Being a part of the Western cultural space means being cosmopolitan. It is not unusual to be a black British muslim who only eats Thai food; your nationality no longer carries profound meaning to your cultural preference and principals. There is an Irish pub in every city and damn you if you don’t know who the American President is; the West has become a blurry cocktail of all the countries within it, joined together under the golden arches of McDonald’s. Nevertheless, it’s not enough for the culturally greedy of the Not-Wild-Enough West. This essay will provide an overview of how India is being depicted in the Western pop culture and how much it resembles reality- why young girls think it’s wicked to wear bindis, how come the non-materialistic gurus sell their inner knowledge on 10%-discount and why „Slumdog Millionaire“ really won the Oscar.
India, without doubt, is one of the world’s most drastically diverse countries; not only on the cultural side, with its numerous languages, belief systems and cuisines, but also the materialistic means of people - India is a country of extreme wealth and also, extreme poverty.
The history of India dates back to over 9000 years ago, when the first settlements were founded. Throughout the centuries, many smaller republics and kingdoms were founded, until most of South Asia was united into the Maurya Empire in the third century BC. The invasions from Central Asia started in the 10th- 12th centuries and in the 16th century, India was colonized by European countries. By 1856, most of India was controlled by the British East Indian Company. As the result of the Sepoy Mutiny, India was brought under the direct rule of the British Crown. India was under the rule of Britain until the middle of the 20th century, when it gained independence from the British rule in 1947 and became a republic in 1950.
The most influential part of India’s history is, indeed, the British colonial era. British men went to Bombay and spread their culture there; when they returned to England, insanely rich and astonished by the saffron-smelling air of India, they spread everything they had learnt there in return. This sort of cultural exchange had a huge effect on both sides, but also triggered a debate: could it be possible, that instead of the exchange, one of the cultures was merely being aggressively influenced? It is true that nowadays, Indian nobles prefer to speak Queen’s English, have their five o’clock tea served with a teensy bit of milk and the national sport’s team of India is actually Manchester United; on a far more serious side – how bad was the influence, really?
The Soul Shangri-La
All little children know (or at least those who weren’t brought up by Pokemons) the story of Mowgli, written by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling is a British author born in Bombay and was recognized by George Orwell as the “prophet of British imperialism”. Indeed he was one of the many influential British people who gained their enigmatic touch from their special connection with India. It is impossible to talk about British exoticism without referring to India, since it had so much influence on British culture during that time and plays a huge role in exoticism even nowadays.
A much more modern “British Indian” author, as they are called, is Salman Rushdie, who wrote quite the notorious book, The Satanic Verses. His work was protested by Islamic groups so aggressively, that he spent nearly a decade underground for his protection. The question is, would their work have been so successful if they hadn’t lived in India?
In 1933, James Hilton described a paradise on Earth in his novel, Lost Horizon. The mystical valley was called Shangri-La and it became the synonym for the secluded island Western exoticism is ever so keen on searching for. James Hilton had found the definition for something that had existed for a long time but hadn’t quite been comprehended yet; the eminence of this paradise was like a resonance of the secret gardens in the old British manors every child dreams to find and now someone had found them for the adults. For the Brits, India was a huge Shangri-La. Everything they found there was in a sharp contrast to the rainy-gray Britain. That is why, everything that had a touch of India, became a source of gold. The secret of success for all these quasi-Indian authors, artists et al was the presence of the silent Shangri-La, the feeling they gave to their audience, the vicinity of the faraway.
Then what about now? It is no problem for an average man to book a ticket on Amadeus and take the next flight to Bombay; there is nothing exotic about the smell of saffron or an Indian woman any more, and you can have the best chicken tikka masala in the pub around the corner. Yet somehow, India has maintained a certain touch of “exoticism”, a certain immunity to the golden arches, naked pop stars and political correctness. There is still some inexplicable honesty in the land, some raw sincerity that draws people to it no matter what. It does not matter how bad the streets of Bombay smell or how many children live in the gutter, in the eyes of the European, India is colourful, noisy and... well, exotic. Why is that?
