Kalam, ritual ground paintings of Kerala

In Kerala, the tradition of ephemeral painting is called “Kalam-Eluttu Pattu” literally “to draw and to sing the kalam”. Almost invisible, the paintings of Kerala or kalam do not expose themselves to the morning walker‘s gaze like the kôlam. They are mostly drawn in the intimacy of the house and focus the attention of the family or the devotees when they are represented within the precincts of the temples.

In Kerala, there are communities of ritual painters whose function consists in drawing in temples or in houses, temporary paintings with mineral and vegetable powders called yantra, mandala or kalam to welcome and appease the invoked divinity.

The latest ones are generally anthropomorphic images and the officiating painter in charge of the kalam carries out the form of the divine which is offered to experience through sight and touch.

These paintings realized by means of mineral and vegetable powders are used in ceremonies in homage to the Goddess, to the snakes and to other divinities of the Indian pantheon.

They are also elaborated with a therapeutic purpose because in the mind of an Indian villager, diseases, barrenness and premature death were and are still attributed to supernatural powers or to the grabbing “spirits” which it is advisable to cajole or to annihilate by incantations, songs and symbolic gestures of the hands (mudra).

These ephemeral drawings do not result from the imagination of the priest; they are dictated by precise rules which include forms and colours. To understand these ceremonial paintings it is necessary to show them in connection with the context.

The iconography relates to the myths, to the legends and to the rules memorized and passed on from one generation to another generation. The learning and the transmission of these ritual paintings take place within the different traditions.

Boys assist their fathers, prepare and mix the powders, fill in the design with the appropriate colours and observe the sketching until they are considered worthy to draw themselves.

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Flowers Enrich Indian Cultural Traditions

Flowers make an integral part of the diverse cultural life of Indians: They are not merely offered at the places of worship, but also enhance the country’s rich traditions and values.

Indian school children throw flower petals during the
celebration of “Vasantotsav,” the festival of spring, in Kolkata. 

Almost every flower has a unique name in different Indian languages, each carrying an inherent cultural meaning and use. Some flower names embody rich meaning that encompasses a whole array of Indian literature and cultural richness. 

Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera), the national flower of India, has cultural heritage and is considered very auspicious. In Sanskrit (an ancient Indian language) it’s called “Nalini,” which means scared and mystic. The lotus flower symbolizes detachment from the surroundings, be it good or bad.

Jasmine (Jasminum grandiflorum) in Sanskrit is called “Malti,” which means royal or moonlight, is one of the most used flowers in India; it’s used primarily by women to adorn their hair and also used in worship.

A shopkeeper selling flowers in Ajmer on March 8, 2013.

According to an Indian tradition, flowers to be gifted or offered, shouldn’t be smelled. Flower garlands are used as religious offerings, for home decorations, and festivities. In weddings garlands are exchanged of between bride and groom as a ritual.

An Indian bride has her face covered with flower garlands
during a mass wedding ceremony in Ahmedabad on February 22, 2013.

Flowers are also used for making natural perfumes called “Attars.” In the art of perfumery, sandalwood oil is used as a base or fixative, which holds essence of the flower. It’s said like a fine wine, true sandalwood-based attar actually improves with age.

One can only marvel at the way flowers have influenced Indian culture. The poem “Flower School” by the famous Indian poet and noble laureate, Rabindranath Tagore, shows the place flowers have in the Indian poetry and also depicts the oneness of the culture with nature, specifically flowers. 

Indian flower farmers sort out petals at a farm in Kannauj in the northern state of Kanpur. In the remote town of Kannauj, the perfume capital of India, traditional workers are struggling to keep their craft alive in the face of fierce competition from modern fragrance makers.

“The Flower School”

When storm-clouds rumble in the sky and June showers come down.

The moist east wind comes marching over the heath 

to blow its bagpipes among the bamboos.

Then crowds of flowers come out of a sudden, 

from nobody knows where, 

and dance upon the grass in wild glee.

Mother, I really think the flowers go to school underground.

They do their lessons with doors shut, 

and if they want to come out to play before it is time, 

their master makes them stand in a corner.

When the rain come they have their holidays.

Branches clash together in the forest, and the leaves rustle

in the wild wind, the thunder-clouds clap their giant hands 

and the flower children rush out

 in dresses of pink and yellow and white.

