Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East

by Gita Mehta

Beginning in the late '60s, hundreds of thousands of Westerners descended upon India, disciples of a cultural revolution that proclaimed that the magic and mystery missing from their lives was to be found in the East. An Indian writer who has also lived in England and the United States, Gita Mehta was ideally placed to observe the spectacle of European and American "pilgrims" interacting with their hosts. When she finally recorded her razor sharp observations in Karma Cola, the book became an instant classic for describing, in merciless detail, what happens when the traditions of an ancient and longlived society are turned into commodities and sold to those who don't understand them.

In the dazzling prose that has become her trademark, Mehta skewers the entire Spectrum of The Beatles, homeless students, Hollywood rich kids in detox, British guilt-trippers, and more. In doing so, she also reveals the devastating byproducts that the Westerners brought to the villages of rural lndia -- high anxiety and drug addiction among them.

Brilliantly irreverent, Karma Cola displays Gita Mehta's gift for weaving old and new, common and bizarre, history and current events into a seamless and colorful narrative that is at once witty, shocking, and poignant.

Genres: India, Nonfiction, Travel, Religion, History, Cultural, Sociology

193 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Gita Mehta (born in 1943) is an Indian writer and was born in Delhi in a well-known Odia family. She is the daughter of Biju Patnaik, an Indian independence activist and a Chief Minister in post-independence Odisha, then known as Orissa. Her younger brother Naveen Patnaik has been the Chief Minister of Odisha since 2000. She completed her education in India and at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.

She has produced and/or directed 14 television documentaries for UK, European and US networks. During the years 1970-1971 she was a television war correspondent for the US television network NBC. Her film compilation of the Bangladesh revolution, Dateline Bangladesh, was shown in cinema theatres both in India and abroad.

[...]

Her books have been translated into 21 languages and been on the bestseller lists in Europe, the US and India. The subject of both her fiction and non-fiction is exclusively focused on India: its culture and history, and the Western perception of it. Her works reflect the insight gained through her journalistic and political background.

Gita Mehta divides her time between New York, London and New Delhi.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Elsa Rajan Pradhananga · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had always romanticized the hippie culture, their magic bus and the trail the counterculture activists took and often wondered what happened to the hippies who made it to India. I found unexpected answers in Gita Mehta’s Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East which is about the millions of westerners who flooded to India in the 60s and 70s. As an Indian who had lived in the US and UK, the author looked on perplexed as the nirvana hunters plummeted headlong into addictions and devotion for bogus gurus who in reality were probably capable of teaching them a lesson or two about materialism. Con men were aplenty in India back then and they readily catered to the western fantasies of a mystic East.

The book is a string of humorous, mind-boggling and oftentimes painful anecdotes about these hippies who in their psychedelic state of mind fended for themselves in shady shacks if they couldn’t afford the substantial amounts ashrams levied to sell them the enlightenment they sought for so badly. According to the author, their plight was such that, in order to hold onto their lifestyle, many sold their passports in the black-market and in their naivety, allowed themselves to be physically, emotionally, and sexually abused as they awaited spiritual enlightenment. Mehta’s choice of words and the usage of satire makes the book an interesting read. I’m yet to come across another book of this sort and am glad that an Indian perspective of the madness of those times has been documented.

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gita Mehta's Karma Cola, originally published in 1980, is a collection of anecdotes about the Western travelers that Mehta met in India in the 1970s. A westward-looking Indian (Cambridge-educated), Mehta views young spiritual seekers with a combination of amusement and dismay. She highlights the absurdity that people looking for enlightenment and truth are falling for the rhetoric of gurus teaching such blatantly irrational doctrines. Whether it is some Europeans worshipping a candy-eating five year old as God or overlooking their guru's use of disciples for sex, you'll be amazed just what silliness was going on in ashrams for foreigners. And while many chronicles of the overland trail of the 1960s and 1970s make mention only of travelers' love of hashish, Mehta shows the disturbing rise in the use of heroin among them and the awful effects on people who got strung out and stranded, either being flown back home at government expense or just dying in the streets.

Unfortunately, Karma Cola is not written as any sort of coherent history. Mehta's anecdotes are often interesting reading, but I soon got fed up with the lack of any dates or clear statistical detail in her discussion of India under tourist onslaught. Perhaps this book is ideal for people who have read Mehta's other works, but for readers simply interested in the history of the hippie trail I cannot recommend this.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious! I read this in India, and it just perfectly summed up so many of the idiotic Westerners I was meeting there. ("Hi, I'm Sally? I've been a Buddhist for six months?...") It also was a good reminder for myself to have a sense of humor abroad and not take myself or my travels too seriously. Highly recommend it if you're planning on some sort of "spiritual journey" here or abroad.