To assess high concentration of elements of one culture in another, one must look at them both. What is happening to the Western culture? Decade after decade, people are growing more “caring”, “tolerant” or “green”. Being generally nice has become a whole merchandising branch and you can buy yourself a wholesome attitude by donating five bucks a month to a random charity company, who will most probably spend that money on printing glossy carton flyers to attract more clients. There is nothing wholesome, nice or tolerant about the way Westerners live, yet they tend to spend a lot of money on showing that they do. However, our culture does not provide the means for that. Our society is built on Christian values, especially Protestant, which basically state that if you are diligent, you are successful. There is not much spiritual about any of the Christian sects and the deeper they get, they further they move away from the individual.
With the progression of secularization, it became possible to explore the possibilities of other religions as well and to the gray forbidding Christians, the colourful, meditating and insightful Indian religions were a temptation not difficult to give in to. Besides, you don’t really have to be a Buddhist in order to meditate and there is no need for becoming a dedicated Hindu in order to read the Kamasutra. The West had found its Soul Shangri-La.
One of the first “Western Gurus” was Swami Vivekananda who addressed the World Parliament of Religions in 1893. He travelled to the United States and introduced Hinduism there. Although he is considered to be the key figure for bringing Indian religion to the West, a much greater surge started in the fifties and sixties of the 20th century. Many Europeans and Americans had turned to India to search for answers to spiritual questions which could not be answered by the intellectual or religious systems of the West. For some reason, there was a whole boom of Indian spiritualism which took place in the sixties and seventies, mostly connected to the hippie movement, but not just that. A “guru” was kind of a fashionable must-have – hey, even the Beatles had one. The Western world was in search of a higher sort of spirituality, which for some reason was tried to obtain from heavy drug use, burning dozens of incense sticks and dancing around naked at music festivals. Again, on a far more serious side, gurus became iconic.
The most important spiritual figure is undoubtedly the Dalai Lama. Little do people know that the introduction of this Tibetan spiritual leader to the Western society took place in the 1940s, when the United States Army carried out an expedition to Tibet to strengthen the relationship between the two countries in the political climate of the Second World War. Dalai Lama was brought in front of wider American audiences in the 1950s after the Chinese occupation of Tibet.
The other immensely important spiritual figure is Sathya Sai Baba. Although he has never lived in Europe or the US, he has gained a lot of followers from these regions. He is stated to be a divine avatar and claimed to be capable of miracles; many of his activities are nevertheless highly debatable. Other important Western Gurus are Krishnamurti, Muktananda, Anandmurti and many more. It is often wondered how come they gain such popularity and such a number of followers. The answer to that is actually not that difficult to find.
Firstly, let’s look at the spiritual figures of Western culture. There is Jesus, the prophet, whose existence, let alone his deeds are widely debated and the whole essence of him has been quite mixed up throughout the centuries; there is the Pope, head of the Church, definitely less charismatic than the pink-robe-wearing Indian spiritualists (and doesn’t really spell “equal” to his humbles); there is Mother Theresa who took care of starving children and makes us all feel guilty for never being capable of such goodness; last, but not least, hundreds of saints and the stories of their horrible deaths for having faith. Turning to a love-preaching smiling man far away in India, who just wants you to care for others and find yourself seems a far better way out.
Secondly, let’s look at our life philosophy. In the Medieval Ages, we could buy off our sins. All one needed to do was to go to the market place and acquire an indulgence paper which stated that you are free from your sins. Nowadays, the indulgences have transformed into charity donations, sorting garbage and occasionally throwing a nickel at a homeless man. We buy freedom for our sins, because we have always been taught that it is utmost evil to wish anything for your own good and the utmost best to just do, as you are told. The Indian Soul Shangri-La tells you look within yourself to find true happiness; it embraces love and caring (and let’s be honest, the Tibetan bells sound much more calming than the Gregorian choir). People turned to the gurus, because they weren’t asked to buy an indulgence, they were asked to be indulgent.
Also, the hippie movement played a huge role on spiritualism being adapted to popular culture, since the youth faced a sense of hopelessness and dissatisfaction with the political situation; the Vietnamese war agitated a lot of pacifist protest actions, which led many to try out the more peaceful way of living and trying to transcend to higher planes of existence, often with the help of drugs.
She likes shiny beads
Despite the non-materialistic views of the Indian spiritualists, everything in relation to them and what they taught became a way to earn a fortune. By today, spiritualism is an industry, feeding on middle-age women and wannabe-hippies who “want to save the world, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad” (words spoken by Eric Cartman, an important icon of Western pop culture). It can be debated whether it is ethical to gain profit from selling Sai Baba t-shirts or Dalai Lama amulets; however, it is much worse to earn money from selling “false spirituality” to those desperate for some consolation, pretending to open “secrets of life” and the “truths of Buddhist monks”.
