Sunil Sethi: A face-off among famous faces

AL FRESCO

Reporters recently returning from Lhasa say there are more posters of Aishwarya to be seen in the lower reaches of the Potala Palace than of the Dalai Lama, Holder of the White Lotus, whose images are banned in Tibet.

And now, the reigning Indian beauty is set for her big gamble: a huge international production based on the Jane Austen classic, in which the Simpering Shires will break into bhangra in the City of the Golden Temple. Gurinder Chadha's Bride and Prejudice is supposed to be Bollywood's big assault on Hollywood.

But the first reports of the film are discouraging, and not helped by Miss Rai's inane tribute""delivered in a Hollywood accent the other day""congratulating Miss Austen "for the great job she did on the book".

There, in a nutshell, is a picture of India's attempts at globalisation and its fallout by way of cultural dissonance and disconnections. Curiously, a section of the UNDP's Human Development Report released earlier this month touches on the same subject in its varied implications. It takes a penetrating look at the chasms that lurk beneath the forging of multi-cultural identities.

One good example is the world trade in cultural goods""cinema, photography, radio and television, printed matter, literature, and visual arts.

Such commerce quadrupled from $95 billion in 1980 to more than $380 billion in 1998; its distribution is far from equitable. About four-fifths of these flows, the report says, originate only in 13 countries of the world. India is lucky to be among them, principally because of Bollywood's staggering output.

In sheer audience numbers, Bollywood films occupy the front row""they are seen by 3.6 billion people, as compared to Hollywood productions, which are seen by 2.6 billion people around the world. But that's not the whole story.

More people may flock to Indian films but they are not rich enough; Bollywood's sphere of worldly influence is limited, concentrated mainly among diaspora audiences, whereas US productions regularly account for about 85 per cent of film audiences worldwide in the international film industry.

India, China, and the Philippines may produce more films, but it is Hollywood that gobbles up most of the revenue""35 per cent of the 3,000 films produced annually worldwide. Gurinder Chadha and Aishwarya Rai's crossover to create a multi-cultural comedy of manners on a big scale is a heroic leap but it is fraught with risk. Asked shortly before his death to tender an opinion on fusion music, the great tabla maestro Ustad Allarakha Khan muttered: "I think they mean confusion."

The clash of civilisations is visible around us and the cultural cacophony only too audible. The gripping saga of Priyamvada Birla's Rs 5,000-crore bequest to Rajendra Lodha, for instance, is not merely a test of wills between an outsider and the extended family. Culturally speaking, it's part of the tug-of-war between the lalaji style of running businesses and MNC-style enterprises.

The M P Birla estate may be worth a lot, but most of his companies are in declining health. And for all their attempts to shed their old ways, the Birlas come off a bit like the Romanovs""they forget nothing and they learn nothing.

Curiouser still is the spectacle, next door in Pakistan, of MNC style in full cry. Shaukat Aziz, a former Citibank honcho, falling headlong into the arms of the sub-continent's military dictator, is about to be anointed Prime Minister after his election to the National Assembly next month.

Culturally speaking, what could be a greater disaster than a professional banker and soldier in cahoots over the future of a nation? It sounds like a recipe more fantastic than Gabriel Garcia Marquez could conjure. And a nation, moreover, that the UNDP report records as being among the 35 worst-off countries in the world in terms of human development indices.

Pakistan has been left behind by all its sub-continental neighbours, including Bangladesh, the acknowledged basket case of a decade ago. Indeed, judging by his evasions and ellipses in recent interviews, Shaukat Aziz is Pakistan's poster boy, the political equivalent of Aishwarya Rai.

One moral of the clash of cultures must be self-evident: Put not your faith in pretty faces, for they cannot change the course of the world.