What is the hymn for India?
When I was told that we’re supposed to maintain a culture journal as a part of an assignment, I was
confused as to what we’re supposed to write. In the class, we were later explained how culture forms
smaller details of our day-to-day conversations. It is omnipresent. I started listening, with particular
intent of finding cultural references in every conversation. This has now become a habit and since the
next theme for the journal was cultural representation in media, I was in for a treat.
Culture is portrayed and stereotyped in almost every form of media. More so now, since the advent of
meme culture. Over the past one week as I deliberately started looking for signs, and have been tracking
various forms of media but one particular thing that irks me the most is how our country is presented to
the world audience in the western media. Slumdog Millionaire limited itself by showing only the poor,
cringe-worthy conditions of living in the largest slum of Asia. The Darjeeling Limited started and ended
with the exotic-religious-spiritual side of the country. I keep on asking as to why never show more? Is
that there is to India?
One such example is Coldplay’s track: Hymn for the Weekend which released in 2015. The song has been
beautifully shot in Mumbai’s suburbs and a few shots in Varanasi. The video is a visual masterpiece for
someone like me, who constantly kept thinking how a particular shot was taken. However, when I
carefully watched it a subsequent number of times, I identified subtle hints of representation of India’s
culture, putting it out through the western perspective. We see that India is a colorful, mystical land
filled with sages and other mysterious people, but I refuse to sell that that’s about it. Why does the
western media, when it comes to our country, dive into visuals of sages, Holi, Diwali and a crowd
dancing in the middle of the road. Either all that or poverty. I was born in 1995, the video came in 2015.
In the past 22 years, I have been to a single screen theatre not more than thrice and never after 2005-
06. I have also hardly seen many snake charmers and almost never witnessed a group breaking into a
flash mob without a cause.
India is so much more and the west needs to understand the fact.
confused as to what we’re supposed to write. In the class, we were later explained how culture forms
smaller details of our day-to-day conversations. It is omnipresent. I started listening, with particular
intent of finding cultural references in every conversation. This has now become a habit and since the
next theme for the journal was cultural representation in media, I was in for a treat.
Culture is portrayed and stereotyped in almost every form of media. More so now, since the advent of
meme culture. Over the past one week as I deliberately started looking for signs, and have been tracking
various forms of media but one particular thing that irks me the most is how our country is presented to
the world audience in the western media. Slumdog Millionaire limited itself by showing only the poor,
cringe-worthy conditions of living in the largest slum of Asia. The Darjeeling Limited started and ended
with the exotic-religious-spiritual side of the country. I keep on asking as to why never show more? Is
that there is to India?
One such example is Coldplay’s track: Hymn for the Weekend which released in 2015. The song has been
beautifully shot in Mumbai’s suburbs and a few shots in Varanasi. The video is a visual masterpiece for
someone like me, who constantly kept thinking how a particular shot was taken. However, when I
carefully watched it a subsequent number of times, I identified subtle hints of representation of India’s
culture, putting it out through the western perspective. We see that India is a colorful, mystical land
filled with sages and other mysterious people, but I refuse to sell that that’s about it. Why does the
western media, when it comes to our country, dive into visuals of sages, Holi, Diwali and a crowd
dancing in the middle of the road. Either all that or poverty. I was born in 1995, the video came in 2015.
In the past 22 years, I have been to a single screen theatre not more than thrice and never after 2005-
06. I have also hardly seen many snake charmers and almost never witnessed a group breaking into a
flash mob without a cause.
India is so much more and the west needs to understand the fact.
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