I had read the piece by Mr. Bachan and was livid at it. Apart from my personal feeling that he is not the greatest actor of our country, I was outraged as to how someone who is just an actor and who has done truck loads of crap movies in his own career, can take potshots at an auteur so supremely talented as Ray.

The problem is that once we elevate people to the status of demi-gods, they are ready to dish out shit on whomever they please. Glad someone brought this out. Nice work, man!

Don’t they have a copy editor at Telegraph? Ray was 71, not 91. The award wasn’t conferred to him on April 23 1992. That was the day he died. The award ceremony was on March 30th, & his televised acceptance speech at Belle Vue would have been shot earlier than that.

These are basic fact checking errors that 2 minutes of Googling can correct!

All you intellectuals: Have you seen Lage Raho Munnabhai? This movie has done what even Gandhi himself could not do. That explains it all. Whatever be the art, if it inspires and touches mass, it is effective.

I saw Pather Panchali. Did not like even 1 minute of it. I am a common man, who takes things as they come. Not in a particular perspective. I never tried any other Ray’s movies after that!!!

Yes, I am the biggest fan of Hum Aapke Hain Kaun. I know everyone will say, what a silly guy. Same to you.

I find it very interesting that several Indians find the love thread through the movie slumdog millionaire as “illogical” and difficult to understand. As a westerner, I don’t find long lasting or deep love for another person difficult to understand at all. It happens a lot in our society. Clearly it seldom happens in yours. I also don’t find it difficult to conceive that poor people can love just as intensely and that they too are human. The strange view from Indians about this movie must mean that too many Indians are simply incapable to love in that way, and are rather cold hearted.

I am sure the concept of 1) undying love, 2) lasting love, 3) successful love, 4) love for a girl who is not a virgin – are not at all India, but something that could only be a reality in the west. This is why a western audience likes the story in the film, and can accept it and identify with it and see beyond the surface that it only depicts poverty, while in India love and humanness seem very poorly understood and the people only see poverty when they see the film.

Will it be irreverent of Ray, the iconic Film maker or of the new techie children who no longer hold in awe the huffing and puffing Train a-la apu and durga?

Is there a continuity in these dissimilar worlds or its mere suggestion is blasphemous?

Have we managed to take Ray out of Bengal to the other parts of India, yet?what about sub titles or dubbing in Hindi?
or are the “bongs only” celebrating in blissful isolation?

Btw, I am not connected to Bengal even remotely.

Darn it Phew, now you’ve esposed it. For hundreds of years Bengalis merrily existed with no semblance of life whatsoever. We thought no one would notice, and would wink at fellow Bongs on the silent success of our conspiratorial subterfuge.

And now you some along with your exposures and ruin it for all of us Bongs. Narokeo tomaar tthain milbe na, hotocchara.

@ Phew : Like Pavlovian rats, mention Ray, mention Tagore, mention Subash Chandra Bose and you shall all come charging out like the light brigade.

You are so right. An overlooked fact is the contribution of Pavlovian rats in the Crimean campaign. The complex relationship of Lord Lucan, Raglan and Cardigan with the British forces that led to the light brigade charge is miniscule compared to the contribution of the rats, who played a vital role at the defence of Inkerman Hill too. Tennyson immortalised the role of these noble creatures in his epic poem, but the lines were deleted by the wily Bengalis. No doubt of the Brahmin mien.

@ Phew – There is no parallel of your ilk in the country.

Oh I don’t know. Mention the BJP in a positive light, and you suddenly see frenzied people thronging around you at the drop of a hat, dancing around menacingly and arhythmically in a most disturbing manner. Mention the contributions of the RSS and suddenly hordes of angry humans emerge from nowhere and start flexing their biceps angrily at you as if you’ve knowingly peed in to their payesh… have you seen the muscles on some of those shondamarkaa housewives? Scary. And hairy !!

@ Phew – Truth is after all nothing but a conveniently moulded perception!

No, truth is truth. Indians are getting indignant, and rightfully so at the carefully cultivated misperception of India being shrilly peddled as fact. They want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the triuth to be told. What is wrong with that?

@ Phew – When Ray does it, there is human spirit, when Boyle does it he manipulates.

Well, let us take the topic of nud*ty. The bareness displayed in the Venus de Milo, Apollo of Belvedere & bare-breast*d Didarganj Yakshi, is in such a completely different league to that displayed in the centre-spread of Raz*le magazine, that they cannot be compared in the same breath.

So my friends’ freeflowing appreciation of the immaculate beauty of of human sculpture conveyed in my photos of Venus, Apollo and Didarganj Yakhsi, is of a completely different order, nature and universe to that of a pubescent boy expressing his ‘freeflowing’ appreciation with a copy of Razzle.

Do you see the distinction? Ray deals with the tragedy of poverty, the poetry of destitution, and the realistic nobility of people experiencing them. This is the sublime art of poverty.

Boyle wallows in faeces. This is the vile pornogra*hy of poverty.

@ Phew – And yes, Bollywood has to be crap.

No, it doesn’t ‘have’ to be. Not always.