Something you should know:  I intensely disliked the movie Slumdog Millionaire.

I know it was a huge hit here in the United States, but I think what bothered me about it was that it played to the stereotypes that many people living in the West have about India.  Poverty, despair, filth, crime, hopelessness, corruption… and something about the movie made me feel intensely awkward.  Maybe the attempt to mix in all that joy, hope and other similar fuzzy feelings with what I perceive to be real and deadly serious problems.

Plus, it’s not the India that I know.  So, yes, Slumdog Millionaire, super-duper-pseudo-Bollywood-crossover hit of the aughts, bothered me.

I feel the imperative to disclose here that my distaste for the film was exponentially compounded by the fact that I imagine hell is walking a treadmill listening to “Jai Ho” on repeat.  I hate that song.

Still, it occurred to me very recently that just because Slumdog Millionaire doesn’t represent the India that I know doesn’t prove that this India does not exist.  It does.

Furthermore, I realized that joy can live anywhere.  It can live on Park Avenue or a slum in Bombay or Calcutta.

Because joy is not contained in geography, but within the human heart.  I learned this when I watched another film tonight.

I’d seen bits and pieces of the documentary Born Into Brothels (2004) over the years, but for the first time this evening, I watched it in its entirety.

All I can say is, “Ouff.”  That’s the Urdu equivalent of “Oye” or “Oh, boy.”

This was a very difficult movie to watch.  It’s a documentary about the relationship a visiting photographer forms with several children living in a particular red light area (that’s foreign for brothel) in Calcutta.  Zana Briski, the photographer, gives the children cameras and begins to teach them about photography.

You should see the photos the children took.  They are simply amazing.

As I assume would be the case with anyone, Briski becomes increasingly involved in the children’s lives and tries to help them escape the life that they seem absolutely destined to live.  Her efforts are noble, but throughout the film they seem simply insurmountable.

And, make no mistake, these children’s lives represent every manifestation of what I envision to be hell on earth.  Prostitution, deprivation, negligence, violence, addiction, discrimination, Jai Ho blaring in the background… Maybe not that last thing.  Inappropriate.much?  I couldn’t resist.  Hate that song.

Seriously, it was absolutely heartbreaking to see children have to endure this place.  And why?  Because they just happened to be born there.

There’s this idea that anyone who lives a life of despair chooses to do so.  This is so incredibly false.  Especially when one considers that many of the people living these lives are kids who just happened to be born there.  It’s not like they had a say in it.

I’ll say it again. Ouff.

You know what I did see tonight, though, that was astonishing, incredible and made the whole movie completely worth it?

Hope.  Joy.  Dreams.

If someone could bottle these kids’ abilities to hope, they would be a gazillionaire.   They live in conditions of which we cannot begin to conceive and, still, they talk about leaving… going to a university… maybe studying in London… maybe even becoming a famous photographer.

And, oh, they laugh, and dance, and sing… and their faces are full of joy.

Of course, the mind says, “Hope doesn’t get you out.  They’re doomed… there’s absolutely no way out for them.”

The mind is pesky and mean like that.  Let’s just tell the mind to shut up and go balance our checkbook because that’s its job.

Besides, hope doesn’t live in the mind.  It lives in the heart.

I could wallow in the despair I feel as I watch these children, but I’m too busy being in total awe of them and their ability to capture the beauty in the darkness around them with a camera lens.

And, of course, I am struck with admiration for their incredible ability to smile and dream big.

I watch them dream and I feel less afraid to do so myself. 

They gave me courage.

Astonishing.

(Born Into Brothels is available on NetFlix On Demand.  If your heart can bear it, you should watch it.  Come back and let me know what you think.)