Yes! Anne can!

Yesterday evening I went to the cinema to see Slumdog Millionaire, and I was pleasantly surprised(which on a side note won 8 Oscars last Sunday). What a great movie! The story is original and the music fits the movie well. The music embodies the atmosphere of India, colorful and busy.

The film is about a boy, Jamal. He is a contestant in “Who wants to be a Millionaire?”. Although he’s from the slums he goes remarkably far, until he reaches the 10 million rupee. After the 10 million rupee question the alarm sounds, the episode ends. Jamal is taken away and interrogated. No one believes that someone from the slums knows all those answers. When he doesn’t say anything useful during the torturing the officers start talking to him. He tells the story of his life and the reason why he knew all the questions that came up. His story is kind of sad and I won’t spoil the details.

There were however some interesting cameos from tourists. Jamal is a boy from the slums, and uses every opportunity to make some money. So if you come across some tourists, of course you have to use them! In the movie witness the huge gap between the tourists and the boys from the street. For the tourists it’s annoying that their car is plundered, that their shoes are stolen etc. but still…they’re insured for cases like that. For the boys it represents a lot of money. Two different worlds, and there is a huge gap between them. This movie once again inspired me to think about sustainable tourism. To help cultures, instead of accidentally destroying them by mass tourism.

At the moment there are already organizations offering holidays in a 'fair way'. One of these companies is Baobab. With this post I wanted to give some attention to this issue in the Tourism Industry and inspire people to book through a 'fair' tour operator.