As explained before, India was the discovered Soul Shangri-La, paradise for the Westerner. Since everything related to it (and its spirituality) became so accessible, there were many who saw it as a business opportunity. For the fast-paced life of the often-jaded metropolitan of the West, the vast and in-depth philosophies of the spiritual systems seemed to be too profound. It was far more profitable to package it in a more compact version, which allowed the busy city person to meditate to the sound of Tibetan bells on his way to work. In any random book shop, one can find a mind-boggling variety of different meditation, Indian spiritualism and Buddhism books. Most of them look incredibly nice, offer a number of Yoga positions and quite a selection of mantras to chant to oneself. It is so easy to become a zen-Buddhist: one can even buy a starter kit. The result is a completely warped image of the true beliefs, which mock the deep spirituality that was never meant to be marketed.
Sacred symbols and concepts have become so ubiquitous one can wear them on a t-shirt without ever knowing what they mean; some of the clothing elements have become seasonal fashion traits, completely patronizing the true values of a whole religion. There are two sides to every coin, and it’s not different here either: it is often stated that the nearness of for example Buddhism has a positive effect on people and makes them ponder upon the deeper sides of life; also, that it is everyone’s own business, how they approach such teachings and that everybody should have the right to choose the level of depth of their commitment to certain belief systems.
However, Indian spiritualism has ceased to be what it should be in terms of holiness and rather become iconic in popular culture. For an example, let’s observe the holy symbol “AUM”. It is one of the most sacred symbols to Indian religions (Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism etc) and marks the sound of the creation of the world. The vibrating sound is used by Buddhist monks (and other religious followers) for meditation. In popular culture, the symbol is often used in fashion patterns, especially on bags and shirts; it is a popular symbol to be used as song and album titles (e.g. the band Soulfly) and immensely popular as a tattoo figure. Again, it can be debated whether it is ethical to use a holy symbol so ubiquitously or is it considered to be a free expression of self spirituality. Nevertheless, it is clear that in frequent occasions, it is used as a marketing tool which makes the product more amiable to those wishing to express “being different”, for example, teenagers.
There are other genuinely Indian things which, for some reason, have become immensely popular in the West. It is not uncommon to see an average Western woman without any Indian roots or spiritual goals wearing a bindi for mere element of style (“bindi” is a small dot or piece of jewellery worn on the forehead, which no longer depicts marital status, religious affiliations or age in India. In popular culture, they have been worn by Gwen Stefani, Madonna, Nelly Furtado and others); beauty parlours offer henna paintings for hands and feet (henna paintings or “Mehndi” are used for decorating the bride in Indian tradition); there are many tattoos in Sanskrit or Hindi, offering spiritual Vedic or Buddhist quotes. It is often wondered, why Indian symbols are so highly popular and often the answer is found in the raw exoticism that glows through everything related to it.
There is something royal and luxurious to the image of India; no matter whether one imagines the elephants washing each other in the nature of Kerala or the thick, humid air of Bombay, there is something hypnotic to the feel of it. If to look at it from a more sociologic point of view (and from the not-that-scientific “Soul Shangri-La” point of view), it can be observed that in the frequent images linked to India, there are always pleasure allocations. And, well, maybe she just likes shiny beads.
Baby Belly Dance For Me
Apart from religious symbolism, discount spiritualism and self adhesive bindis, there are other fields of interest to the culturally greedy.
Bollywood is the largest film producer in India and one of the largest in the world. The stories are simple and romantic, filled with dance and song. Bollywoodism has had immense effect on our popular culture – in the 2000s, Bollywood triggered the rebirth of American musical films which finally lead to a complete renaissance of the genre (Moulin Rouge!, Chicago, Rent, The Phantom of the Opera, Mamma Mia!). Bollywood films have been nominated to BAFTA and Academy Awards best foreign film awards; several Hollywood films are believed to have been inspired by its Indian brother and the influence of filmi music can also be seen widely in pop music all around the world (Dr. Dre, Black Eyed Peas, Ciara and others).
