Oprah Winfrey has stirred up controversies with her new TV programme Oprah’s Next Chapter: India” about India.
The controversy started when Oprah said “oh-my-god-how
wonderfully-pathetically-quaint-to-be-so-poor” during her visit to some of the slums in India.
In one of the slums, she met a family, who live in a 10×10 feet room. She couldn’t hide the fact that she was surprised to see an entire family living in
such tiny quarters. She also had an amazing lack of sensitivity to the
children’s feelings or the feelings of the parents who’d opened up
their home to her. (firstpost.com reported)
She went further to ask the children how they could live in such a “tiny” room and
actually wanted to know, “Don’t you feel it’s too cramped?” (Why should she do that?)
She also
asked the six-year-olds whether they were happy. Which must have made
them wonder why they shouldn’t be.
She also visited the home
of one of Bombay’s richie-rich families. And then displayed her
ignorance there as well.
The joint family which was dressed in full Indian regalia served her a meal on silver thalis and katoris.
She looked at the food and then made her best statement of the entire
episode – “So I hear some people in India STILL eat with their hands”(the statement got some indians really angry). Then she told her viewers that ALL women in India live with their
mothers-in-law and extended family.
Well, the second episode will have her visit Taj Mahal – as she and every
foreigner must. Maybe she’ll tell some
more unsuspecting people how poor and wretched their lives are, and also
state how she’s heard that many Indians STILL don’t use toilet paper to
wipe their bums. The possibilities are endless. You can watch both episodes of Oprah’s Next Chapter on July 22nd from 8-10pm on Discovery Channel & TLC.
