India: A Novela Where Cultural Differences Become Salient

Photo Credit: Trey Ratcliff, Stuck in Customs (Flickr)

It’s almost been a week since India’s premiere on TeleFutura and I must admit that I've been glued to the television screen every single episode. Although last night’s episode focused primarily on developing secondary characters, a lot of interesting things happened:

Raj & Duda

Last night we saw cultural differences between Raj and Duda become more salient. If you haven’t been following, Raj recently broke up with Duda because his family is against him marrying a non-Indian girl (a “firangi”). Upset that Raj ended the relationship so abruptly, the only explanation Duda can come up with is that Raj is in love with another woman. As they converse about their break-up, she insists on finding out who this imaginary woman is and refuses to understand that he left her because he doesn’t want to be ex-communicated from his family, community and caste.

As I watched this scene, I couldn’t help but to think about the cultural differences driving this break-up. Raj, coming from a collectivist society where relationships—to one’s family, to one’s neighbors, to one’s caste—seems to be at the center of everything can’t get Duda to understand that it’s not a lack of love that’s standing between them but an entire community. Duda on the other hand, living in a western society, sees things from a more individualistic perspective. To her, the problem is all about them two and the choices that each of them makes. Although Brazilian society is not as individualistic as those of the United States or Western Europe, her cultural background doesn’t allow her to understand what it means to be excluded from his social circle and caste.

Bahuan & Shankar

We also saw Shankar (Bahuan’s adoptive father) become upset over Bahuan’s plans to leave India for the United States. In the past two episodes, Shankar has been acting a little bit more conservative than we might have expected. While in the first episode he talked about castes being man-made and not necessarily indicative of what a person should do, last night we found out that the reason he didn’t marry the love of his life is because of the restrictions imposed upon his (Brahman) caste. He also has refused to lie for Bahuan because, as a member of the priestly caste, he could never live with lying—no matter how benevolent the lie might be. While I don’t expect him to lie, I do hope we can get a little more clarity as to whether he’s for or against castes. If he doesn’t believe that castes should determine what a man can do, why does he follow the rules of conduct for his caste so strictly?

I guess we’ll have to keep on watching to see where the story takes us next. As we wait for tonight’s episode, let me just say that Duda is not going to stand idly by as Raj leaves for India...