Again, we can return to the Soul Shangri-La, this time in a much more prosaic manner. The message distributed by Bollywood is naive, simple and undubious. It does not require any special thought, yet it twiddles one’s emotions quite virtuously. Adding Indian elements to our popular culture gives the certain touch of that same saffron air British colonialists loved to remember by their cup of tea, without the requirement of adding profound cultural relicts. It’s colourful, it’s glittering and, most importantly: it spells out “sex”.
Exoticism is so tempting to both the Old and New World because of its raw humanity. Whether we are talking about the dark skinned amazon from the rainforests or a topless harem girl of Persia, it is clear and understandable, what we are expected to sense. Certainly there are numerous other aspects to it, but most of the not spiritual export articles have an erotic touch to them. Belly dancers and exotic women are a good addition to Western popular culture which managed to go so far with its liberation in the beginning of the 21st century that nudes and intercourses ceased to be shocking. If a pop music video did not contain erotica, it could have been taken off the list before it ever aired (see Christina Aguilera – “Dirrty”). Adding bollywoodic elements, beautiful women who “know the moves” was everything needed to spice things up a bit.
The culmination of this progress was undoubtedly the comedy movie “Guru” released in 2002, which gave quite another role to the Western Gurus and intentionally or not, depicted quite a few hot spots of the whole fabricated spiritualism industry. In a nutshell, the plot focuses on an Indian man coming to the States, hoping to achieve the American Dream. He is drawn into the porn industry, quite accidentally, where he meets Sharona, the American porn star. He cannot perform as he’s expected to so he quits the business, but as he has lost his job as a waiter, Ramu finds himself in quite a pickle. He uses spiritual knowledge about sex to become a Guru for the rich, earns a fortune and becomes iconic. The film grandly culminates with an American rich girl being crowned as the guru instead.
Firstly, Indian movie industry had been influencing the market for a while by then and Guru was merely a matter of time. However, the way of depicting things was a perplexing image of how things really work. A sex guru? Indian spiritualists who travelled to the other side of the world in the end of the 19th century to preach about their ways of thinking had apparently transformed into dancing sex gods who cashed in checks of wealthy Americans while giving them private parties. Sure Deepak Chopra had converted meditation and self indulgence into soul Big Macs, but at least there was a bit of spirituality involved. The 2002 movie was quite openly honest about the situation of “spiritualism” in the guru-business. Although Indian spiritualism is still highly influencing Western popular culture, after tantric books were replaced by Sex and the City and Madonna converted to Kabbalism, the role of India in our pop culture took a new direction.
The Slumdog Filthionnaires
Enough of Buddhism, cried out the public, we want the real thing. The first wider outburst of this new Indian symbolism was probably the movie Darjeeling Limited (2007) which tells the story of three brothers setting on a train voyage across India. The country became a symbol for... well, India. It shrugged off the old, heavy image and became a land of adventure, insight and diversity. Darjeeling Limited was like On the Road and Fear and Loathing mixed, with the inevitable dose of exoticism glowing within. The real India forced itself heavily in the picture.
Certainly, the most recent years have indeed brought India more closer as a country, not just an image of one; due to political and economic reasons, it is losing its colonial, Kiplingish fragrance and attaining a new, more modern and chaotic imagery. Since secular matters became more eminent than spiritual, the pop culture symbolism altered as well, leading to the Slumdog Millionaire phenomenon.
As observed before, the West tends to act amiably towards all chances of expressing charity and tolerance when- and wherever possible. India with its extreme wealth and extreme poverty side by side provides a good opportunity for such gestures. Slumdog Millionaire follows the Bollywood simple, romantic plot, mixing it with Western fairytales, globalization and Americanism. It is a jackpot cocktail, stirred not shaken, with everything one can expect from a blockbuster movie, with a very important element attached: the chance to pity. Slumdog Millionaire is not a movie about India, it is pure popular culture, since it tells a story through the eyes of the Western world. In the 60s, exotic pop culture marketed spiritualism; a bit later, it marketed sex; now, it markets charity.
The reason why the movie has become so popular is not so much the fact that it is somehow better than the others; it is the fact that it would be an ultimate expression of cynicism not to like it. Sure, it’s a masterpiece with a fascinating plot and great scenery, but we all shed a tear seeing the young Indian boy literally crawling out of faeces to achieve his dreams. Slumdog Millionaire did to the movie industry what Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead did to literature back in the 40s. Return to simplicity, great narratives and heroic ideals and add a hint of something strange, something warped. The results can never fail.
