Last night I made a big mistake. I am talking BIG. After a long hard day of work, I wanted to unwind and relax. Instead I saw Paul Merton's Journey through India. I have since successfully begun to doubt my ability to make good TV-programme-viewing decisions.
Why are people in the West so keen to look at India as the land of snake charmers? And when they can't find any, they will go to any lengths to locate one and then broadcast to the world their single-minded view of a country whose cultural and civilizational dimensions are perhaps beyond the comprehension of its own natives. By all means talk to the very interesting naked sadhus and innovative entrepreneurs - but do not claim that that is the 'real' India you are showing to the world. That is just one tiny screenshot of the mega-movie called India. How does a pot-smoking sadhu become a 'real' Indian and not a busy housewife juggling different chores in the streets of Karol Bagh? Just because the West wants to see exoticism, it does not imply that its particular view of a country is the real / authentic one.
On the other hand, it amazes me to find that Indians themselves fuel this voracious western appetite for exoticism. The finishing school's teacher telling our chap Merton that he should burp noisily through his meal as a compliment to his hosts, the journalist from nowhere imparting factually incorrect knowledge about Hinduism on television, where do these people come from? What makes them authorities on Indian culture and lifestyle when clearly they have got things all wrong? Or are they only playing to the audience, modifying chicken curry to make it chicken tikka masala for the British palette? Oh! the incorrectness of it all just gets to me.
Please remove your post-colonial spectacles Mr Merton and look at the country you claim to be enchanted with in its actual 'real' glory. You will find that the monkey-chasers and ever-burping guests may be real enough, but are a tiny microscopic handful of the panorama that comprises India, and that the real India is busy slogging in farms, offices, schools, playgrounds and other workplaces, trying, as people everywhere in the world, to live a happy and contented reality.
4 comments:
The unfortunate thing is that the white man can only take pictures of the naked sadhu and the squalor in Delhi while the bollywood filmmaker will only shoot St Pauls Cathedral and the green mountains of Switzerland. I would like to see someone from India making a documentary of Brick Lane and Tooting and tell the world that, in his opinion, this is the real London...not Westminster silly!!!
Completely agree. What's more annoying is that Discovery is pitching the show in question as a mega-epic.
On the other hand, I feel that the the shows that portray only the glitzy part of India don't do enough justice to the country either. Where does one draw the line? I really don't know.
Plus there are some issues we have to address in house - a long list of them. So, IMHO, shows on TV are the last thing to worry about :)
Nice blog, BTW. Cheers, G
Arun - I totally agree. Why are we so afraid of seeing the complete picture? Whats wrong with seeing reality for what it is - a big khichdi of filth and beauty? Or is it that we only want to see what we don't in our immediate surroundings? questions, questions... :-)
Guru - NO WAY! I didn't know that Discovery was promoting this pathetic piece of crap. I didn't think anything could make me feel worse after seeing the show but this news is definitely the pits.
I don't say show the shining roads of Rajpath and the well-manicured gardens of the Rashtrapati Bhawan as India. Just as that would be a blurring of the reality, so was that show. My contention is that the show did a massive disfavour to reality as it is. Then again, is it even possible for one man's views to shape popular culture - in this world of media-driven images and perceptions, I think the danger, and hence disfavour, is real.
Thanks for compliments on the blog btw :-)
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