Do you know, mother, their home is in the sky, 

where the stars are.

Haven’t you see how eager they are to get there?

 Don’t you know why they are in such a hurry?

Of course, I can guess to whom they raise their arms; 

they have their mother as I have my own. 

Indian flowers symbolize country’s unity in diversity, liveliness, and generosity, providing it a rich cultural fragrance and values.

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Sheetal Gandhi celebrates India’s culture on Bryn Mawr stage

Sheetal Gandhi, a 21st century California woman of Indian heritage, explores what that means in her one-woman show, “Bahu-Beti-Biwi” (“Daughter-in-law, Daughter, Wife”). She’ll take the stage at Bryn Mawr College on Friday, March 22.

It’s the culminating performance of the school’s 2012-2013 Performing Arts Series, which aims to create an environment in which the value of the arts is recognized and celebrated.

Director, choreographer and performer Gandhi will focus on how her ethnicity and the traditions of her ancestors inspire and shape her life.

“The performance is not traditional, but draws on the traditional,” she said. “I inhabit various characters … in a journey across time and space. There’s a feeling of the essence of one person, in different times, spaces, generations, environments, through the whole thing. It’s not a linear journey.”

Her contemporary and traditional movements, music, costumes and props honor and interpret characters inspired by women from her life. Throughout the show, audiences experience scenes of freedom and compromise, desire and longing, duty and love, according to a press release. In her own words from her website (sheetalgandhi.com), her work “references the past, grounds itself in the present, but comments on the possibilities of the future.”

Gandhi has always loved being onstage. She started playing piano as a kid and then took dance classes. She said she’s always enjoyed acting and imitating people, too. Performing is about expressing herself and that’s what’s most important, she said. Being able to combine these forms of expression keeps her from feeling “split.”

Gandhi, who has worked as a creator and performer in Cirque du Soleil’s “Dralion” and played a leading role in the Broadway production of “Bombay Dreams,” among other endeavors, has performed “Bahu-Beti-Biwi” around the globe.

The college is excited she’s bringing her performance to their stage.

“Gandhi is a mesmerizing performer who both entertains and addresses challenging issues,” said Lisa Kraus, coordinator of the arts series.

Gandhi said she approaches difficult and heavy subjects, often with humor.

“It’s a survival method for people. The North Indian women’s songs make light and jest of the tragedies,” she said. “At times, I draw out the tragedy from the jest and often reveal humor from the tragedy. It creates a lovely surprise for the audience.”

One character in the middle of the piece is an old Indian woman talking with her American-born granddaughter. She bemoans the fact that the young woman wants to find her own husband. The grandmother says she can’t imagine what modern women go through — falling in love, falling out of love. She suggests just having an arranged marriage, but that involves no choice and no way out.

At that point, the woman starts to hiccup, which, in Indian culture, means someone far away is thinking of you. The woman then remembers a boy she loved when she was young — one her parents wouldn’t let her marry.

“It wasn’t a right match (they said). And that’s very normal. It’s normal for people to marry someone they don’t love,” Gandhi said. “Love comes after marriage.”

So the woman, experiencing sentimental memories and the feelings that go with them, starts to sing and transforms into a young woman.

“It’s showing two sides of the same person. We are complex,” Gandhi said. “And I’m fascinated with the bittersweetness of life.” There’s nothing bitter about getting onstage. Gandhi’s happiest when sharing her gifts. And performing her show at a contemporary dance festival in India in 2012 was a dream come true. She said she was the most traditional of the contemporary dancers and was well-received.

“The seeds emerged out of my multiple visits to India throughout my childhood,” she wrote on her Facebook page. “Now I’ve performed the full piece in Delhi, India. I’ve come full-circle.”

And now, Gandhi will take the stage at Bryn Mawr. Her show, which she said is for all ages, focuses on expressing herself, honoring her heritage, and finding and showing our shared humanity.

“All the different people all over the world (are) more similar than different,” she wrote on Facebook. “ so amazing to have opportunities to cross and connect. I am a soul that loves other souls.”

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Khalsa Heritage Centre, Purjab, India - A Mammoth Museum

Khalsa Heritage Centre, Anandpur Sahib, Punjab, India. Gallery buildings and reflecting ponds.

