Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East

Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East "Karma Cola" is a strong, clear minded book and easy to read. A compilation of short amusing stories. What was the Westerners picture about India during the `60s and `70s ? What the real life was? And the philosophy of life? It is not stated, ...but it is there. A great book never to forget.

Before anyone even starts reading this book, think Dave Barry or PJ O'Rouke. The tone of this excellent piece of writing is both sharply insulting and brutally honest. Gita Mehta's book deals with the spiritual equivalent of some financial bubble. Disillusioned by their own culture, many Westerners flock to the East to seek enlightenment. Exotic India became their spiritual resort. Many hippies who flocked to India during the 60s and 70s abandoned their own identities and decided to adopt traditional Indian ways and beliefs which have already become unpopular with better educated Indians. Some of these hippies were genuinely seeking enlightenment. But they were parted with their money the moment they met some guru. Hence the title karma cola. Bizarre Indian beliefs and practices which are no longer acceptable to thinking Indians can be marketed to gullible foreigners. Educated and modern Indians want clean, urine-free streets and Coke. The jaded Westerners saw paradise in the dirty and chaotic India. Some were even willing to drink their guru's urine to seek enlightenment. Other hippies use enlightenment as an excuse of group sex and cheap, readily available drugs. Some wake up from their dreams and go home. Others need psychiatric help. There are numerous anecdotes with lots of well-researched background information. I'm not surprised if some people are offended by the author's somewhat pompous style and derisive remarks, but any rational human being should be able to see her point. Let's also not forget that the author is also trying to be funny. Video Night in Kathmandu: And Other Reports from the Not-So-Far East Silk Dreams, Troubled Road

Ms. Mehta is undoubtedly the best Indian author alive!I dothink the person who wrote the two sentence review probably does not know the meaning of 'trash'. 'Trash' is the heaps and heaps of books that get published every year in the US and somehow make it to the NY Times best seller list just beacuse Oprah thinks it is a good book or because it can be made into a tv movie. This book is a classic. Her use of the language is extra-ordinary. She touches on the most 'Indian' of values with a great sense of humor and almost trivialises them. She makes you really think about issues that matter and drove(still drive) thousands of Westerners to India. She has also done a great job of contrasting the Eastern and Western view of life, death and everything spiritual.

This book is a must-read for those travelers bound for India, especially for those seeking enlightenment. I lived in Varanasi for a year, and I met many travelers who believed that India was some sort of textbook Hindu holy land. These people lived in their ideas, creating a shield around them that kept real India out. Karma Cola helps show that India isn't a book-ideal made up of gurus and yogis performing divine-inspired miracles on every street corner. It shows that India, like any other country, is made up of people: helpful people and crooks, prude people and perverts. If you go to India, don't go there to experience some sort of religious miracle. Go there to see real India and meet real Indians, and read this book before you go!

In addition to what I've already written, let me also state that the book is also a criticism of Indians who capitalize on westerners' need for spiritual fulfillment. On a personal note about the Chapter in which the illegal route from Pakistan to India is discovered and the foreigners coming through that route by taking advantage of the hospitality of the villagers, this is not uncommon even today. I've had several people stay at my house who basically used me as a cheap place to stay and without even thanking me for cooking for them or providing them with a roof over their heads. The ability to take unashamedly persists. Hospitality is one of the greatest things about Indian/South Asian culture, but as Mehta demonstrates in the chapter, it also exposes Indians to a great deal of abuse as anyone who's had an ungracious house guest can testify.