Perhaps India’s high influence to Western popular culture is indeed caused by its everlasting diversity. The country has played a huge role in Western exoticism for greatly over a century now and instead of fading, it seems to be growing. India has influenced all everything from popular music to internal design and manages to maintain its own specific aura which doesn’t dissolve in the raging globalization.
India, without doubt, is one of the world’s most drastically diverse countries; not only on the cultural side, with its numerous languages, belief systems and cuisines, but also the materialistic means of people - India is a country of extreme wealth and also, extreme poverty.
The history of India dates back to over 9000 years ago, when the first settlements were founded. Throughout the centuries, many smaller republics and kingdoms were founded, until most of South Asia was united into the Maurya Empire in the third century BC. The invasions from Central Asia started in the 10th- 12th centuries and in the 16th century, India was colonized by European countries. By 1856, most of India was controlled by the British East Indian Company. As the result of the Sepoy Mutiny, India was brought under the direct rule of the British Crown. India was under the rule of Britain until the middle of the 20th century, when it gained independence from the British rule in 1947 and became a republic in 1950.
The most influential part of India’s history is, indeed, the British colonial era. British men went to Bombay and spread their culture there; when they returned to England, insanely rich and astonished by the saffron-smelling air of India, they spread everything they had learnt there in return. This sort of cultural exchange had a huge effect on both sides, but also triggered a debate: could it be possible, that instead of the exchange, one of the cultures was merely being aggressively influenced? It is true that nowadays, Indian nobles prefer to speak Queen’s English, have their five o’clock tea served with a teensy bit of milk and the national sport’s team of India is actually Manchester United; on a far more serious side – how bad was the influence, really?
The Soul Shangri-La
All little children know (or at least those who weren’t brought up by Pokemons) the story of Mowgli, written by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling is a British author born in Bombay and was recognized by George Orwell as the “prophet of British imperialism”. Indeed he was one of the many influential British people who gained their enigmatic touch from their special connection with India. It is impossible to talk about British exoticism without referring to India, since it had so much influence on British culture during that time and plays a huge role in exoticism even nowadays.
A much more modern “British Indian” author, as they are called, is Salman Rushdie, who wrote quite the notorious book, The Satanic Verses. His work was protested by Islamic groups so aggressively, that he spent nearly a decade underground for his protection. The question is, would their work have been so successful if they hadn’t lived in India?
In 1933, James Hilton described a paradise on Earth in his novel, Lost Horizon. The mystical valley was called Shangri-La and it became the synonym for the secluded island Western exoticism is ever so keen on searching for. James Hilton had found the definition for something that had existed for a long time but hadn’t quite been comprehended yet; the eminence of this paradise was like a resonance of the secret gardens in the old British manors every child dreams to find and now someone had found them for the adults. For the Brits, India was a huge Shangri-La. Everything they found there was in a sharp contrast to the rainy-gray Britain. That is why, everything that had a touch of India, became a source of gold. The secret of success for all these quasi-Indian authors, artists et al was the presence of the silent Shangri-La, the feeling they gave to their audience, the vicinity of the faraway.
Then what about now? It is no problem for an average man to book a ticket on Amadeus and take the next flight to Bombay; there is nothing exotic about the smell of saffron or an Indian woman any more, and you can have the best chicken tikka masala in the pub around the corner. Yet somehow, India has maintained a certain touch of “exoticism”, a certain immunity to the golden arches, naked pop stars and political correctness. There is still some inexplicable honesty in the land, some raw sincerity that draws people to it no matter what. It does not matter how bad the streets of Bombay smell or how many children live in the gutter, in the eyes of the European, India is colourful, noisy and... well, exotic. Why is that?
To assess high concentration of elements of one culture in another, one must look at them both. What is happening to the Western culture? Decade after decade, people are growing more “caring”, “tolerant” or “green”. Being generally nice has become a whole merchandising branch and you can buy yourself a wholesome attitude by donating five bucks a month to a random charity company, who will most probably spend that money on printing glossy carton flyers to attract more clients. There is nothing wholesome, nice or tolerant about the way Westerners live, yet they tend to spend a lot of money on showing that they do. However, our culture does not provide the means for that. Our society is built on Christian values, especially Protestant, which basically state that if you are diligent, you are successful. There is not much spiritual about any of the Christian sects and the deeper they get, they further they move away from the individual.