The Virasat-e-Khalsa Heritage Centre, a mammoth museum chronicling Sikh history was recently inaugurated in the land of Sikh warriors, Anandpur Sahib by Chief Minister of Punjab in the presence of Boston-based designer of the complex, Moshe Safdie, who is known for creating the famous Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem. 

 View of entrance.

The classy complex, which is expected to draw international attention, has come up in rugged surroundings but with water bodies of extraordinary beauty, and reflect the surrounding hillocks, lend the complex an astonishing degree of serenity. Sprawl over 65-acre, the complex is deeply rooted in its surrounding landscape and resonating with regional architecture, seemingly rises from nearby sand cliffs. Clad with local sandstone and evoking the fortress cities of Rajasthan, Gwalior and Punjab, the Centre acknowledges the Sikhs' history as celebrated warriors. The upwardly curving roofs of the museum's tower-like galleries are covered in stainless steel, designed in counterpoint to the rich tradition of gold domes that crown sacred Sikh buildings as the Golden Temple in Amritsar. The project is said to be the largest contemporary heritage complex ever conceived in India and provides a delightful audio-visual experience unlike anything one has seen in Indian museums.

Khalsa Heritage Centre. Site Plan.

View of gallery buildings.

The museum campus is composed of two functionally integrated sets of buildings. The western complex, forming a gateway to Anandpur Sahib, houses exhibition galleries; a two-level library centered around a grand reading room overlooks water garden; a facility for storing rare archival materials and a 400-seat auditorium. A 540-foot bridge from the western complex crossed a seven-acre network of reflecting pools, providing access to the eastern complex which houses permanent exhibitions presenting Sikh history, religion, and culture. 

Arranged in group of five, the galleries reference the five virtues of Sikh religion. The symbolic themes of earth and sky, mass and lightness and depth and ascension are represented by the museum's sandstone towers and reflective silver roofs and are further echoed inside the museum's galleries. 

Khalsa Heritage Centre.  View from Anandpur Sahib.

The delightful experience begins at the Boat-shaped building 'Punj Paani' - the first gallery depicting the past and the present of Punjab, as seen in its villages and towns. The inside walls of the towering boat-shaped building have multiple colourful panels to create a three-dimensional effect, every inch hand-painted to perfection. The building also houses the largest hand-painted mural in the world, which uses a staggering 24,000 metres of fibre optics to illuminate it to depict Diwali. 

Khalsa Heritage Centre. Bridge and Reflecting Ponds.

As one will walk through the ramp encircling 'Punj Paani, he will find that with the help of sound, music and other visual manipulations, the entire cycle of a year is recreated within a span of just eight minutes. The vibrant colors then give way to a subdued, star studded night with a tower of light at the centre, which symbolizes the emergence of 'Ek Onkar', illuminated, pure and eternal. From here begins the journey of the evolution of the Panth with the birth of Guru Nanak Dev. The experience is enriched by the auto-trigger audio guides, available in English, Hindi and Punjabi. 'Auto-trigger' implies that as you walk into any gallery and the audio guide plays content specific to the area. In the 'Five Crescent Building', the tone and tenor of the colors and sound becomes more militant and depict the struggle and sacrifices made by the last five Gurus to establish the Panth. 

The 15 galleries which are completed so far out of 25, cover an area of 650,000 square feet. Ten more will be completed subsequently. The second phase of the complex, for which work is still going on, is expected to show the growth of Khalsa over the last 300 years, culminating in the partition of Punjab. 

Safdie and his associate architect, Ashok Dhawan of New Delhi, worked closely with the exhibition designer, Amardeep Belh of Design Habit in New Delhi, to achieve a successful integration of architecture and display. According to the interior designer of the building, Mr. Amardeep Behl, "It took us almost three and half years to complete the interiors which include paintings, murals and around 400 artist were involved in it including designers."

Moshe Safdie was commissioned to design the Khalsa Heritage Centre in 1997, after the chief minister of the Punjab visited the Children's Holocaust Memorial at Yad Vashem, the Safdie-designed Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. As the Centre evolved, Safdie was able to renew a long, close relationship with India that had begun in the 1960s with his work on Louis Kahn's Indian Institute of Management school at Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

Rear View of the Complex

There are two complexes at each side of a ravine, connected by a ceremonial bridge:

The smaller, western complex includes an entrance plazza, an auditorium with 400 seating-capacity, two-story research and reference library and changing exhibition galleries.

