Sarah McCarthy/HBOA still from “The Sound of Mumbai: A Musical,” a documentary by Sarah McCarthy.When my husband, Mahir, and I turned on our television in Manhattan one November evening, we were surprised to see his violin teacher from Mumbai, Jini Dinshaw, flash across the screen.
I had heard about her in our early dating days, when he shared stories about the countless hours they spent together while he learned to play a tune. Now, she is the star of a documentary, “The Sound of Mumbai: A Musical.” In the film, Ms. Dinshaw recruits musically talented slum children and pairs them with a conductor who teaches them songs from “The Sound of Music,” which are then performed at a one-time concert with the Bombay Chamber Orchestra.
The film, meant to show the educational disadvantages of Indian slum children, is one of four documentaries about contemporary Indian life airing on HBO in November and December. But while HBO’S aim is to broaden its audience’s knowledge of India, the films, all of which were made by foreigners, threaten to open a long-festering wound in India. The outside world’s depiction of the country is seldom appreciated, or embraced, by Indians.
After all, the Academy Award-winning “Slumdog Millionaire” was widely disparaged in India. One critic called it a “white man’s imagined India.”
The live “Sound of Music’’ performance in Mumbai was hailed by local newspapers, and the film, with its emphasis on the lack of mobility in Indian society, has been called touching by U.S. critics. But it remains to be seen how Indians themselves will react to the documentary.
Sarah McCarthy, the British filmmaker behind “The Sound of Mumbai,” said she was trying to give a realistic picture of what life is like for underprivileged children in India. “I tried to show what I learned while I was making the movie in India — which is that poor children, no matter how clever or determined, get left behind the pack in a country that is so academically competitive,” she said.
Executives from HBO say they are running the series because past documentaries on India, including “Terror in Mumbai” in 2009 and “Born into Brothels” in 2004, won critical praise and drew in viewers.
“India is a very relevant country right now, and we don’t see many representations of it beyond the news,” said Nancy Abraham, HBO senior vice president of documentary programming, in an interview. “These films are meant to open up people’s eyes to how life in India is now.”
Before the end of the year, HBO will also show “Marathon Boy,” about a four-year-old from the Orissa slums who is a skilled distance runner but must deal with greed and corruption as he rises to fame; “The Bengali Detective,” in which the private investigator Rajesh Ji solves crimes in Kolkata while pursuing his dream of becoming a professional dancer, and “Pink Saris,” which profiles the female activists in northern India known as the “Gulabi gang.’’
Do Western filmmakers portray India in a fair light?