[Richa gupta]

I read this book in my college days, I want to read it again coz I ve forgotten most of it but I remember a line which said " never believe in a yogi with Adidas shoes "

[DoctorM · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bleakly, acidly funny look at the Westerners who went out to India in the 1960s and 1970s and the dance of mutual incomprehension and exploitation that resulted. Mass marketed Enlightenment, commodified exoticism, and gullibility abound here. Call it a darker, subcontinental version of "Hideous Kinky"--- and one that, as heroin replaces hashish amongst hippies and enlightenment seekers, gets darker as it goes.

[Yigal Zur · Rating 4 out of 5]

witty and funny, brilliant

[Ashok Krishna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poverty, Chastity and Piety – search for the basic code of conduct prescribed by any religion for its spiritual seekers, and you will find these three aspects standing out. While piety is more internal and is not for others to see or judge, the first two aspects are for all of us to view and verify. But, just as all things change with Time, these too are thrown in the wind and religion has got into the hands of those who have desecrated these principles and manipulated religions for their own selfish ends.

Saints (!) these days lead lifestyles that can make the rockstars fade in comparison. Swanky mansions, sleek cars, globetrotting habits, private islands, gatherings that can fill huge football grounds to the brim, sprawling ‘ashrams’ – any and every aspect of luxury that an ordinary person can only imagine are at the disposal of these modern-day ‘gurus’. These people have literally started peddling spirituality and god in affordable packages. Affordable for those with bank balances the size of their own egos, that is. There are some of the spiritual ‘gurus’ whose photographs are updated in social media with a frequency that can put a narcissistic adolescent girl’s selfie craze to shame. Then, there are those who perpetrate and permit all kinds of sleaze in the name of ‘spiritual fervor’. Some of these ‘gurus’ have even performed acts that puts them on par with professional pornstars.

As these sacrilegious things continue growing alarmingly these days, there sprouts a question in my mind as to who is to be blamed for all these abominable deviations from the path of the Ultimate Truth. Should we blame those fake gurus and spiritual leaders that charge obscene amounts of money for their mere ‘darshan’ or should we kick those gullible masses that have forgotten what it means to feel silence and solitude in their purest forms.

Gita Mehta’s book deals with one such topic here. India, considered the beacon of spiritual wisdom, has long been the haven for spiritual seekers from around the world. Since the ancient days, travellers from faraway places have flocked to India to partake in her spiritual fountain. In the last century, the advent of air travel has helped more and more such seekers in visiting this mysterious land of snake-charmers and super-power sadhus. While the inflow was comprised equally of those in real spiritual quest and those souls that are simply confused about the course of their lives, India has offered counterfeit ‘teachers’ that can adeptly manipulate the gullible ones for having their own fill of the coffers and coitus.

Gita Mehta displays an amazing sense of sarcasm and wit while writing about the many ways in which these gurus exploit the seekers. Right from the funny encounter of a Western aristocrat that ended up drinking the urine of a sadhu (said to be pissing rosewater) to the painful truth of foreign women that are sexually exploited under the influence of narcotics, this book, written almost three decades ago, holds true to the modern day atrocities committed in India by the fake saints.

Having had the benefit of a Western education, Gita has the advantage of both worlds. At one end, she can discuss threadbare the nature of the seekers that end up in India. Not everyone is thrilled just by the confluence of life and death at the ghats of Kashi. Some of them seek the thrill of the chillum too. On the other, she flays the monks, saints and hermits, having the knowledge of not just the blissful but the banal as well, for exploiting the foreigners in terms of the material and mundane. Drug induced trances, sexual orgies under the guise of spiritual evolution, stupid practices in the name of dynamic therapies - Gita explores the whole razzamatazz that goes in the name of spirituality these days. It informs us also of the sad plight that these foreigners end up in, having lost their all here, forced to sell whatever they have or they can, from pieces of clothes to their flesh to make a living, with little or no chance of going back to their lives in their own countries.