The eastern complex contains a round memorial building as well as extensive, permanent exhibition space, consisting of two clusters of galleries that try to evoke the fortress architecture of the region (most evident in a nearby Gurudwara) and form a dramatic silhouette against the surrounding cliff terrain. The gathering of the galleries in groups of five reflects the Five Virtues, a central tenet of Sikhism.

The buildings are constructed of poured-in-place concrete; some beams and columns remain exposed, though a great deal of the structures will be clad in a local honey-colored stone. The rooftops are stainless steel-clad and exhibit a double curvature: they gather and reflect the sky while a series of dams in the ravine create pools that reflect the entire complex at night.

The building was designed by Moshe Safdie and Associates.

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Antique auction at Jodhpur's Umed Bhavan Palace attracts India's super rich

Guests lose themselves in the grandeur of the exquisite collectibles on display during the One World Jodhpur Retreat

It was set to be a marvelous weekend from the start. A rush of excitement has taken over Blue City ever since the Jodhpur One World Retreat kick-started on Friday - 8th March 2013. 

The distinguished invitees have turned up in full force to partake in the glamorous soiree. Saturday, Day Two of the grand event, started with mesmerising flute music and yoga sessions for all the guests at their respective hotels. 

When the clock struck 11, a detailed discussion on the human brain and mind, moderated by Buddhist scholar and practitioner Shantum Seth, began at the Bal Samand Lake Palace.

Continuing with the spiritual temper of the day, the blessings of Swami Chidanand Saraswati, president of the Parmath Niketan Ashram, Rishikesh, were invoked. 

Conversations on improving outcomes of head injuries, music and the mind, and yoga followed. As dusk set in, the affair gained pace as the auction kicked off at the Zenana Durbar of the Umaid Bhawan Palace. 

A magnificent collection of 20th century artifacts, sourced from all over the country by auction house Bid and Hammer, were put up for auction. There was exceptional enthusiasm for the antique jewels and miniature Basohli paintings.

The Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson with Hemlata Raje at an event during the Retreat

As dusk set in, the affair gained pace as the auction kicked off at the Zenana Durbar of the Umaid Bhawan Palace. A magnificent collection of 20th century artefacts, sourced from all over the country by auction house Bid & Hammer, were put up for auction.

There was exceptional enthusiasm for the antique jewels and miniature Basohli paintings. The sale lived up to its promise of thrill and glamour a la Hollywood movies. Even before the auction could see the first blow of the hammer, there arose a controversy.

Rumour spread that Maharaja Gaj Singh II - who has organised the gala to collect funds for his Indian Head Injury Foundation (IHIF) - was selling off artefacts and property belonging to the palace.

Refuting the buzz, the Maharaja said, "I have gladly donated a few cutlery items and photographs to IHIF which in turn has given these to Bid & Hammer. There are no items from my personal or the palace collection that I am disposing of, neither any property or artefacts or jewellery belonging to the palace. The auction is taking place in consonance and compliance of all laws."

An 8-panel glass-painted jazz screen by artist Etienne Drian is said to have fetched Rs 6 crore

All good things must come to an end, but the Maharaja has plans for a grand finale. Sunday will begin with another rejuvenating yoga class, followed immediately by a sumptuous brunch hosted by Gaj Singh II in his private gardens for all the guests.

Packing off after the imperial gala, visitors will begin flying out of Jodhpur after noon.

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A widow’s refuge offers solace to the sorrowful

- Adnan Abidi from Vrindavan, India

The sound of applause echoing in the dingy shelter forced a smile on the face of Tulshi Dasi. An expression she had almost forgotten since her world turned white. The reason: she could now write and had just finished writing the English alphabet on a blackboard. And all this at the age of 70! She had never felt this empowered and never knew that learning was so much fun. As Dasi wrote a new chapter in her life in the grimy shelter in Vrindavan, that she shares with many women like her, her companions, around 50 odd widows applauded her progress.