With the progression of secularization, it became possible to explore the possibilities of other religions as well and to the gray forbidding Christians, the colourful, meditating and insightful Indian religions were a temptation not difficult to give in to. Besides, you don’t really have to be a Buddhist in order to meditate and there is no need for becoming a dedicated Hindu in order to read the Kamasutra. The West had found its Soul Shangri-La.
One of the first “Western Gurus” was Swami Vivekananda who addressed the World Parliament of Religions in 1893. He travelled to the United States and introduced Hinduism there. Although he is considered to be the key figure for bringing Indian religion to the West, a much greater surge started in the fifties and sixties of the 20th century. Many Europeans and Americans had turned to India to search for answers to spiritual questions which could not be answered by the intellectual or religious systems of the West. For some reason, there was a whole boom of Indian spiritualism which took place in the sixties and seventies, mostly connected to the hippie movement, but not just that. A “guru” was kind of a fashionable must-have – hey, even the Beatles had one. The Western world was in search of a higher sort of spirituality, which for some reason was tried to obtain from heavy drug use, burning dozens of incense sticks and dancing around naked at music festivals. Again, on a far more serious side, gurus became iconic.
The most important spiritual figure is undoubtedly the Dalai Lama. Little do people know that the introduction of this Tibetan spiritual leader to the Western society took place in the 1940s, when the United States Army carried out an expedition to Tibet to strengthen the relationship between the two countries in the political climate of the Second World War. Dalai Lama was brought in front of wider American audiences in the 1950s after the Chinese occupation of Tibet.
The other immensely important spiritual figure is Sathya Sai Baba. Although he has never lived in Europe or the US, he has gained a lot of followers from these regions. He is stated to be a divine avatar and claimed to be capable of miracles; many of his activities are nevertheless highly debatable. Other important Western Gurus are Krishnamurti, Muktananda, Anandmurti and many more. It is often wondered how come they gain such popularity and such a number of followers. The answer to that is actually not that difficult to find.
Firstly, let’s look at the spiritual figures of Western culture. There is Jesus, the prophet, whose existence, let alone his deeds are widely debated and the whole essence of him has been quite mixed up throughout the centuries; there is the Pope, head of the Church, definitely less charismatic than the pink-robe-wearing Indian spiritualists (and doesn’t really spell “equal” to his humbles); there is Mother Theresa who took care of starving children and makes us all feel guilty for never being capable of such goodness; last, but not least, hundreds of saints and the stories of their horrible deaths for having faith. Turning to a love-preaching smiling man far away in India, who just wants you to care for others and find yourself seems a far better way out.
Secondly, let’s look at our life philosophy. In the Medieval Ages, we could buy off our sins. All one needed to do was to go to the market place and acquire an indulgence paper which stated that you are free from your sins. Nowadays, the indulgences have transformed into charity donations, sorting garbage and occasionally throwing a nickel at a homeless man. We buy freedom for our sins, because we have always been taught that it is utmost evil to wish anything for your own good and the utmost best to just do, as you are told. The Indian Soul Shangri-La tells you look within yourself to find true happiness; it embraces love and caring (and let’s be honest, the Tibetan bells sound much more calming than the Gregorian choir). People turned to the gurus, because they weren’t asked to buy an indulgence, they were asked to be indulgent.
Also, the hippie movement played a huge role on spiritualism being adapted to popular culture, since the youth faced a sense of hopelessness and dissatisfaction with the political situation; the Vietnamese war agitated a lot of pacifist protest actions, which led many to try out the more peaceful way of living and trying to transcend to higher planes of existence, often with the help of drugs.
She likes shiny beads
Despite the non-materialistic views of the Indian spiritualists, everything in relation to them and what they taught became a way to earn a fortune. By today, spiritualism is an industry, feeding on middle-age women and wannabe-hippies who “want to save the world, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad” (words spoken by Eric Cartman, an important icon of Western pop culture). It can be debated whether it is ethical to gain profit from selling Sai Baba t-shirts or Dalai Lama amulets; however, it is much worse to earn money from selling “false spirituality” to those desperate for some consolation, pretending to open “secrets of life” and the “truths of Buddhist monks”.
