Indian Culture 2

INDIAN CULTURE ASSIGNMENT INDIAN CULTURE VS WESTERN CULTURE Submitted by ALWINA PANJWANI (MBA)

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Indian Culture vs Western Culture.

Cultures differ from one country to another and from one region to another. No

culture can be the same. This is also true with reference to Indian and western culture.

The Indian and western cultures differ in many aspects, such as, family relations,

marital life, food, clothing, social life, and religious life.

Indian culture is considered to be one of the oldest cultures whereas western culture is

considered to be modern

The East stands for spiritualism, the West for materialism, people of the East care

more for the development of the soul and for life after death than for the life in this

world and for physical comforts. The Westerners, one the other hand, are worldly

minded. They do not care for any future life, but want to enjoy their present life.

Hence, we find in the West a mad race for wealth, luxury and comfort. The East has

been the birthplace of the great religious teachers- Christ, Buddha, Gandhi, etc were

born, and it was here that they lived and preached. The west, on the other hand, is the

home of modern science and technology. Wonderful inventions have been made. Man

has acquired power over nature and he is now capable of performing miracles worthy

of the gods.

The Eastern and the Western Temperaments too, are poles apart. The Easterners are

tolerant and self-sacrificing. They are peace-loving. They do not like to cause the least

harm to others. They can bear the greatest hardship for others, and can sacrifice their

own good for the common cause. Their social life is peaceful. As far as possible they

like to settle their differences through mutual agreement and compromise. The

Westerners, one the other hand, are quarrelsome and aggressive. They cannot tolerate

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the views of others. They care more for their own good than for the good of others.

They are selfish and uncompromising.

No doubt, the Westerners have greater means of comfort and luxury, but all their

worldly wealth does not bring them any greater happiness. Their scientist have

manufactured Atom Bomb and the Hydrogen bomb with which they can destroy each

other. They live in constant fear of war and destruction. The satisfaction of one want

leads to another and so they are ever dissatisfied and miserable. The Easterners

believed in the limitation of wants and so they are happy in spite of their poverty.

They may not have the power over nature that the Westerners have but they have the

power of soul.

Until now the East and the West are kept apart. the The Westerner, with their feeling

of superiority, came to the East only to rule and to exploit. They looked down upon the

Easterners and considered them uncivilized barbarians. But now the conditions are fast

changing. The East is coming into it own. More and more Westerners are now

realizing that the Easterners-India, China and Japan-have brought about a change in

the attitude of the West towards the East. They are shedding their superiority and

meeting the East on terms of equality. The views of Kipling now longer holds true

today.

.

When talking of family life, there is a great bond between family members in the

Indian culture which cannot be seen in western culture. In Indian culture, one can

come across joint families. When talking of western culture, however, they have only

small family units.

Another difference that can be seen is that western culture is more open. Though social

mixing is very much common in western culture, these are not approved of in Indian

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culture. In dressing, the Indians dress in a very modest way and do not wear revealing

dresses. Wearing revealing dresses, however, is quite common in the western culture.

Religion and Spiritual Beliefs

The major religions in the Western cultures are Judaism and Christianity. These are

both monotheistic faiths, meaning they are religions where people acknowledge that

there is only one God. The Indian culture acknowledges the presence of several gods.

Another difference about the two religions is that Indians strictly follow their religious

teachings to avoid bringing shame and dishonor to them and their families. Westerners

are less strict with religious teachings.

Social Life

Westerners can freely interact with the opposite sex and even have intimate relations

with their friends. Such behavior is frowned upon in India. Whereas the concept of

arranged marriages is no longer practiced by Westerners, it is still practiced in India.

Some of these marriages have been planned since a person's birth. In India, people

undertake their jobs proudly regardless of the position. Showing up late for work,

though considered normal in Western cultures, is considered a sign of disrespect in

India.

Gender Equality

Gender equality is valued in Western culture but ignored in the Indian culture. Wives

are supposed to submit to their husbands' commands. If a marriage fails in India, in

most cases it is the wife who is blamed for not taking care of her husband properly.

This will bring shame to the woman's family.

Family Life



The family concept and its values is a key part of Indian culture. This is lacking in the

Western culture where the concept has been forgotten. Indians respect their parents

and elders regardless of how old they are. In the West, this is clearly lacking as many

children, mainly teenagers disrespect and rebel against their parents' wishes. A person

is more likely to worry about bringing honor and praise to their families more than a

Westerner would

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Difference between Indian culture and Western culture

Many debates surround the Indian and the western cultures. It is true that that

these cultures differ in many ways ranging from eating habits ,the way of

dressing ,marriage and even on socio –economic lives .

The western culture has gone through a series of transformations assuming

different philosophies and civilizations throughout the ages whereas the Indian

culture has been seen to be more conservative on their way of life.