A widow poses for a picture inside her room at the Meera Sahavagini ashram in the pilgrimage town of Vrindavan in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh March 6, 2013. Hundreds of widows who have been abandoned by their families live in the shelter, or ashram, run by the NGO Sulabh International. In India, when a man dies, traditionally his widow is expected to renounce all earthly pleasures, such as wearing colourful clothes or looking attractive, and she can face severe social discrimination. Sulabh International works to provide abandoned widows with education, healthcare and vocational skills. Issues surrounding the treatment of women are receiving special attention on March 8, which marks International Women's Day.

Widows, either abandoned by their family members or shunned by society, find their life's last refuge in various government run shelters such as this one. They come here from all across the country, but mostly from Bengal, where they survive by begging and chanting hymns in temples.

A widow poses at the entrance of a staircase at the Meera Sahavagini ashram in the pilgrimage town of Vrindavan in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh March 6, 2013. 

Hindu widows are branded as inauspicious by society and are forbidden to wear any form of color or be a part of any kind of celebrations like marriage and childbirth, hence most find respite amid their own kind, and seek solace in sorrow. As I spent my day with them I realized that learning was the best part of their day. Each of them would get up early, bathe and offer prayers together in the hall before resuming their daily chores of making prayer beads and flower garlands.

A widow prepares food outside her room at the Meera Sahavagini ashram in the pilgrimage town of Vrindavan in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh March 6, 2013. 

While shooting I tried to strike up a conversation with some of them, to get the best possible moment or an expression to make a good picture, but for most of them Hindi, a prominent North Indian language, was quite alien as most spoke and understood Bengali. Some did smile at being photographed but seemed evidently forced, as after a moment's smile their face resumed the monotonous expression that seems to have stayed on since they were widowed.

A widow prepares food outside her room at the Meera Sahavagini ashram in the pilgrimage town of Vrindavan in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh March 6, 2013. 

En-route to the ashram or the shelter I was briefed by an NGO representative that there may be a picture possibility when a family member visited the widows, though I didn’t encounter such an event during my stay. I have a feeling that the smile I witnessed during their learning class would remain unmatched even if the relatives were to visit. An NGO has come forward to pay these widows a monthly allowance of 2000 rupees ($3.65) with the aim to give them a respectful life by offering them facilities like healthcare, education and some vocational work to keep them occupied and keep their minds off the sorrow that they have had gone through.

Widows eat inside their room at the Meera Sahavagini ashram in the pilgrimage town of Vrindavan in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh March 6, 2013. 

Stepping out of the hall where they studied and did vocational activities, I ventured into their living area. As I was photographing two widows I experienced the absence of color from their lives. I noticed my orange and white shirt reflected starkly on a mirror kept on their wall whitewashed with some white sarees drying in a corner.

Widows attend a class at the Meera Sahavagini ashram in the pilgrimage town of Vrindavan in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh March 6, 2013. 

Acknowledging their loss in life, what I noticed during my visit was far better than what I had heard about and seen on a visit to Vrindavan previously. I noticed that they are living a far more dignified life than one where they had to beg. I can’t judge the amount of change government and NGO intervention has brought into their lives but I can vouch that the knowledge of the alphabet did bring a smile to their faces.

Widows attend a class to make incense sticks at the Meera Sahavagini ashram in the pilgrimage town of Vrindavan in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh March 6, 2013. 

All Photographs by Adnan Abidi

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Culture of India - a way of Life

The Jataka tales from Ajanta Caves.

The culture of India refers to the way of life of the people of India. India's languages, religions, dance, music, architecture, food, and customs differ from place to place within the country. The Indian culture, often labelled as an amalgamation of several cultures, spans across the Indian subcontinent and includes traditions that are several millennia old. Many elements of India's diverse cultures, such as Indian religions, yoga, and Indian cuisine, have had a profound impact across the world.

Rigveda (padapatha) manuscript

There are two major subcultural variations within India, which evolved mainly by contact with Muslim powers: North Indian States were influenced by the medieval Indo-Persian culture, exemplified by its musical, culinary and architectural designs such as the Hindustani classical music and the Taj Mahal, while the culture of South India developed largely independent of foreign influences — three of the four languages classified as classical languages of India belong to the Dravidian language family, namely Kannada, Tamil and Telugu.

India's diversity has inspired many writers to pen their perceptions of the country's culture. These writings paint a complex and often conflicting picture of the culture of India.

