Salaam Bombay! (EOTWS)

End Of The Week Shorts #45 extract: Salaam Bombay! (1988)

Salaam Bombay is a powerful film, one that explores the streets of Bombay and the lives of the underclass that live on and off of them. Following a set of homeless children, prostitutes, drug addicts and more, Salaam Bombay pulls few punches in depicting the overwhelming futility of poverty. This then poses a question with its final sequence, one that features a parade in honour of Ganesha who is, among other things, considered the remover of obstacles: Why have so many seemingly insurmountable objects been placed in front of so many people, whose main crime seems to be of naivety, and when--if ever--will they ever be removed? 

Though the structure of Salaam Bombay doesn't build towards this question perfectly, this is a poignant film, one I'd recommend.