I have not seen Slumdog Millionaire as yet. But right now, what I find intriguing in the reaction it has generated – and I don’t mean the awards here – and the reaction to that reaction.

The first reaction I read to the film was a letter in a tabloid. It said that Hollywood directors should be banned from filming movies in India that show the country in poor light (read: poverty, squalor, slums, horrifying living conditions and the likes). I laughed off the letter, thinking its writer to be blinkered.

Now, the same sentiment has been echoed by the Big B and that, in turn, has invited a scathing response from The Guardian.

Sometime back, a friend was gifted Heat and Dust (by Ruth Prawer) and she said that she could not go through more than the first few pages because she did not like to read about the filth and squalor in India, specially written by a non-Indian. I quite liked the book. Who wrote it made no difference. If India has filth and squalor, we are hypocritical to pretend it is otherwise.

So, it seems that I can quite well look reality in the eye without squirming.

Well, then. In 2005, on a trip to Singapore, I had two women for company. And most of the time that we were out with our Singaporean tour guide – marveling at our sanitized surroundings – the women copiously bitched about how filthy India is. I was nettled no end but held my peace. I could not bear the idea of bitching about my country to a foreigner, no matter how true it was.

I had argued – to someone else later – that there is a difference between complaining about family members to someone else in the family and bitching about them to strangers. The first is acceptable, the latter not.

So, where do I stand now?

Decades before Danny Boyle made Slumdog, there was Pather Panchali – portraying abject poverty in rural India. It was instrumental in getting Satyajit Ray his Oscar. We didn’t complain about that. Mira Nair got the Bafta and was nominated for an Oscar for Salaam Bombay – showing the lives of Bombay street children (and we know exactly how rosy that can be) – and we didn’t complain about that either. The number of National Awards given for ‘realistic portrayal’ of India (riots, death, the caste system adding to the poverty and filth) are endless.

So what is the problem with Slumdog? Is it because it shows the world what we’d rather hide and ignore? Or is it because it’s a non-Indian who’s doing it?