Customer Reviews

Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I've come to this book a little late in its publishing history, and though the story is dated in terms of the mass of seekers who descended on India in the 60's and 70's westerners still seek the "wisdom of the east," and this Karma Cola has not lost its fizz. This is an angry, critical, sarcastic look at the rage for inner peace that has driven many seekers to psychiatric care, and many gurus to the bank. It's also a book filled with sadness as Gita Mehta both castigates and mourns - for her country's spiritual traditions stacked into the supermarket of the latest craze; and for the naive who believe hard won self-knowledge can be had with the touch of a teacher's hand - or a certain less visible appendage. It's finally true that if you can't find peace and love at home you probably won't find it in India either. Besides, six thousand years of spiritual and cultural history just shouldn't be toyed with.

I read this book during my research about spiritual tourism in India. Mehta is a professional writer from a secular elite Indian family. Taking place in the 1970s, the author snipes at both Western New Agers and Indian gurus. The former are criticized for their blind naivete in searching for enlightenment in India; the latter are denounced for their shrewd manipulation of wealthy foreigners, for their own material (sometimes sexual) benefit. I witnessed similar situations.

However, Mehta was way too selective in what stories to tell, and she says nothing positive at all about spiritual search. Underlying her sarcastic sense of humor, there lies a basic exclusionary assumption: Mehta is against the mixing of East and West. Her irritation with such experiments leads to often unfair commentary (such as, contrary to what she claims, Bhagwan Rajneesh was never seen as a god by his Western disciples). Mehta ends up throwing the baby out with the bath water.

For more descriptive, less judgmental accounts on Westerner travelers in India, the reader may try Cleo Odzer's auto-biographical "Goa Freaks", as well as Anthony D'Andrea's "Global Nomads", both of which examining the lifestyle of Westerners in Goa and Pune.

Karma Cola is definitely required reading for any westerner interested in things Indian or perhaps contemplating hitting the Dharma trail. Its recognition that misunderstanding goes both ways (eg. the anecdotes about gurus treatment of their Western students) is a good reality check for those of us whose spiritual search has taken us there. Ms Mehta gently reminds us that trying to absorb 5000 years of experience and living may take a little more than a few weeks of squat loos, and some Om Mani Padme Hums.

This is the first time I've ever read a book about the move of Eastern thought into the West which was not written by a Westerner. In some ways sobering, it is also witty and at times poignant.

By the way, an earlier reviewer lambasted the author for attributing the wrong language to clerks from Kerala. That mistake has been fixed in the edition I have (Minerva 1997 paperback).

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!

I loved this book the first time I read it years ago and enjoyed it even more the second time just lately. Ms. Mehta has some important, well educated, and deeply meaningful observations, and succeeds in presenting them with a great deal of wit and truth, and certainly with sensitivity and care toward the humanity involved. I did not find her writing to be mean or brutal in any way, as one reviewer said, and agree with the description on the book jacket itself, that she does not dip to those levels.
Ms. Mehta has a deep understanding of religion and culture, and the importance of knowing who you are and where you come from. She speaks of the confusion that ensues when people cross over and project their own meanings onto a culture of which they have very little true understanding, and she proceeds to explain the cultural differences that often cause confusion. She does it in a playful, satirical, and truthful way, and obviously with compassion for those who have become lost and whose lives have been destroyed.
Karma Cola is also very delightful to read and cleverly written, with some wonderful turns of phrase: the druggy Canadian described as "the chemically inspired dancer"; the warning that any Indian knows that "wheeling and dealing in Karma" is the most dangerous game of all. I found some small parts to be so intense, though, and so densely written that I almost gave up. I'm glad I didn't since the last few chapters were very beautiful and sensitively inspired, with a kind of poignancy and light shining through them.
Karma Cola, which is not very big, can be easily picked up at any place, and has chapters devoted to various types of experience. The stories are deeply human and offer rich variety. A lot of truth here and worth reading, with your feet on the ground and the desire to go on a journey to another country, with open mind. Mehta has BEAUTIFUL writing skills with lush descriptions and English that most of us have lost.
An important cultural book to remind us of our need to respect each other, and a caution about self-delusions and thinking we can own another culture.

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.

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

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An interesting look at what draws "spiritually starved" westerners to India and the consequential fallout. The author assumes a lot from the reader, particularly a working knowledge of spoken French and a rudimentary understanding of Hindu mythology. I'm lacking on both accounts so a lot of the book went over my head. One particular passage that sounds to me like it's important but I didn't fully appreciate, was the one where she is talking about the meaning of Karma and its perverted meaning by westerners. She relates the story, from the Bhagavad Gita, of Arjuna asking Krishna why he needs to go to war when understanding is superior to action in this case. Krishna answers that one is bound by action and that only by acting can one be free of the bondage of action. "That is exactly Karma" says the author. Now, here is where I have a problem, probably because of my limited understanding of Hinduism. *I* thought that Karma had to do with the totallity of ones actions and is *the* factor determining your next level of reincarnation. What the author seems to be implying is that Karma is, instead, the bondage of action, i.e. fate. That is, karma is the thing which predefines our actions rather than the measure of our actions. I am confused ..... On the other hand, her very pragmatic telling of the western approach to "instant nirvana" and the "distressed westerner" abdicating to the nearest Guru is actually quite refreshing and devoid of the mythical. :-) However,not quite so overtly there is the implication that the invasion of confused westerners has had a very destructive impact of the lives of ordinary Indians. When relating the story of the westerners who figured out a illegal route into India from Pakistan by taking advantage of the hospitality of Indians, the protaganist of the story is said to have said "One cannot make an omelet without breaking some eggs". The author continues by saying, "and from where I stand the ground is covered with broken egg shells". This I found quite sad .... the narcissistic westerners completely lacking in self-restraint and enough appreciation to understand that the path of "enlightenment" requires endurance and cannot be delivered at will. Mind you that's what Christianity preaches; just give your faith to god and you will be saved. Where is the prerequisite toil and self-sacrifice?

Humorous description of overseas visitors looking to India for spiritual enlightenment twenty years ago. I read this while visiting Pune, India, location of Bhagavan Shri Rajnish's ashram, which made it even more appropriate. Very entertaining & perceptive.

The book is not about India--it is about Western misperception of India.

This lady can write! She writes as good as V. S. Naipaul in describing the behaviour of higher primates and the phalanx of mediocrity we call `the masses'. Only yesterday, I watched a Martin Scorsese documentary on George Harrison, on BBC 2, and it showed an Indian guru telling his followers, one was George, to worship a particular colour, and that they were this hue or that shade of colour and if they accept his technocolour prognosis, then they will oscillate into the world spirit blah blah,, and also, they must also repeat a mantra a thousand times and, more impressively, he kept a straight face. Instead of rolling his eyeballs, George Harrison felt much better and so did the other devotees! This book is full of comedy scenes like the above, but told much better than my lazy effort. Karma Cola conveys human folly better than a dry psychology book, because Gita Mehta is not just a great writer, but she can turn the most tragic farce into a divine comedy.

Karma Cola is a real taste of India and silly people.