The book is, though, more like a bunch of columns put together than any coherent work. She has put together a lot of anecdotes and observations without a complete flow. While it is obvious that she is writing about Osho and Mahesh Yogi, I wish she had written more plainly about the other such ‘gurus’ too. Also, I found her snobbish attitude a little annoying to be candid. Couldn’t help but feel that she is another of those high-society NRIs with a bit of aversion and contempt for the Indians and their ways of life.

To sum it up all, it is a good book. It goes on to vindicate my feeling that Indian ‘saints’ have thrown the three basic principles of poverty, chastity and piety to the wind and replaced them with the two principles with which the Batman operates – Theatricality and Deception!

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here we have a book about the development of “metaphysical tourism” in India. The term pertains to non-Indians, mostly Americans and Europeans, who come to India looking for spiritual guidance. Mehta’s book is a mosaic of episodes and observations held together with bits of philosophy and poetic prose. Some of the book describes how certain gurus exploit their foreign flocks as cheap labor, sexual opportunities, and sources of income.

But more than this, “Karma Cola” describes how Westerners damage themselves by using Western ideas to interpret Eastern culture. Ironically, many metaphysical tourists, in seeking freedom from familiar religious authorities, wind up being dominated by gurus in India’s “Stand by your Guru” society. Westerners also frustrate themselves by searching for underlying unity in the unremitting multiplicity of India’s cultures and creeds. And far too many metaphysical tourists wind up exhausted and poor because they treat India’s various paths to enlightenment as commodities to be sought and bought.

Arguably, Mehta captures the greatest misunderstanding that Westerners bring to India in this passage: “The Westerner is finding the dialectics of history less fascinating than the endless opportunities for narcissism provided by the Wisdom of the East. Except that the prime concern of the Wisdom of the East is the annihilation of narcissism. And so on ad nauseam.”

This book gets an “A.”

[Nandakishore Mridula · Rating 2 out of 5]

I totally agree with Gita Mehta's opinion of gullible Westerners falling for bogus Indian Gurus. It would be worth their while to memorise the following quartet by Adi Sankaracharya:

"Matted hair, shaven heads, hair tied up in tresses;
Saffron-clad - varied are their dresses:
Seeing, still the foolish do not see!
All these costumes are for filling the belly..."

Yes, indeed.

--------------------

That said, the book was only a set of mildly funny and disjointed anecdotes that did not impress me much. Maybe, it was a case of false expectations. Mehta writes well.

[Lori Theis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East reads like a string of self-conscious journal entries. Nested inside each of Mehta’s anecdotes are metonyms within metonyms, fashioned out of poetic free verse, assonance, alliteration, slogans-turned-epigrams, ramped up hyperbole, fragments of dialogue, cosmic irony, and heavy doses of allusion (most likely lost on anyone under 30 years old). Throughout Karma Cola Mehta uses the figurative language of rock and roll to pen her tragically comic and cacophonic soundtrack to the heady days of Tuning In, Turning On, and Dropping Out.
Gita Mehta’s 1979 love letter to reason, and rock and roll Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East may not be a novel, but can be seen in an oblique way as a precursor to the genre hysterical realism, a term coined by literary critic James Wood. Wood says, “Hysterical realism is not exactly magical realism, but magical realism’s next stop […] This kind of realism is a perpetual motion machine […] There is a pursuit of vitality at all costs.”1
Speed, the sensation that so annoys Wood in novels by titans like Salman Rushdie and Thomas Pynchon, is the pitch perfect instrument for Karma Cola, considering Mehta’s introduction to the book that cautions the reader to “remember two myths – one Eastern, one Western – which provide a caution to the human race. The Indian myth maintains we are living in the age of Kalyug, which presages the end of the world. Kalyug is characterized by speed. Speed, being the enemy of reflection, will spread fantasy with such great velocity that humans, in their pursuit of escape, will ultimately destroy themselves” (xi). If in the 60s and 70s India felt like America had suddenly launched a freaked out hippie-bomb in its general direction, it must have forgotten the momentum with which a boomerang returns to its owner (Swami Vivekananda landed in America in 1893, Prahbupada set up camp in NYC’s Central Park in 1966, etc.)
From the vantage point of thirty years into the future, Karma Cola feels like and elegy to innocence.

[Manish · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised with Gita Mehta's effort in Karma Cola especially since my previous outing with her (The River Sutra) was a disappointment. Written in the late 70s when Mehta was probably in her 30s, Karma Cola is a kaleidoscopic view of the naivety of the Westerners who flocked to India in search of spiritual salvation in the 60s and of the bankruptcy of the Gurus who mushroomed all across the country to cater to this demand. While no Guru was explicitly named, I could only recognize Osho and his establishment's treatment of the 'disciples' among the others.