Looking at a subject like the feeding habits you are suddenly met by a very

cutting difference between the two cultures where the Indians would prefer a

heavy lunch and not much fascinated with the idea of having dinner , on the

other hand their western counterparts go the opposite direction having a

superior appetite for dinner over lunch .

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The Indians are more keen with how they wear making sure they avoid exposure

of body but their brothers in the west are not bothered with whatever style you

use , in other words the western culture is quite liberal on dressing habits. Indians

are one group of people who value family a lot but as for the western world that

much brotherhood is not there .

Dating and marriage is another very controversial issue everywhere in the

world . In the west though the culture is considerably lenient but in the Indian

world it is one sphere of live where strict morals are observed . Multiple

affairs as well as nudity are highly discouraged in the Indian culture , while the

western culture remains silent about it .

Food :

Recently it’s being noticed that the influence of

the western culture in India is increasing to a

great extent. Not only people talk and dress like

the westerns but also have started eating like

them. The western fast food market has set up a

profitable base in India. Burgers, pizzas, etc.

have become household foods now. Today’s

generation is more inclined to eat these tasty

foods than the nutritious food that are more

needed.

Though these foods are tasty and easy to

prepare, they have a lot of bad effects. Though

there’s still not enough evidence found on the

real dangers of the fast food lifestyle, recent

studies have shown that fast food, eaten



constantly over several years, increases the

likelihood of both obesity and diabetes.

One of the problems is that fast foods have, in

general, a high glycemic food index. This study

confirms the strong association between the

frequency of eating at fast-food restaurants and an

increase in weight gain and insulin resistance. The

study doesn't indicate which aspect of fast food is

responsible - portion size (which influences total

energy intake) or the composition of the diet, or

both. And doubtless the availability of giant soda

drinks (Coca-Cola, Pepsi, etc) at fast-food outlets

must carry some responsibility.

There's evidence from other studies that the composition of fast foods usually has a

high glycemic food index, which is known to increase the risk for development of

diabetes.Though the solution of this problem may not be so easy, health education,

together with increased availability of good but cheap food, is the best approach. And

you should study the glycemic food index for your favorite "fast" foods -they may

surprise you

Places of fun and social interactions such as night clubs , casinos , discos are

very common in the west where they are accompanied by many morally

unacceptable indulgences but the Indians are not equally fascinated by them but

they outdo the westerners in costume varieties .

Impact of westernization on Indian culture. Its pros & cons & how to tackle with

grown trend of westernization



Indian Culture, which is one of the oldest & richest cultures, is now days posing a

serious threat as western culture is establishing its strong base in India and slowly and

gradually wiping the Indian culture. It had already made its presence in Metro’s &

now slowly heading towards other parts of India.

Westernization has greatly effected our traditions, customs, our family and our respect

and love for others. The concept of joint families is fastly decreasing every one wants

to remain aloof from others. No body now bother about others and only cares about

himself which is totally contradictory to our Indian culture which teaches to be a part

of each other Joy’s and Sorrows to celebrate the moments together and share the grief

together. Slowly all our values for which India has the pride is vanishing & western

culture is taking its place. People are blindly following the western culture without

knowing its consequences.

Westernization has given rise to single families. Marriages are fastly breaking & our

tolerance and patience has given the answer. The most effected are our new blooms,

which have sprouted they find themselves stressed and isolated in this new atmosphere

as there is no one to take care of them. They will not get the care and love of their

Grand parents and they find themselves in crutches were some others will take care of

them. It is very unfortunate that the new sprouts remain untouched and cut off from

our moral values and sanskaras. In today’s Scenario were both husband & wife are

working there is no one at home to look after them to inherit the sanskaras in them as

our elders who gives these sanskaras to their grand children are not with them. To

many cases it is not deliberate but in majority of case the children prefers to remain

away from their parents which is very unfortunate.

There’s no harm in taking good things from western but this does not mean that we

should completely adopt it and pretend to be western and misrepresent our identity. It

is understandable that India is growing in every field and there is necessity of knowing



all the cultures and their traditions. To some extent it is fine but we should not pretend

that we dislike the Indian values and likes only western culture. We have to preserve

our identity. One thing should be always kept in mind that western world is looking

India for its honesty and its rich Cultural heritage.

It is shocking to see that Indians are forgetting their culture and western people

are seeing India for obtaining salvation. They are coming here for seeking the true

peace, which is total absent there. India has earned a good name in the field of Yoga

and meditation were our gurus are giving teachings to western countries how to relax

themselves & how to keep themselves away from disease were in India it is

contradictory to it. People are only seeing money as necessity and for the same they do

any thing, which is very shocking.

