Last year sensational news of tragedy from India twice shocked the world first, the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi followed by mass murders and mayhem, then, hardly a month later, the catastrophic poisonous gas leak at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal. Yet, despite these ghastly events, tourism to India has increased. Even before the U.S. State Department had lifted its brief advisory against travel to India, travel agents reported a mounting demand for brochures and bookings to India.
Tragedies or no tragedies, India continues to lure the Western imagination by her exotic charms. In fact, the recent flood of movies set in India has deluged the West like a monsoon. In an article headlined "India, the Sudden Star," one New York newspaper was prompted to write, "Now, suddenly India is everywhere; if a country could be described as a pop-culture star, India would be it." The eagerly awaited "Festival of India," a twelve-million-dollar, two-year-long cultural extravaganza the largest cultural exchange ever assembled scheduled to open in the U.S. later this year, shows that the trend of fascination with India gives no sign of abating.
What is the reason for India's sudden popularity? Sharon Himes, a major U.S.-India tour operator, commented that the increase in travel to India reflects "a growing interest in India and its fascinating culture." Recent media exposure seems to have only further piqued curiosity about a country and life-style so different from our own.
Ken Taylor, who wrote the screenplay for the TV series The Jewel in the Crown, based on Paul Scott's Raj Quartet, attributes the series' popularity to the continuing appeal of Indian spiritual culture. "Something in the culture and philosophy of India affects the Western mind," says Taylor. "I suppose it is the opposite of the Western ethos, which is materialistic and competitive."
Yet, with India closer than ever by jumbo jet or the flick of a TV dial, arewe any closer to understanding the real India than were the British imperialists who booked their long passage to India on the P & O steamers?
The search for the real India is the focus of David Lean's critically acclaimed film A Passage to India, based on E. M. Forster's novel. The story concerns one young English lady named Adela Quested, who is newly arrived in British India accompanied by her would-be mother-in-law, Mrs. Moore. Miss Quested wants to see the real India, and that sets into motion the fateful events of the story. For to see the real India she would have to get to know the natives, and in those days that simply wasn't done. The ruling Britishers, especially thememsahibs (English ladies), were not to cross the social barriers and mix with their subjects. To do so was thought to court certain disaster. The Indian hero of the story, one Dr. Aziz, in his childlike naivete, eagerly desires to please the English ladies, and he arranges for an ill-fated excursion to the Marabar Caves.
In Forster's Westernized vision of an inscrutable India, a strange, untidy place of curious misadventures, whatever could go wrong often does. And sure enough, the excursion to the Marabar Caves turns out to be a disaster. Confronted by the resounding echoes of the empty, fathomless caves, which reverberate with a kind of eerie cosmic boom or om, the memsahibs lose their mental equilibrium. Suddenly, all their mundane conceptions are shattered, and love, religion, and the affairs of men all at once seem insignificant. What the empty echoing caves represent an impersonal conception of God, a "void" in the universe, or an existential emptiness is deliberately left ambiguous. Although Miss Quested believes she was physically molested in the caves, what exactly happened is also left ambiguous.
Accused by the distraught Miss Quested of attempted rape, the hapless Indian doctor becomes entangled in a web of cultural prejudices and misunderstandings. The volatile case is brought to the local English court and a highly emotional trial ensues.
If Miss Quested was not physically molested, as the self-righteous Britishers believe she was, then what did happen to the poor girl that disturbed her so much as to drive her madly out of the caves? As one of the characters suggests, "India forces one to come face to face with oneself; it must be very disturbing." What must be even more disturbing is to come face to face with oneself and not find out who one actually is. Ignorant of the science of self-realization, neither Forster nor Lean offers us no clues whatsoever.
David Lean's version is not faithful to Forster's vision, nor does it offer any personal vision of its own. The only original element introduced by Lean is a bicycle excursion by Miss Quested into the upcountry, foreshadowing the trip to the caves. Heavily loaded with Freudian undertones, the nightmarish sequence shows the repressed Miss Quested riding her bike off the dusty path of Western Christian morality (symbolized by the road signpost in the shape of a cross) and then veering off into a lush, overgrown jungle, where she encounters the ruins of erotic sculptures from a temple swarming with libidinous monkeys. In this way, Lean distorts Hinduism by using it as a symbol for carnality and irrationality, a familiar Hollywood stereotype of "heathenism," quite different from what Forster had to say.
Forster's vision of Hinduism is expressed in the novel's concluding segment, which, unfortunately, Lean saw fit to excise. Forster named this section "Temple," referring not to an erotic temple but to a Krsna temple at the time of Janmastami, the annual celebration of Lord Krsna's appearance in this world. Forster saw "Temple" as a necessary complement to his novel's other two sections: "Mosque" and "Caves." The third and final part of the novel is aboutbhakti, the path of understanding the ultimate reality through devotion to the supreme personal Deity, Lord Krsna. This view which happens to be the sum and substance of Bhagavad-gita is propounded by the fourth major character of the novel, the enigmatic brahmana, Professor Narayan Godbole.
In the novel, Professor Godbole, as the English translation of his name implies, is always absorbed in singing, chanting, or meditating on his Lord Krsna. As revealed in the book (though not in the movie), Godbole is a devotee of Tukaram, the great Maharastran saint and follower of Srila Caitanya Mahaprabhu. The "Temple" segment climaxes in the ecstatic celebration of Janmastami, after which all the misunderstandings and divergences between the characters are miraculously reconciled. This transcendental ending would have been appropriate for the movie as well. Unfortunately, Lean left out the one essential element for understanding the self and God. By omitting the integral element of bhakti (devotion to Lord Krsna), the filmmaker not only fails to clarify anything but also confounds the muddle by tacking on the stock Hollywood driving off-into-the-sunset ending.
It is clear that you won't learn a great deal about the real India and its spiritual culture by watching the movies. Nevertheless, if the movie A Passage to India induces sincere seekers to delve into the real spiritual India, then it will have served some useful purpose. To find the real India, as was stated in the movie, one must meet the people. But which people? Certainly not those people seeking fame and fortune in the material world. For this there is no need for the soul to take the proverbial "passage to India."
Rather, we must search out the genuine sadhus (saintly persons) and spiritual masters to guide us in our search for the truth. This is the prescription of Lord Krsna in the Bhagavad-gita (4.34): "Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render service unto him. The self-realized souls can impart knowledge unto you because they have seen the truth." Without the help of self-realized souls who can impart the unchanged knowledge of the Vedic literature, the Vedic culture of India must always remain a puzzle. It baffled the Moghuls; it baffled the British; and now it seems to have baffled the Hollywood moguls as well.
India is the last great repository of the once universal Vedic culture, the spiritual culture that teaches that self-realization and not sense gratification is the goal of human life. It is still practiced in many parts of India, though in various, often adulterated, forms and permutations. The sincere seeker, however, need not despair of being unable to undertake a costly voyage to India. The spiritual culture of India in its pure and unadulterated form is being spread all over the world by the members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. The transcendental knowledge imparted in Srila Prabhupada's books is no mere holiday excursion to India, but a lifetime's liberal education in itself.