According to industry consultant Eugene M. Makar, for example, traditional Indian culture is defined by a relatively strict social hierarchy. He also mentions that from an early age, children are reminded of their roles and places in society.This is reinforced, Makar notes, by the way many believe gods and spirits have an integral and functional role in determining their life. Several differences such as religion divide the culture. However, a far more powerful division is the traditional Hindu bifurcation into non-polluting and polluting occupations. Strict social taboos have governed these groups for thousands of years, claims Makar. In recent years, particularly in cities, some of these lines have blurred and sometimes even disappeared. He writes important family relations extend as far as gotra, the mainly patrilinear lineage or clan assigned to a Hindu at birth. In rural areas & sometimes in urban areas as well, it is common that three or four generations of the family live under the same roof. The patriarch often resolves family issues.

Others have a different perception of Indian culture. According to an interview with C.K. Prahalad by Des Dearlove, author of many best selling business books, modern India is a country of very diverse cultures with many languages, religions and traditions. Children begin by coping and learning to accept and assimilate in this diversity. Prahalad - who was born in India and grew up there - claimed, in the interview, that Indians, like everyone else in the world, want to be treated as unique, as individuals, want to express themselves and seek innovation. In another report, Nancy Lockwood of Society for Human Resource Management, the world's largest human resources association with members in 140 countries, writes that in the past two decades or so, social change in India is in dramatic contrast to the expectations from traditional Indian culture. These changes have led to Indian families giving education opportunities to girls, accepting women working outside home, pursuing a career, and opening the possibility for women to attain managerial roles in corporate India. Lockwood claims that change is slow, yet the scale of cultural change can be sensed from the fact that of India's 397 million workers, 124 million are now women. The issues in India with women empowerment are similar to those elsewhere in the worl^d

According to Amartya Sen, the India born Nobel Laureate in Economics, the culture of modern India is a complex blend of its historical traditions, influences from the effects of colonialism over centuries and current Western culture - both collaterally and dialectically. Sen observes that external images of India in the West often tend to emphasize the difference - real or imagined - between India and the West. There is a considerable inclination in the Western countries to distance and highlight the differences in Indian culture from the mainstream of Western traditions, rather than discover and show similarities. Western writers and media usually misses, in important ways, crucial aspects of Indian culture and traditions. The deep-seated heterogeneity of Indian traditions, in different parts of India, is neglected in these homogenized description of India. The perceptions of Indian culture, by those who weren't born and raised in India, tend to be one of at least three categories, writes Sen:

• Exoticist approach: it concentrates on the wondrous aspects of the culture of India. The focus of this approach of understanding Indian culture is to present the different, the strange and as Hegel put it, "a country that has existed for millennia in the imaginations of the Europeans."
• Magisterial approach: it assumes a sense of superiority and guardianship necessary to deal with India, a country that James Mill's imperialist history thought of as grotesquely primitive culture. While great many British observers did not agree with such views of India, and some non-British ones did, it is an approach that contributes to some confusion about the culture of India.
• Curatorial approach: it attempts to observe, classify and record the diversity of Indian culture in different parts of India. The curators do not look only for the strange, are not weighed by political priorities, and tend to be more free from stereotypes. The curatorial approach, nevertheless, have an inclination to see Indian culture as more special and extraordinarily interesting than it actually may be.

The curatorial approach, one inspired by systematic curiosity for the cultural diversity of India within India, is mostly absent.

Susan Bayly, in her book, observes that there is considerable dispute in India and Orientalist scholars on perceived Indian culture. She acknowledges that many dispute claims of pervasiveness of caste and strict social hierarchy in modern India. Bayly notes that much of the Indian subcontinent was populated by people for whom the formal distinctions of caste and strict social hierarchies were of only limited importance in their lifestyles.

According to Rosser, an American sociologist, Americans of South Asian origins feel the Western perception of the culture of India has numerous stereotypes. Rosser notes that the discourse in much of the United States about the culture of India is rarely devoted to independent India. People quickly make sweeping and flawed metaphysical assumptions about its religion and culture, but are far more circumspect when evaluating civil society and political culture in modern India. It is as if the value of South Asia resides only in its ancient contributions to human knowledge whereas its pathetic attempts to modernize or develop are to be winked at and patronized. Rosser conducted numerous interviews and summarized the comments. The study reports a stark contrast between Western perceptions of the culture of India, versus the direct experience of the interviewed people.

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