As explained before, India was the discovered Soul Shangri-La, paradise for the Westerner. Since everything related to it (and its spirituality) became so accessible, there were many who saw it as a business opportunity. For the fast-paced life of the often-jaded metropolitan of the West, the vast and in-depth philosophies of the spiritual systems seemed to be too profound. It was far more profitable to package it in a more compact version, which allowed the busy city person to meditate to the sound of Tibetan bells on his way to work. In any random book shop, one can find a mind-boggling variety of different meditation, Indian spiritualism and Buddhism books. Most of them look incredibly nice, offer a number of Yoga positions and quite a selection of mantras to chant to oneself. It is so easy to become a zen-Buddhist: one can even buy a starter kit. The result is a completely warped image of the true beliefs, which mock the deep spirituality that was never meant to be marketed.
Sacred symbols and concepts have become so ubiquitous one can wear them on a t-shirt without ever knowing what they mean; some of the clothing elements have become seasonal fashion traits, completely patronizing the true values of a whole religion. There are two sides to every coin, and it’s not different here either: it is often stated that the nearness of for example Buddhism has a positive effect on people and makes them ponder upon the deeper sides of life; also, that it is everyone’s own business, how they approach such teachings and that everybody should have the right to choose the level of depth of their commitment to certain belief systems.
However, Indian spiritualism has ceased to be what it should be in terms of holiness and rather become iconic in popular culture. For an example, let’s observe the holy symbol “AUM”. It is one of the most sacred symbols to Indian religions (Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism etc) and marks the sound of the creation of the world. The vibrating sound is used by Buddhist monks (and other religious followers) for meditation. In popular culture, the symbol is often used in fashion patterns, especially on bags and shirts; it is a popular symbol to be used as song and album titles (e.g. the band Soulfly) and immensely popular as a tattoo figure. Again, it can be debated whether it is ethical to use a holy symbol so ubiquitously or is it considered to be a free expression of self spirituality. Nevertheless, it is clear that in frequent occasions, it is used as a marketing tool which makes the product more amiable to those wishing to express “being different”, for example, teenagers.
There are other genuinely Indian things which, for some reason, have become immensely popular in the West. It is not uncommon to see an average Western woman without any Indian roots or spiritual goals wearing a bindi for mere element of style (“bindi” is a small dot or piece of jewellery worn on the forehead, which no longer depicts marital status, religious affiliations or age in India. In popular culture, they have been worn by Gwen Stefani, Madonna, Nelly Furtado and others); beauty parlours offer henna paintings for hands and feet (henna paintings or “Mehndi” are used for decorating the bride in Indian tradition); there are many tattoos in Sanskrit or Hindi, offering spiritual Vedic or Buddhist quotes. It is often wondered, why Indian symbols are so highly popular and often the answer is found in the raw exoticism that glows through everything related to it.
There is something royal and luxurious to the image of India; no matter whether one imagines the elephants washing each other in the nature of Kerala or the thick, humid air of Bombay, there is something hypnotic to the feel of it. If to look at it from a more sociologic point of view (and from the not-that-scientific “Soul Shangri-La” point of view), it can be observed that in the frequent images linked to India, there are always pleasure allocations. And, well, maybe she just likes shiny beads.
Baby Belly Dance For Me
Apart from religious symbolism, discount spiritualism and self adhesive bindis, there are other fields of interest to the culturally greedy.
Bollywood is the largest film producer in India and one of the largest in the world. The stories are simple and romantic, filled with dance and song. Bollywoodism has had immense effect on our popular culture – in the 2000s, Bollywood triggered the rebirth of American musical films which finally lead to a complete renaissance of the genre (Moulin Rouge!, Chicago, Rent, The Phantom of the Opera, Mamma Mia!). Bollywood films have been nominated to BAFTA and Academy Awards best foreign film awards; several Hollywood films are believed to have been inspired by its Indian brother and the influence of filmi music can also be seen widely in pop music all around the world (Dr. Dre, Black Eyed Peas, Ciara and others).
Again, we can return to the Soul Shangri-La, this time in a much more prosaic manner. The message distributed by Bollywood is naive, simple and undubious. It does not require any special thought, yet it twiddles one’s emotions quite virtuously. Adding Indian elements to our popular culture gives the certain touch of that same saffron air British colonialists loved to remember by their cup of tea, without the requirement of adding profound cultural relicts. It’s colourful, it’s glittering and, most importantly: it spells out “sex”.
