8 Oscars: As Jamal said,It was destiny

What America and the world are looking for is a story of hope. Of redemption. Of grit and survival. Of an underdog who becomes a topdog. Of a guy to borrow an American analogy on this day when Hollywood awards its stars who came in from the left field and hit one right out of it. Slumdog Millionaire fulfils that wishlist.

It says,hey,never mind if its all doom and gloom. That your nether regions are being mangled by an ill-functioning shock-machine. That your girlfriend needs rescuing from a really bad guy. That it will pass. And that its okay to believe in stories.

It hauled off eight Oscars,of its 10 nominations. In the year of Obama when the audacity of hope moved from book title to rallying cry the Academy couldnt have dared spread such largesse on any other film.

If he could,it could too.

Just look at the other contenders. The one to beat was always going to be The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button. Its got Brad. And Cate. In an all-American story (based on that great all-American permanent frat boy F Scott Fitzgerald) about a man who ages in reverse,and all-American setting (New Orleans,New York). You come away from it marveling at the technical wizards who can make babies look like old men. But theres no way on earth you can convince me that that pallid thing between poster-boy picture-perfect Brad and his Cate is love. You call that romance? This is a film to admire,not to like. Or love.

The other one I managed to sneak off my computer last night was Milk. Ohhhh,Sean Penn. As the gay rights activist who gets assassinated,he is outstanding. The film is fine,too. Its artful,its true to its time and place. And Penn,less limp-wristed than a completely-alive-to-the-moment-human,is a master-class in acting. But,unlike Slumdog,Milk doesnt take you out of yourself. It doesnt haul you up by the scruff of your neck,and take you along on a roller coaster,where the only choice is to suspend all disbelief.

Thats what Slumdog Millionaire does. It doesnt ask you to buy into its bizarrely plausible tale: whats fiction for,otherwise?

It doesnt say that this is a true story,or a prescription on How To Live Life In A Mumbai Slum. It is just a movie,which does what movies ought to: move. And delivers you to the power of pure story-telling.

This has to be what the 5000 plus Academy members saw in the film. By their own admission,the films which win the Oscars are never necessarily the best films of the year (infamously,in the year of the sublime Taxi Driver,the film that won Best Pix was Rocky). Crowd-pleasers,yes. Box office busters,yes. But,you know,excellent cinema? Not always.

Those whove been dissing Slumdog (more in India than outside: how dare outsiders show India Shitting,not India Shining?),have missed the point. Its never positioned itself as a heavyweight worthy. Or a document of record. It is simply an unapologetic,unabashed crackerjack entertainer,powered by mind-blowing tech specs. Nothing more. Nothing less.

And when that perfect photo-op took place,right towards the end,the Slumdog gang cheering wildly on the Kodak stage,it seemed just right. For some years now,the awards have been getting a little less White,a little more Black. This year,the colour was Brown. Glowing,vibrant browns of the marvelous child actors,of Dev and Frieda,Anil and Irrfan,Rahman and Resul. Sure,this was a film made with American money,and with a British director-producer-screenplay writer,but Slumdog Millionaire is,at its large heart,an Indian film.

We could have told Danny Boyle that right from the beginning. Back in the summer of 2008,the British director saved his film from descending into DVD hell at the hands of a few unreceptive Warner Bros reps,only because an angel stepped in. Fox Searchlights Peter Rice agreed to distribute,and it opened everywhere. That kind of a miracle happens routinely in Bollywood. Whoever heard of hard-nosed Hollywood execs falling in love with a movie?

From that moment on,Slumdog Millionaire stopped being a UK-US film. It became something that could have been made only in India. Can you imagine a location that would provide a more picaresque hole-in-the-ground,and a little kid smeared with human waste,with the biggest smile in the universe? Can you even think of a place which would give the West its first searing visual of a little boy being blinded by a hoods chillingly matter-of-fact dogsbody? Not a chance. It could only have happened only in Q&A author Vikas Swarups fervid,fetid,pulsatingly alive Mumbai,which became Slumdog city in Simon Beaufoys crackling script.

When he raised his Best Director statuette and said,The only thing bigger than this guy is the city of Mumbai,Boyle spoke the truth. Anthony Dod Mantle,the cinematographer who made his camera into a hurtling,super-kinetic seeing eye,couldnt have done this anywhere else: he needed the narrow galis of a Juhu slum,the towering half-done buildings adjoining it,and the teeming tumult of a Mumbai station where Jamal spies the love of his life,Latika,and the world tilts. Mantle won,too.

That A R Rahman,whos created history by picking up two of the three awards he was nominated for (the third was not his to take,because he was competing against himself in the Original Song category),didnt create Jai Ho for Slumdog is an in-house Bollywood joke. The song was meant for a Subhash Ghai film. He didnt use it. Boyle did. And it catapulted AR,resplendent in his Rohit Bal bandhgala,onto the Kodak stage this morning,talking of how,when he had the option,he chose love over hate. And Boyle over Ghai.

Theres more. Sound magician Oscar-winner Resul Pookutty almost didnt do the film,following a tiff with the director. But Boyle mollified him,and what a good thing that he did this is not just a movie you see,you also hear it.

And when he went up to take the award,it was,for me,the defining moment of the 81st Academy Awards: Resul in the middle,with two non-Indian colleagues flanking him. He delivered the acceptance speech; they looked on.

That was an India moment.

And its fitting that the other big India win (Best Short Documentary),is also a story of upliftment. And hope. Smile Pinki tells the story of eight-year-old Pinki,from Mirzapur,who is operated for a horrendous cleft-lip,and is finally able to reclaim her face.

When her smile blazed out on the red carpet,that was another India moment.