It is very unfortunate that today’s generation has very little knowledge about their

culture, traditions & their roots. This is not their mistake but the mistake of their

parents who does not enlighten their children about their roots about their rich cultural

heritage.

Contradictory to it Parents feel proud in giving the western Sanskaras to their children.

Children are brought up in this atmosphere. They are thus kept miles away from

Indian culture. There is no harm in giving the knowledge of other cultures and

traditions as Indians have made their presence in every part of world and it is very

necessary that we should have knowledge of their culture, traditions and their

language. We should do but to the limit, which is really needed, and also take care that

our new sprouts are well versed with Indian culture and its values. It is the

responsibility of parents to inherit the same and for this it is very necessary that

parents should also be well versed with Indian culture and traditions.

No doubt the western culture is versatile and has taught to be self-independent

but this does not mean that we will forget our culture at all and blindly follow it.



Since India has the tradition to take good things from others but this does not

mean that we will completely forget our values. We should feel proud that we are

Indian s and we have such a rich cultural heritage which is very rare and should

carry this forward and inherit the same to our New blooms who are going to be

our future

Western words and philosophy.

Let me first present an intriguing difficulty for all who wish to study the influences of

Indian ideas, values, and beliefs on Western literature. Consider that some key words

on both sides of the East-West divide have no translatable equivalents.

SANSKRIT: artha, avatara, dharma, kala, kama, karma, moksha, nirvana, shanti

ENGLISH; absolution (of sins), blasphemy, guilt, heaven, hell, incarnation, irony,

miracle, religion, resurrection, secular, sin, tragedy

This very much affects how Indian philosophy is represented in Western literature.

Words that cannot be translated are given a description that may not represent the true

intention or its value within Indian culture. Plus, we may attribute some of our cultural

concepts to make meaning of theirs, when actually those concepts may not even exist

in the original context. For example, Indian philosophy has no word for “miracle” in

Sanskrit or any of the Indian languages. Miracles cannot happen because nothing in

this world of matter and karma operates outside the orbit of matter and karma. Hindu

gods have notoriously clay feet and are subject to the laws of cause and effect as are

we poor mortals. The gods we worship are the gods we create; we cannot worship the



God who creates us.

Hindus have no word for “heaven” in the sense of eternal reward. Our heaven is a

temporary abode, after the enjoyment of which one is born again and given another

chance to do better than gaining heaven.

Hindus also do not pray in the way Westerners do; to Hindus, prayers granted become

curses. Hindus feel one should pray, but not because one wants something. One prays

because one has everything—that is, life—for prayer is really a thanksgiving, not a

supplication. The tragedy of life is not that we don’t get what we want, but that we get

exactly what we want—and with its built-in opposite. That’s the fearsome catch. You

think it, you wish it, you dream it, you reach for it, you get it—and you’ve had it. The

point is that in this ambivalent world, sweets bring stomachache, toys bring boredom,

pleasure brings pain; sex, fame, money, and power are dreadfully counterproductive.

Our sweetest songs are those that tell the saddest thoughts. Even life brings death, for

the only way not to die is not to be born.

“Dharma” does not mean “religion” but “that which is stable,” from the root dhri

meaning earth. There are four such stabilities operating simultaneously at any given

moment in every individual’s life: sava-dharma (self-stability, the instinct of self-

preservation, individuality); kula-dharma (family-stability); yuga-dharma (the spirit of

the age); and sanatana-dharma (that which is unchanging, eternal, absolute). Like all

of us in the conflicts of life, Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra is caught

simultaneously in these four dharmas and has to choose. His choice will determine the

quality of his character. Not choosing is not an option.

“Kala” is Cosmic Time. It’s a glorious mystery. It means both yesterday and

tomorrow. Its movement, if it can be said to move, is apparently circular, not linear. In

kala all is created; in kala all is killed. Kala is mahakala (great time) as well; and



mahakala is Shiva, who is Destroyer and Creator. The feminine of kala is, of course,

Kali, the horrific, malevolent yet blessed dark goddess, the symbol of all-consuming

Time. “Time past and time present/ Are both contained in time future,/ and time

future/ Contained in time past./ If all time is eternally present/ All time is

unredeemable.” Fine, but how do you redeem the redeemer? These lines from T. S.

Eliot’s “The Four Quartets” make difficult sense to the Indian reader.

Sanskrit has no word for “irony,” either. The use of words to express something other

than or the exact opposite of their literal meaning is more associated with clever city-

based civilizations than with the sentimental forest-based ones. English is so charged

with irony that I constantly have to be careful when choosing words to translate sacred

and secular Sanskrit or other Indian texts.

Finally, in none of the Indian languages is there a word for “tragedy.” Pain, misery,

suffering, loss, hurt, despair, downfall, even anguish, but not tragedy. Heaven is a

disproportionate “reward” (it’s really a punishment!) for good deeds, and hell a

disproportionate punishment for bad deeds—or so the Indian sensibility feels. To the

Western mind, tragedy is acceptable as extreme punishment of the hubris-ridden hero.