Exoticism is so tempting to both the Old and New World because of its raw humanity. Whether we are talking about the dark skinned amazon from the rainforests or a topless harem girl of Persia, it is clear and understandable, what we are expected to sense. Certainly there are numerous other aspects to it, but most of the not spiritual export articles have an erotic touch to them. Belly dancers and exotic women are a good addition to Western popular culture which managed to go so far with its liberation in the beginning of the 21st century that nudes and intercourses ceased to be shocking. If a pop music video did not contain erotica, it could have been taken off the list before it ever aired (see Christina Aguilera – “Dirrty”). Adding bollywoodic elements, beautiful women who “know the moves” was everything needed to spice things up a bit.
The culmination of this progress was undoubtedly the comedy movie “Guru” released in 2002, which gave quite another role to the Western Gurus and intentionally or not, depicted quite a few hot spots of the whole fabricated spiritualism industry. In a nutshell, the plot focuses on an Indian man coming to the States, hoping to achieve the American Dream. He is drawn into the porn industry, quite accidentally, where he meets Sharona, the American porn star. He cannot perform as he’s expected to so he quits the business, but as he has lost his job as a waiter, Ramu finds himself in quite a pickle. He uses spiritual knowledge about sex to become a Guru for the rich, earns a fortune and becomes iconic. The film grandly culminates with an American rich girl being crowned as the guru instead.
Firstly, Indian movie industry had been influencing the market for a while by then and Guru was merely a matter of time. However, the way of depicting things was a perplexing image of how things really work. A sex guru? Indian spiritualists who travelled to the other side of the world in the end of the 19th century to preach about their ways of thinking had apparently transformed into dancing sex gods who cashed in checks of wealthy Americans while giving them private parties. Sure Deepak Chopra had converted meditation and self indulgence into soul Big Macs, but at least there was a bit of spirituality involved. The 2002 movie was quite openly honest about the situation of “spiritualism” in the guru-business. Although Indian spiritualism is still highly influencing Western popular culture, after tantric books were replaced by Sex and the City and Madonna converted to Kabbalism, the role of India in our pop culture took a new direction.
The Slumdog Filthionnaires
Enough of Buddhism, cried out the public, we want the real thing. The first wider outburst of this new Indian symbolism was probably the movie Darjeeling Limited (2007) which tells the story of three brothers setting on a train voyage across India. The country became a symbol for... well, India. It shrugged off the old, heavy image and became a land of adventure, insight and diversity. Darjeeling Limited was like On the Road and Fear and Loathing mixed, with the inevitable dose of exoticism glowing within. The real India forced itself heavily in the picture.
Certainly, the most recent years have indeed brought India more closer as a country, not just an image of one; due to political and economic reasons, it is losing its colonial, Kiplingish fragrance and attaining a new, more modern and chaotic imagery. Since secular matters became more eminent than spiritual, the pop culture symbolism altered as well, leading to the Slumdog Millionaire phenomenon.
As observed before, the West tends to act amiably towards all chances of expressing charity and tolerance when- and wherever possible. India with its extreme wealth and extreme poverty side by side provides a good opportunity for such gestures. Slumdog Millionaire follows the Bollywood simple, romantic plot, mixing it with Western fairytales, globalization and Americanism. It is a jackpot cocktail, stirred not shaken, with everything one can expect from a blockbuster movie, with a very important element attached: the chance to pity. Slumdog Millionaire is not a movie about India, it is pure popular culture, since it tells a story through the eyes of the Western world. In the 60s, exotic pop culture marketed spiritualism; a bit later, it marketed sex; now, it markets charity.
The reason why the movie has become so popular is not so much the fact that it is somehow better than the others; it is the fact that it would be an ultimate expression of cynicism not to like it. Sure, it’s a masterpiece with a fascinating plot and great scenery, but we all shed a tear seeing the young Indian boy literally crawling out of faeces to achieve his dreams. Slumdog Millionaire did to the movie industry what Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead did to literature back in the 40s. Return to simplicity, great narratives and heroic ideals and add a hint of something strange, something warped. The results can never fail.
Perhaps India’s high influence to Western popular culture is indeed caused by its everlasting diversity. The country has played a huge role in Western exoticism for greatly over a century now and instead of fading, it seems to be growing. India has influenced all everything from popular music to internal design and manages to maintain its own specific aura which doesn’t dissolve in the raging globalization.
