Oscars and India

A.R. Rahman nominated

Its national pride that A.R. Rahman has been nominated at Oscars for Original Song twice for his songs "Jai Ho" and "O Saya" and also for Best Original Score. However, there is a deeper view needed here.

No doubt 'Slumdog Millionaire' is an outstanding movie and is an eye-glued experience. The way the script has been put into existence on screen is amazing and shows a unique way to present the same form of rag-to-riches story delivered hundreds of times by other forms. This one is surely the one which we are going to remember.

There is a common misconception that movies of these sorts are Indian Films. Like the trio of Mira Nair, Deepa Mehta and Gurinder Chadhha make movies having scripts based on Indian people/culture having Indian cast and crew. But its not true, and these are foreign films. They have producers from outside and most of their Back-stage crew are foreigners. Their collections are mainly from outside. Their primary audience is the place where the producers are from which is in most of the cases not India. They are released at different dates internationally and in India. They are not made keeping in mind Indians, that's why most of the soundtrack of Slumdog Millionaire have a Hollywood touch and feel and many of them are performed by foreign artists.

Coming on to the Oscars

Academy Awards are respected world over and known for awarding excellence in world cinema. For a long time India has stayed away from these awards or maybe could not compete at the level to be recognised internationally for their work and nominated for the same. Over the years only three Indian movies have been nominated in Foreign Language Film category namely- 'Mother India, Salaam Bombay and Lagaan'. However, none of them have won an Oscar. Amir Khan was of the view that Indian films are not designed to win an Oscar. Films usually nominated there are films of duration 90-150 mins (exception Titanic). Lagaan being more than 3.5 hours long might not have fancied the jury.

Now coming back to the oscar nomination of A.R. Rahman. We have all heard his music in more than 100 films that he has given music to,(which includes many south Indian films also). Most of his work is phenomenal and Slumdog being no exception to it. However, I believe that maybe even his other work is worth a nomination at Oscars if so Slumdog Millionaire's music has been hailed so much. 'Jai Ho' is a marvellous song but even his compositions in 'Guru', 'Rang de Basanti' etc deserve attention. Even other artists in the Indian Cinema are worth talking about which includes work of the likes Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy etc. And of course the golden period of 60's,70's and 80's ruled by Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar etc.

But these songs/music are not screened in the Oscars as they do not meet the eligibility, which is that these songs should serve a motion picture and written specifically for it, and that these movies should be produced in the United States. Therefore, the work which I have talked about in the above paragraph is not eligible for nomination.

Conclusion

But the underlying point here is that Indian Music is very rich and diversified and it does not need the stamp of an Oscar to reaffirm its place and its beauty. Indian musicians, directors, singers, lyricists and many others involved in delivering music are truly of a high quality performance background and Oscar should not mean more than a feather in the golden cap they have. We should have our own music awards which are genuine and voted by a powerful jury. The biased award ceremonies in place today have created a joke of Indian Cinema and the awards system. These awards should recognise talent and not brand or popularity as it is done today.

The problem of plagiarism is infinite and those indulging in it should be pilloried. It should be supported by lawsuits and law actions which helps clean the image of Indian Music in the world which otherwise today is dotted with copyright violations and other issues.