Some of the more interesting facts which I learnt related to the huge black market for discarded passports, the subtle perceived differences amongst the believers from America, France, Germany and Switzerland etc, nudism in the beaches of Goa and other such tidbits.

Mehta's employment of a unique writing style - part notes, part narration, part scrutiny is another stand out feature of this work. Happy to have read it - I now understand atleast a bit more of the 'Hippie' culture/heritage our country was once party to - albeit partly involuntarily.

[Isabel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I first got started on it almost a year ago when a seminar discussion on Lucian's 2nd-century CE essay on the false prophet Alexander (translation here: http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/luc...) took a turn towards discussing fake gurus in the modern world. So this book about encounters with faux religious tourists in India in the late 70's seemed to be a good thing to read. Well, given that it's taken me 10 months to finish 200 pages, one could say it didn't work out. Two things in particular bothered me about this book. The first is that it's essentially a string of anecdotes without opportunity for analysis, but with plenty of outraged soundbites. The second (and likely closely related) is that the focus is squarely on "look at these stupid westerners," and there are only brief glimpses of the various ways in which the Indian market in turn exploits these "pilgrims." While I have little sympathy for the people M. describes, it did feel like a rather tedious "let's laugh at silly people" that missed its analytical potential, especially when one comes at this from a consideration of the historical discourse about exploiting gullible religious tourists.

[Baal Of · Rating 2 out of 5]

That was disappointing.
Perhaps my expectations were wrong. I expected some kind of structure, some kind of coherent narrative. Instead this book came across as scattershot and unfocused. A loose collection of reminiscences with such a lack of rigor that I began to doubt how much was true, and how much was embellished. I think part of the problem for me was that Mehta never, as far as I could tell, was writing *for* anything. There was a lot of scorn and derision flung in all directions. But there was no serious attempt to actually show how anything could be studied. It's fine to claim that Westerners have come over to India and perverted the philosophies, and done great harm, but what is the measure of that harm? How do we know?
Maybe this book makes more sense to someone who has read more of Mehta's oeuvre. I already think that people who misguidedly give themselves over to gurus are sadly tragic, and that they mistake foreignness for profundity. I would have liked more substance, more analysis, and more ideas about what could be done, if anything, to improve the problems.

[Patti · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was nothing how I expected it to be. I found the timing difficult at first, but once I started to read, I enjoyed Mehta's story telling.

Mehta writes about the struggles that come with tourism and the Westernization of culture for sales and marketing. The stories of the Westerners who go to India to look for enlightenment and end up falling completely into the Void are interesting. Illusions lead to disillusions. Con men pose as gurus.

Mehta doesn't just hate on tourists, though. She does see the chaos in her own culture and the opportunities for improvement.

I'm curious what Mehta thinks today about Indian culture - what does she think of the watering down of Buddhist concepts in American Vernacular? This book was written before Dharma and Greg or even before My Name is Earl looked to balance out his 'Karma'. What would Mehta think about "Outsourced"?

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mildly interesting look at the sudden interest in eastern mysticism and religions by millions of baby boomers in the late 1960s. The Beatles might be partly responsible but Mehta does major literary eye-rolling at the influx of naive westerners traveling to India and other south Asian countries in search of knowledge. Even Steve Jobs succumbed to the pull of this nonsense. To this day, there are westerners afflicted with this desire to "find" themselves and become one with the universe or some equally idiotic notion. Mehta's writing style is often obtuse and unnecessarily athletic in the literary sense. Had she written the book in a more approachable style, I might have given it 4 stars. As it stands, 2 and half stars will have to do.

[Katja Vartiainen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Any westerner been to India, can relate to this book. It is witty, funny, shocking, surprising, just like India. Some of the stuff I cannot interpret, while i was born probably after it happened, and the names, events, i never lived. The question remains has the west learned anything? Spiritual seekers still run around India, lot of them mistreated. History teaches us nothing? And for the East? Mistakes were made before, and it seems people still think they have to make them themselves..Anyway, I love the way it is written and the stories. We need a new version about the cultural clashes, and melts we are facing everyday.

