By T. Scott Smith
When I came to Carlisle in 1969 there was a Chinese restaurant in Harrisburg. Now Carlisle is home to one Thai, two Mexican and four Chinese establishments plus a New Age supermarket offering sushi and a Chinese kitchen. I also can now sample Italian regional and French California cuisines as well as steak from New Zealand. Despite the noticeable lack of South Asian food, we've done a credible job of globalizing our taste buds here in central Pennsylvania.
We should be as anxious to venture into the global world of public culture, especially the realm of film, as we are to enter our favorite ethnic restaurant. India alone produces roughly 1,000 feature films a year that have a wide audience in Asia and Africa--that two-thirds majority of the world--not to mention a growing presence in the minority of the world that we inhabit.
Americans are as apt to assume our cultural domination as we are to expect everyone in the countries in which we travel to speak ENGLISH. "After all, if they want our tourist dollars, they ought to speak our language ..." so it goes. But there is a big world out there. The fact that the majority of the world's population lives in Asia and Africa should lead us to pause and ponder our future, as if current world events aren't enough. What is on the mind of everyman/everywoman in the world? How can we find out?
I posit (not so originally) that the 19th century was the European Century, the 20th the American and that the 21st will be the Century of Asia. Really, the argument works better if we split the centuries mid point and if we flex the notion of century and off-center it thus: 1815-1945=Century of European Imperialism, 1945-2???=Century of American Domination, 2???=Century of Asian Supremacy.
The influence of Asia may be as subtle as Nicole Kidman redancing an Urmila piece in Moulin Rouge or as overt as Andrew Lloyd Weber's coming West End production of Bombay Dreams. I cannot wait! Apollo Victoria Theatre in London where I have seen Starlight Express, not to mention The Sound of Music, now is the home to an A.R. Rahman musical. A.R. who, you ask? Let Lloyd Weber answer: "This composer is writing, in my opinion, what Paul McCartney did at his peak. The melodies are sensational, but they are exotic. They couldn't have been written by a Westerner. It's got an Indian twist to it." Most likely you've never heard of him. But besides musical novelty, why else should one be interested in subtitled films?
To get to the point, the answer to the question of what the rest of the world thinks about may be placed in perspective by examining a couple of issues from recent Hindi cinema. I am continually struck by being in the USA, a country where the founding documents proclaim the individual's right to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," while leaders run on family-values platforms. To boldly contrast, India is a land where people are born with obligations and where the fundamental unit of society is the molecular family as opposed to the atomic individual or maybe even the nuclear family. Many Indian film plots hinge upon the tension between individual rights and family duties.
Let me illustrate this by quoting a leading Indian director, Subhash Ghai, who says in reference to his most recent film, "Yaadein is all about being in love with your family ... just by adding the element of friendship." Today's performance tradition in India also taglines films, as the closing credits roll, in letters larger than life. From two current films: "Never try a father's patience" and in a 2002 blockbuster: "It's all about loving your parents." The latter contrasts with the noticeable plethora of dysfunctional family themes in Hollywood and the artistic relegation of the American family to that deepest of hells, the TV sitcom.
And now to the bitter dessert. Last spring, after viewing three films about suicidal terrorists in my Contemporary Films of India course, several students complained about the depressing nature of pondering how the rest of the world suffered from terrorism--a problem unknown here in America. I wish I hadn't been so prophetic with my answer, which began: "Within your lifetime, terrorism, even in America ..." For those whose idea of India has been shaped by Attenborough's Gandhi or by any number of peace-preaching gurus, the existence of more than 118 separate, known terrorist groups in the extreme northwestern and northeastern states of India alone is eye-opening to say the least. But wait, there's more.
Even casually viewing a few films from India will demonstrate ambivalence in them about the implications of the Western economic pursuit of happiness at the expense of individual integrity and, yes, family values. Western threats to Indian well-being result not just from imported RDX explosives used to assassinate a prime minister but also from the desires for a variety of sensual pleasures (as glamourized in Hollywood movies) that threaten the stability of the Indian extended family.
And nuclear and atomic issues go well beyond the family. Perhaps those interested in issues of pacifism should be seeing Hey Ram and Ashoka. As well, screening films such as Border, Refugee and Mission Kashmir would be a good background for those trying to negotiate a peaceful resolution of the current India-Pakistan hostilities. Why should we in the U.S. concern ourselves with India's problems? Because of comments like this one by India's army chief during a Jan. 11 news conference: "If we have to go to war, then jolly good." The threatened nuclear exchange across the border would make Sept. 11 sound like a popgun.