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Business News/ Opinion / Online-views/  What India means to those abroad
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What India means to those abroad

Cannes fashion, killer heat wave or Narendra Modiwhat does India mean to those abroad?

Actors Vicky Kaushal, Shweta Tripathi, director Neeraj Ghaywan and actor Richa Chadda during a photocall for the film “Masaan” at the 68th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southeastern France, on 19 May. Photo: Valery Hache/AFP Premium
Actors Vicky Kaushal, Shweta Tripathi, director Neeraj Ghaywan and actor Richa Chadda during a photocall for the film “Masaan” at the 68th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southeastern France, on 19 May. Photo: Valery Hache/AFP

When newsletters with headlines from The New York Times, The Guardian and Time.net drop into my inbox daily, I first search for news from India in the picks under “world".

A curiosity to see how our country is represented and the quality of reportage drives me to do this.

India lives and pours out of our guts because we live in the country, but if I were to size up the country’s conflicts and charisma on the basis of media headlines while sitting somewhere abroad, I would be a bit lost.

What does India stand for today?

That’s a tough one to answer, barring some buzzwords. Forget about where it could be heading.

Clearly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s foreign tours get their share of attention. The message: he is newsworthy, watchable, camera-friendly and encapsulates India in one way or the other.

Check that.

This week, India’s “killer heat wave", which took a heavy toll in Telangana and other states, got a mention, too—as such news does every season. Heat and cold kill thousands of homeless every year.

For those abroad, the message is clear again: the Indian poor have no protection from the scorching heat of summer or the deathly cold of winter.

“Elderly people, labourers, beggars and those living on the street are the worst hit," ran the Time story. These four demographic categories say a lot about India even if you don’t want to read between the lines. Check that.

Rape and other crimes against women in India are anyway a global story; after the hysterically debated documentary film India’s Daughter, particularly so. So check that, too.

Bollywood gets a mention from time to time for a variety of reasons that can do without a short note from a columnist. But what exactly in Bollywood gets the attention is another story. The organic evolution of Indian cinema as distinct from the glamourous and visible Bollywood or the cult of Tamil actor Rajnikanth’s films is obscured in this cloud of what’s going on in India.

The coverage given to the recently concluded 68th Cannes film festival perplexed me even more about India’s status through global headlines.

Director Neeraj Ghaywan’s Masaan not only received a five-minute standing ovation but also won the International Jury of Film Critics prize and the Promising Future prize, becoming the first Indian film in 15 years to win an award in an official Cannes category.

Thanks to what India’s own newspapers choose to highlight in their own pages, I know even less about Punjabi film Chauthi Koot, which was entered in the Un Certain Regard category at the festival.

The fuss we make (and why not) about what our female heroines wear on the red carpet at Cannes pales in energy when it comes to giving an equal, if not a bigger billing, to some of India’s outstanding films.

It is an old rant, but worth raking up again that glamour and brands have taken over talent and incisive cinema.

Wish we could say that the same is true for the rest of the world—but frankly it isn’t.

The Western story may be more about the intimidatingly interesting powwow between glamour branding and artistic content in cinema or the arts.

If the argument that a country will be perceived exactly in the way it wants to brand itself is accepted, we have only ourselves to blame if Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s clothes and Katrina Kaif’s tepid presence rustle a clearer memory than what first time director Ghaywan said when he received his prize.

Even the international media, which lavished attention on Marion Cotillard’s dress when she appeared for the Macbeth premiere and on George Clooney’s stunning lawyer-wife Amal Alamuddin, did little to decode Masaan.

If I had to make hesitant attempts at locating the “idea of India" through the reportage of the Cannes festival, I would say its film stars are fabulous mannequins to sell and showcase brands that are not made in India.

L’Oreal, Elie Saab, Oscar de la Renta to name a few.

It’s cinema?

Uh-huh.

Sweet films, fascinating films, funny films, songs and dances, colour and melodrama. Shah Rukh Khan, right? Amitabh Bachchan, right? Satyajit Ray, of course. Aamir Khan, oh yes.

But Masaan?

The Indian film industry must think hard about how it wants to brand itself. Some kind of a pact with the media would help—let’s write about the gowns, the frills and the air kisses our pretty girls blow, but let’s not get blown away by them. I am signing up for a grounding lesson in the hope that the international media will mirror what we make of ourselves.

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Published: 29 May 2015, 12:48 AM IST
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