Jottings - Slice of life - 185 (Eat, pray and love - an escapist’s account of the East)

Jottings - Slice of life - 185 (Eat, pray and love - an escapist’s account of the East)
In 2006, Elizabeth Gilbert, a short story writer and novelist, wrote a memoir based on her travels in Italy and some parts of the East called “Eat, Pray and love”. Not surprisingly, the book was a phenomenal success. It stayed on the best sellers list – for Fiction or Non-fiction, I don’t know - for more than 200 weeks. Readers lapped up the book as new age revelation and guide on how to lead a “Balanced” life. Brad pitt decided to produce a movie based on the book, which was released in 2010, starring Julia Robert as the protagonist. An undistinguished performance by one of the finest actors of this age. All said and done, the book, the movie, and of course, Ms. Gilbert achieved international fame, and Ms. Gilbert in particular - was crowned as a paragon of spiritual quest in maddening modern world. I beg to differ.
The story of West’s fascination with the east goes back two hundred years, when French and British philologists, working in India and other parts of Asia, translated ancient texts to English and other European languages. The mystic Asia, as it was called, is a creation of these minds. For the Western world, largely governed by Monotheism with its rigid rules of God and life, the thought of Asia was more a fascination, a distraction, and a thing to be toyed with. The Upanishads, the Buddhists texts, the strange practices and life styles of its God men and shamans were often a mocking retreat for work wearied Europeans. If not anything else, they believed they found solace in the ascetic lifestyle of Indian religion. When they went back to their countries, they often wrote about their experience in a language and metaphor that suited western palette, and in many cases, the ideas they transmitted were twisted, esoteric and confused as the mind that experienced them. In 1978, Edward Said, an astute and objective thinker on the subject of Asia and western attitudes about Asia, wrote a seminal work titled “Orientalism”, in which he elaborated how the very word “Orient” is a distortion of the West to accommodate the East as a culture inferior, hence subservient. When the West talks about the East, it is always from a vantage point. When the west gets bored of itself, it turns to the east as panacea. When the West cannot find answers to questions of man, it digs into the timeless traditions of the East. But, it is always West first, and then East. Art, science, especially religion has suffered great deal in the hands of Europeans, who claim to have understood the East, and written about it in terms appropriate to the West.
Coming back to Ms. Gilbert’s book, it is no doubt as well written travelogue. A successful writer, ending her marriage, jumping into another relationship; dissatisfied again, and starts questioning the meaning of life and her own priorities in it. This is the premise for Ms. Gilbert to take off on her journey of self-discovery. She goes to Italy to enjoy its gastronomic delights, travels to India to the welcome of half-naked children clamoring at her car windows, to stay in an Ashram mumbling Mantras she doesn’t understand, and meeting a fellow American who has run away from his guilt. Both of them squeeze tears about their predicament and talk of focus and balance. In between their tear jerking stories, we read a description of India, it marriage customs, its rituals as though it were a strange phenomenon from a different world. Then she goes to Bali, to meet a local shaman, who in a previous journey there, had predicted she would be back. There she settles to a domestic rhythm, trying to strike a “balance” between living life to the full, and maintaining inner serenity. In between humidity and mosquito bites, she is attracted (not surprising!) to a good looking and successful businessman, sleeps with him, and wonders if this is the balance and love she was seeking. Finally, both of them cement their relationship after deliberating superficially on matters which need far more seriousness than what both are capable of. This then is the story captured in “Eat, pray and love”.
As a book, this is great beach read. It keeps one entertained, as a good writer can. And I have a feeling that Ms. Gilbert had an eye on possible adaption of the book for screen. Nothing wrong with it. But to rate the book as classic spiritual quest is overstretching a bit. There is nothing solid in its pages other than the anguish of someone who is attempting to run away from problems, and incidentally finds few sane people who bring her to earth. There is nothing here that Ms. Gilbert couldn’t have done in her hometown of New York, if she wanted to. Like many other Europeans, the fascination of the orient as an otherworldly place, fit for hardworking Europeans to bask in once in a while to rejuvenate their spirits – is the message which comes through loud and clear in her book.
I read “Eat, pray and Love” many years ago, and have been postponing watching the movie, which came out in 2010. Somehow, I wasn’t comfortable. Finally, I got around to watching the film yesterday. For the first time, I was witness to a lackluster performance by Julia Roberts. Usually, an immersive and committed actor, whatever be the role; in this movie, she simply wasn’t herself. Her gestures, dialogues and body language, and even her trade mark smile seemed contrived and overtly manufactured. The spontaneity which characterizes her acting was absent. And the screenplay rambled from New York, to Italy, to India and Bali without any semblance of coherence or purpose. For two hours and twenty minutes, all that we get to see if a fretting, sweating, fuming Ms. Gilbert (played by Julia obviously) uncomfortable everywhere and with everyone, with a look of suspicion, doubt and skepticism about everything. Either Julia wasn’t explained the role properly, or it was erratic nature of the character and book itself, we don’t know; but the fact is, midway through the movie, I felt like switching channels. Not even the statuesque figure of Julia Roberts, bathed in moonlight, sultry and sensuous could make me sit upright and watch. I did eventually finish the movie, as I normally do. And when I did, I felt it could have been done much better. I enjoyed the book much more than the movie. Ms. Gilberts writing was more evocative than Ryan Murphy’s directorial job.
The above essay is not to construed as my dislike towards travelogues of any kind. No! Not at all. I love them. Paul Theroux, Bill Bryson, Pico iyer, Jan Morrison, William Dalrymple and many others have mastered the art of writing about places with deep understanding, love and compassion. Their books make us think and reflect. They leave themselves behind, and step into the shoes of the culture they write about. They don’t bring a sense of moral or spiritual condescension to serve their own needs of a different culture. That is true meaning and art of Travel writing.
God bless…
Yours in mortality,
Bala

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