Who moved my country?

I overheard a conversation recently in a suburb of New York amongst upper middle class Non Resident Indians that went like this: "Last Sunday, I went to the Laxmi Narayan Temple, Guruji said some special guests had come for the Shloka readings, awesome, then some old Shah Rukh movie was on near the mall, Subhash Ghai one, where he wears that cap, great movie, and you know my thing with him. Sunita needed to refill her khakra supply, so we stopped by Patel Brothers and at night there was that party at Bhushan's no? Her daughter just came back from a year working for Swamiji in Ahmedabad. We watched that Super Kings game but the women kept changing the channel to the Indian Idol finale."

A week later, I heard a conversation in a suburb of Mumbai, among upper middle class Indians that went like this:u00a0 "That new Prada store in New York is too small, so I've started going to the main one in Paris. Shoes need space ya. Thing about New York is, before you realise, the day is over, like last Sunday, I met Chris, that fab new PR guy at Christian Laxcroix, he took us to the new Alaine Ducasse brunch place in the meat packing district, then Varun wanted to pick up some body wash from L'Occitanne in Soho, then we read the Times lounging in Central Park, they have these cute pate biscuits at The Whole Foods in Columbus Circle and in the evening, the Ballet -- The Bolshoi was in town".u00a0 Another person corrected the speaker saying, "Why do you go to Whole Foods for pate? I usually go to 63rd and Columbus, there's a French Deli there called Elyse."u00a0



By just looking at what people are saying, one would be correct to confuse who lives where. Clearly, the New York life, as embodied by an HBO TV show or A Devil Wears Prada applied far more to the visiting wealthy Indian than to the 30 year-old New York NRI, whose lifestyle was much more in tune with the daily goings on with his religious circle here, than what new hip restaurant the New York Times wrote about. It's well known that immigrants cling on to the homeland more dearly in some ways and it's also expected that rapidly developing economies like ours look to the West for a wide range of things from lifestyle and entertainment for validation.

Yet, today, due to borderless technology and satellites that beam things without restriction, it's far easier to live somewhere and have nothing to do with the culture, people, and surroundings of that place.

I made a joke among some friends abroad saying the only reason I travel to the West once in a while is to find out what's going on in India. It would be a ridiculous statement to make but as the years go by and the idea of geography crumbles, it is, frighteningly (or superbly, depending on your values) true. All television channels that beam into homes locally, from NDTV to Colors, beam into Indian homes now from Australia to San Francisco.

The biggest watchers of Z soaps live in the UK, the biggest market for 'Indian values" movies is the US.

Audiences for cutting edge Indian documentaries or independent film are also outside. Classical Indian dance companies, Odissi, and Bharatanatyam, essentially spend a large part of the year touring western cities; Paris and New York have huge fan bases. The same is true for theatre companies that do classical Sanskrit /religious texts or vernacular comedies. Recently, an adaptation of the Ramayana, entirely in Sanskrit verse, sponsored by the French Ministry of Culture, did a 12-city tour of Europe. With classical music, it's gone even further, not only do our classical musicians play world music festivals in the big world capitals (with the occasional drop in here), many of them live there. Indian culture, if there is such a generic comprehensive term, holds a great fascination for western museums, arts institutions, intellectuals, the cosmopolitan set and a lot of the funding to take the classical arts abroad comes from there. Recently, Lincoln Center in New York did a "Mughal Era" film festival and every night was packed. Someone tried to organise a Shatranj Ke Khiladi screening in north Mumbai and seven people showed up.

All this while urban India wants more Prada, weight loss programs, Broadway musicals, BMWs, Ibiza DJs, Facebook and essentially a life no different that someone western.

There's nothing wrong with either set of values, they've just switched places. India and what's going on, hits this rising urban crowd not so much when we are in it, but when we are on a plane heading somewhere and are asked about it.

As an aside, it is a bit of an irony that our greatest tabla player lives in Los Angeles, the great Indian novelist in New York, great "Indian" filmmakers in New York and London, and our greatest painter in Qatar. It seems if it is India you are peddling, India is the worst place to be.u00a0u00a0

Anuvab Pal is a Mumbai-based playwright and screenwriter. His plays in Mumbai include Chaos Theory and (co-written) and The President is Coming. Reach him at www.anuvabpal.com