Surface Culture
India’s spirituality is strong and is seemingly integrated with it�s culture. So this is the first country we have been in that has resisted becoming westernized…at least on the surface…no big time make-up, no dark glasses, no T shirts, no baseball caps, no blue jeans hanging off the pubic bone of young girls (however we have seen a new sari style that is off the hip with a ring in the naval) and no Bobby Marley, rap music, baggy pants, western food or drip coffee-just the obsequious Nescafe. Our hotel offered the Continental or American Breakfast. Grilled chicken, grilled potatoes, juice and tea or coffee. No American fast food outlets in all of Delhi except for one McDonalds that only serves vege and chicken burgers.
Hardly any bookstores. Closest thing to the west we encountered listening to a DJ in a red turban play 70�s American music at the El Rodeo Restaurant where all the waiters were dressed up as cowboys and serving bad Mexican food.
Indians usually prefer to eat only Indian food, Mrs. Singh said when we stayed at her hotel in Jaipur. She described an Indian owned tour company she and her sister-in-law traveled with throughout Europe last spring. She was disappointed to find that the tour company had it’s own cook and every meal was taken on the bus-all Indian food!
News Media
In the English language Delhi Times newspaper there are 14 serious pages of “Matrimonials-for the better half of your life.” Typical Example: “Alliance from (with) tall fair slim convent educated girl for US settled Bengali Brahmin boy Feb 1967 5’11” nonsmoker tetotaler visiting India in Sept Caste State no bar” (in other words being the proper caste is not necessary). Another: “Bride from elite business house for graduate, son of top industrialist.” And another: “Wanted bride from only very big business/Industrialist Family from Son of National Fame very big rich industrialist family.” This apparently the conduit for meeting a marriage prospect for non-religious middle and upper classes.
I get a big kick out of the newswriting style, usually concerning controversial political issues, that go like this lead paragraph: “Despite all-out diplomatic efforts, India�s plans to get piped gas from Bangladesh may turn out to be a pipedream.” And this: Quacks have found a way out if their hospitals are shut down; change the name and keep the racket going. And another: “The government will soon crack the whip on driving schools in the Capital for the poor skills they are teaching Delhiiters.� And this headline concerning Prime Minister Advani’s oversight in not inviting Tamil Nadu Chief Minister to a swearing-in ceremony of another minister: “Jaya pipes down after Advani says he’s sorry.”
And finally this… “US tries to stop (corporate) rot with new rules.”
Tags: Culture, India, Journalism, New Delhi
Zoe