie has been compared with a Dickens novel. It does resemble Dickens in its portrayal of the underside of an urban society, in its focus on the goodness of children (and especially, the innocence and kindness of its hero), in its celebration of great diversity and peculiarity among human types, and certainly in its overriding theme of sucess and happiness as the reward for virtue and perseverence in the face of enormous obstacles.

The ending is, as you may have gathered, happy. The police interrogator allows that Jamal's explanations are just barely plausible -- and that Jamal is too absurdly honest to have been cheating. Jamal returns for the final round and, of course, wins.

And in case the audience remains in any doubt as to whether the movie ends happily, Jamal and his girl friend -- after being reunited in freeze-frame with a chaste kiss -- suddenly join together with a cast of thousands, singing and dancing their way through the streets of Mumbai (and the closing credits) in an improbable homage to every Bollywood film you've ever seen.

Only in India. Go see it.