\\\on psychedelia and america and india and hinduism and marijuana and hippie culture and stuff

i don't write about my dreams. i can't remember them. i can remember things that i think about right as i wake up but that's more like a to-do list than a dream per se. that said, i bet if i could remember my dreams, many of them would like the youtube below.

ganked from brown blog http://www.ultrabrown.com/ the following is "one of those rare duets between Lata Mangeshkar & Asha Bhonsle." From the 1973 film Jalte Badan:

There's hella weed and babes in this (by the way).

I spent a lot of time in college thinking about hippies and hinduism. spiritual tourism. george harrison and sitars. hindu iconic imagery. gurus. I think it was easier to appropriate indian and indigenous "american" culture because, for one, there was a lack of proximity. those dudes wouldn't see me rocking a kurta playing the sitar, they're all the way in india. it wasnt until 1965 that immigration allowed for indians to come here en masse. the first 10 years after 1965 about 90% of south asians coming here had phd's and masters degrees anyway. those dudes were dealing with beakers and algorithms, they wouldnt have given a shit if they saw a white dude with a tikka on his forehead. as for indigenous peoples, that whole genocide thing took care of them. at the same time you had panthers using violence to fight for equal rights and that's a clear no-go for hippies. so there was a clear influx of aspects of indian culture to america in the 1960s.

i never thought about, perhaps because it's not as widespread, aspects of american culture reaching india. specifically, i never thought about aspects of american hippie culture reaching india. the indian economy wasn't liberalized until 1991 so it was difficult for some of the more penetrable corporate, capitalist, guap-based thingz to get over there but music, film - cultural capital - moved in different ways. thus you have bands like savage encounter, from my previous post, being influenced more so by american garage bands than the british garage bands closer to home and already with a long history of influence in india. "influence" - that's it, nothing else. you also have visual aethetic influences like in the flier above that looks a little "psychedelic" to me. though sex and free love, women dressing provocatively, etc., have always been a part of hinduism they became more frowned upon as time went on and various conquerors came through india. perhaps on some protect-your-women shit. so in this instant, the way dude in the youtube up there takes shorty's shirt off isn't entirely some kind of western thing, but for the early 1970s its pretty bold.

Here's another example of HIPPIE culture pervading India in the 70s - Dum Maro Dum. Method Man sampled the guitar line of this song a couple of years back and a young Himanshu was like, wait, what the fuck? This is one of the prized jewels of our filmi song world and theres also hella weed and babes:

while im not forgiving hippies (including you, baba ram das racist - even if you did get a degree from wesleyan), i guess i'm glad shit was RELATIVELY a 2 way street cuz it made dum maro dum and joints like it possible.

also i wrote a 10 page paper on hippies and hinduism in college and the white teacher of the hindu course gave me a b- because i didnt talk enough about what the beatles and other appropriators had to say about their appropriation. are you serious? fuck that.