Hong Kong is ‘one of the unhappiest places I have been to’: British writer Rajeev Balasubramanyam
- Racism and anger sent the novelist down a path of self-destruction before a 10-day silent retreat changed the course of his life
- His latest book, Professor Chandra Follows his Bliss, explores the nuances of New Age and the spiritual search for happiness
Early this year, British writer Rajeev Balasubramanyam was attending an Ayurveda retreat in the southern Indian state of Kerala. In an atmosphere of peace, healing and harmony, the 45-year-old overheard a group in conversation.
“There was a bunch of white women and men sitting around a table, talking about which yoga teachers they had been to, which yoga certificates they had got, where they had been. It sounded like big-game hunters in South Africa. It was …” Balasubramanyam reaches for the right word. “... creepy. It was only two or three levels down from sex tourists in Thailand.” He laughs. “Maybe don’t say that. But it was so acquisitive, so aggressive. Get the best you can, then take it back. Be a yoga teacher.”
For Balasubramanyam, the exchange was proof of a broader theory: that various spiritual disciplines, founded like yoga in the Eastern hemisphere, have been reinvented in the United States and repackaged under that broadest and vaguest of umbrellas, the “New Age”.
“It is very difficult to pin down,” he says. “The New Age is huge in Taiwan, Japan. In India, there are people, mainly the rich middle and upper classes, whose behaviour is more New Age than anything else. They may call themselves Hindus but it looks New Age to me.” He smiles. “Yoga has become more American than it is Indian. In fact, American yoga is now being sold back to India.”
Appropriation is when you simultaneously disrespect the place you have taken something from, are making it work for you and treating it like a fashion accessory
What disconcerted him in Kerala was partly political: it was a case of cultural appropriation.
“Appropriation is when you simultaneously disrespect the place you have taken something from, are making it work for you and treating it like a fashion accessory.”