Excessive punishment or reward just doesn’t work in a culture fine-tuned to the

workings of karma. The German poet/philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

(1749–1832) clarified this idea by saying, “Nature is always correct; man makes right

and wrong.” An Indian would have liked to add: and good and evil; and venial sin and

mortal sin; and permanent heaven and permanent hell; and forgiveness and absolution.

Another example of discretionary translation is that there can be no word for

“blasphemy” because genuine blasphemy is a reverse declaration of faith. As Ralph

Waldo Emerson says in his poem “Brahma”:

They reckon ill who leave me out.

When me they fly, I am the wings.



I am the doubter and the doubt,

And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

While some poets, novelists, and thinkers may take in whole and without question

whatever appeals to them in the Indian tradition, the major creative writers of the West

do not. They explore, differ, dissect, and when they do accept, make changes they feel

are necessary. You cannot be firmly grounded in your own culture and uncritically

absorb the values of another without making your integrity suspect. Plus, mindless

acceptance could be seen as a form of disrespect to the other culture’s identity.

This is perhaps why W. B. Yeats, in his last years, did a startling about turn and began

to criticize what he decided was Rabindranath Tagore’s mystic-romantic over-

sweetness and flabbiness—the same Yeats who once, riding the top of a London

double-decker in 1911, had to “close the MS” of the Gitanjali (Git means song and

Anjali means offering, “songs of offering”) translations he had been carrying with him

“for days” because he feared “some stranger would see how much it moved me.”

T. S. Eliot may have come to the same conclusion when after deciding in his youth to

convert to Buddhism, he then suddenly withdrew. Eliot gave the reason for his pullout

later. He said he had felt he would have to empty himself of all his Western religious

and cultural heritage in order to fill himself with the Buddhist ethos—more daunting

and risky a task than what he preferred to undertake. Two mature traditions in a face-

off situation? The need, perhaps, is to affirm that all mature civilizations offer

metaphysical and related attractions, without one mature civilization having to be

defensive against another.

The task is to transmute and absorb. The next part of this essay examines how some

literary and musical figures have done, or not done, this. Let us look briefly at a few



poets, a novelist, and some songwriters—Emerson, Yeats, Eliot, Hesse, and the

Beatles—and how they were influenced by Indian culture and philosophy.

Make alive the Indian culture:

Mounting western culture degrading India on the whole.Have you ever seen the

pictures of Jatindranath Mukerjee or Chandrasekhar Azad or Netaji Subhash Chandra

Bose? Apart from being leading revolutionaries of the Indian freedom struggle, these

three great personalities had something more in common. Almost in each picture you

will find each of them clad in perfect Indian attire or dhoti-kurta. Do you find the same

dress among Indians still? Unfortunately, it is becoming almost extinct more and more

and the day is not far when its best position will be in the museum of any Indian

metropolis. What inference can you draw from this lamentable specimen? Western

influence is rising in the Indian society by leaps and bounds and its intensity is rising

with the passing of each year almost. There is hardly any doubt that the entire course

is moving contrary to the dreams of the founding fathers of independent India in

August 15, 1947.

They had thought that the country, winning independence after the freedom struggle of

almost two centuries at a stretch, would regain its vigor and set up its basis, rooted in



its own intrinsic culture, with conviction. What we are witnessing at the moment is not

sad or unfortunate only but just the opposite also. Within the seven decades of national

independence influences of Indian culture have started to drain almost. Even if there is

any, it is under the greater protection of the western umbrella. Well, you don’t have to

go anywhere else – a few glimpses of the Indian television scenario or cable

televisions are going to be enough. Gone are the days when the Indian television

industry used to speak in favor of national harmony, secular traditions and unity in

diversity.

These days, the messages of national unification have ceased to come to the fore and

the programs have been replaced by reality shows dominated by women clad in

skimpy dresses. These sorts of shows go against the age-old Indian traditions and in a

word, affront Indian values only. But Indians are so wild that they have little time for

the national stature. Is India developing then or on the wane? You have to make the

decision.

Let us all come together and live the beautiful past again ,

CHILDREN will enjoy the bed time stories from their dada daadi ,

The fun of eating with so many people the desi ghee food and fresh milk of nearby

cows,

Let us all enjoy the feeling of togetherness by not adding people on facebook but by

adding them in our life and feel them

Let us watch Malgudi days, hum log,yahi hein zindagi ...

clo yh INDIA ko VaaPSa भा�रत baanaye और हमा�र�

सुं�दर सुं�स्कृ� तित KI mhEk le

Indian Culture 2

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