Brand India

Now this was something which I feared.

Slumdog may have won all the Oscars of the world, but it has led to people having a certain wrong perception of India. Now when someone who is not very familiar with this part of the world, hears the word India, the direct association with the movie takes him to an image of the slums which were spectacularly shot in the movie. Brand India certainly takes a hit.

Jim Rogers in a recent interview said “Wherever I go for speeches around the world I tell people, if you have to go to one country in your lifetime, you should go to India.”
But may be his audience are restricted to the ‘Economic Times reading type’.

Movies are a powerful medium which have both the reach as well as the influence to change or form perceptions. May be some of the filmmakers should take lead in making movies which have global appeal and which something better to people to associate India with. It will be quite a creative challenge to weave this aspect in an interesting script.