"Yeh suit mera dekho, yeh boot mera dekho,
Jaise gora koi London ka.."
Gone are the days when we look westwards for style icons. It is surprising though, that the west looks to us for spiritual and moral icons. Not long ago, when Mr.Barrack ‘Peace’ Obama was conferred with the Nobel, Matt Damon said India’s own Gandhi was his inspiration to do good work. Not much of a surprise really, everyone hides behind Gandhi to do good work. Our politicians have often quoted Gandhi in their speeches and have done some pretty exemplary (read: lame) work, even for their standards. Going back on the timeline by a few more weeks, Julia Roberts shooting for a movie in India, suddenly decides to go the ‘baba’ way by having her kids named after Hindu deities. And baba rightly blessed them “Baba sab theek kardenge, ok?”
So what is it about India that keeps the goras coming here for a piece of the spiritual cake? Well, it’s not just that. Why else would they rake up the love story between Independent India’s first patriarch, Nehru and the wife of the last viceroy of India, Mrs.Edwina Mountbatten? This is not a new fascination. India has always been on the cards when ‘they’ needed to portray action in a poor,malnourished environment (Read: Slumdog Millionaire, City of Joy, Octopussy, I could go on for long..)
The mystery that shrouds India’s mystics and yoga and the like, make it a magical land at least to those poor souls who lap up on the stories that numerous industries quite literally thrust down them. Yoga as it was in India with terms like Gomukhasana, Shalabhasana and so on, are getting westernized with terms like upward dog, Warrior 1, Warrior 2 (and all of Ashtanga yoga being labelled as Power yoga). It shouldn’t be long when they try to patent yoga, I mean they’ve also tried patenting the medicinal use of turmeric and mehndi and so on.
No cross cultural connect would be complete without mentioning Raj Kapoor, the showman of the millennium. Re-runs of his old movies still run like hot cakes in Russia. In the very words of a Russian old lady-
"In early fifties, just after the devastating war with Germany, the country was still in ruins we were poor and our life was full of privations and shortages," said the old lady during `Retrospective of Raj Kapoor films` organised in the provincial city of Tver.
“But when we saw greater hardships being faced by the poor from the country (India) with a smile, it gave us optimism. So after watching `Awara` and `Shri 420`, Raj Kapoor became a symbol of optimism for the Soviet people.” she added.
So there it is folks! Hope. The world looks to us for Hope. We may not have encouraged talented worthy workers to do more, but we certainly have hugged them and called them our own when they succeed. Hope moves the world. If you don’t buy a ticket, you don’t stand a chance to win the raffle! Here’s hoping that some grinding cogs in the system’s machinery somewhere will start realizing that.
(In other unrelated news, India is planning to build the world’s largest building! Well, Good luck with that! :P)
