(5 of 11)
An Indian gentleman must be able to mix a very dry martini and in the next, very dry breath interpret the intricacies of a raga (a traditional Hindu melody) played on a sitar (like a guitar). His wife must not only be pretty, but be able to frug in a sari while folding her hands in the traditional greeting of namaste. His home must be decorated in the best Western decor, but carry at least one careful Indian touch—perhaps a Mogul miniature or a divan with a brightly colored, hand-loomed bolster from the Punjab. Clubs are one British social heritage that upper-class Indians will not revolt against, perhaps because they were excluded in the days of the British raj. Today high-caste Indians are just as cutting to members of lesser castes as the Englishman was to "wogs." Indian intellectual life has fared a bit better. Today, 45 million children are in school, v. 14 million at independence, and though the nation is still only 24% literate, it is reading more, and from broader sources. When a group of young Indians educated abroad get together, the talk is less likely to be nostalgia about Oxford, Cambridge or Edinburgh than about memories of Columbia, Michigan or U.C.L.A. Even Indians who do not go abroad are reading more about the West than they did before. Yesterday's intellectual demigods were G. B. Shaw, Aldous Huxley and T. S. Eliot; today's are Mary McCarthy and James Baldwin. Where once the coffee tables in Indian upper-class homes carried outdated copies of Punch and The Taller, they now carry fresh issues of American magazines. Indian art is selling better than ever—and although their work is often merely decorative, painters argue they are at least not bogged down in "stale experimentation."
The key to Indian art, letters and entertainments is escape. India today produces more movies than the U.S. Last year the nation's 4,500 movie theaters drew more than $100 million in box office receipts. Indians crowd the theaters, happily sitting through costume epics of three or more hours in length. Indian films are frankly escapist, and are divided into twelve categories ranging from "socials" that deal with city-country or caste themes to "myth-ologicals" that treat of Hindu legend in full color and dubbed voices (since the actors can't sing and the singers can't act). Sample lyric: "You are the Ganges of my heart, and I am the Jumna of your heart. Where, oh where, is the confluence?" During intermissions audiences devour fried field peas or sherbet, drink Cokes, then exit to buy copies of the movie's songs.