[Ffiamma · Rating 3 out of 5]

il libro è del '79 e quindi un po' datato- ma l'incontro/scontro fra est e ovest e che spesso culmina con un fallimento totale è spesso esilarante. gita mehta, con penna caustica, sbeffeggia gli equivoci e le forzature che seguirono la grande scoperta dell'india negli anni 60 e portarono a un travisamento a volte totale e grottesco del suo misticismo e a ridicoli tentativi di "occidentalizzazione" di un pensiero così particolare. divertente- anche se mi ha profondamente irritato l'ottusità di alcuni personaggi descritti.

[Lizw · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not really about marketing, but about the interaction between Western hippies and Indian (particularly Hindu) society in the 1960s and 1970s. It makes a good companion-piece to Said's Orientalism, I think - more impressionistic and less ranty, but definitely addressing similar themes.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I need to read this again--I recall finding it very interesting. I loved the insights into the "other side" of the West's fascination with the so-called "mystic East." I picked this up after reading Mehta's A River Sutra in a college lit. class.

[Sankari Ni Bhriain · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this while I was travelling around India and I laughed out loud and loved every page. I only wish now that I hadn't passed it on because I can't find it again. Next time I lay hands on this little wonder I'll keep it.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Karma Cola is a book of the 1970s and the hippies that came to India for enlightenment, for some time at the spiritual spa, before they were called spas. Remember the Maharishi, remember George Harrison, far out man. Om Mane Padme Hummmmmmmm

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit slight, but a nice antidote to all that eating, praying, loving bullshit.

[Indrani Ganguly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Karma Cola is one of my favourite books both for its content and style. It belongs to the genre I call ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, which is often repressed in Australia. I first read it when I was writing my thesis on the impact of British colonialism in India which including manufacturing an image of India now called Orientalism.

HOW I APPROACHED IT
The book has an unusual writing style. Since it is not a straightforward narrative, so I found it easier if I read it in segments. Most of the essays are well-written and enjoyable to read.

This had another purpose, which is to appreciate the clever use of language and wit. Best read as a collection of essays on related themes, not a progressive essay in parts.

It makes connections I wouldn’t have thought of. 'Philosophy can be as lethal as cancer '(p 165). I would have qualified it by saying when it is written/read without complementary frameworks of history, sociology and psychology.

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THE BOOK
Mehta is not one-sided. She's deeply critical of the hippies (the Dharma Bums) who think they can acquire spiritual wisdom simply by hopping on a plane, finding a guru and taking on a name which they can’t pronounce correctly (same thing happens in yoga today).

Mehta skewers the entire Spectrum of seekers: The Beatles, homeless students, Hollywood rich kids in detox, British guilt-trippers, and more. In doing so, she also reveals the devastating by-products that the Westerners brought to the villages of rural lndia — high anxiety and drug addiction among them. I would have left out the Beatles, given this was the period when they wrote many of their most brilliant songs and also successfully fused Western and Indian music (Karma Cola and Norwegian Wood have always been two of my favourite Beatle songs).

She’s equally critical of the Guru Business. Satire extends to Indians as well, such as the guru giving the Indian disciple a watch (p 7) or the one providing instant salvation (p 103).

Mehta isn’t against genuine scholar or seekers of truth from the West like Aldous Huxley and Yeats (p67).

She is also not against genuine sages, though they don’t escape her acerbic wit. Ancient sages are described as the ‘bad-tempered old gents who lived in the jungles of India several thousand years ago and came up with the Upanishads were well aware of the dangers of trying to take on what you aren’t suited to handling.' The sages are notorious for being bad-tempered and inclined to curse anyone including the gods, who did not offer the expected level of deference.

The cynicism towards those who overdo the trappings of religiosity are part of a long-standing Hindu attitudes. Consider the following by the 8th century Hindu scholar, Adi Sankaracharya:
"Matted hair, shaven heads, hair tied up in tresses;
Saffron-clad - varied are their dresses:
Seeing, still the foolish do not see!
All these costumes are for filling the belly...

Mehta is also very accurate in her portrayal of the misogyny that was widespread amongst the hippies (e.g., treatment of the English girl by other Western tourists, p 72), and sense of entitlement by hippies, who often lived in the cheapest places but expected 5-star facilities. E.g. the incident of the hotel with just 3 LP’s which would be collector’s items and the hippies wanting more contemporary music.

IS IT STILL RELEVANT

Mehta's classic is still highly relevant, though perhaps less startling than it would have been on publication 30 years ago. The New Age mob has taken over the hippies, but expanded its scope of exploitation to include Buddhism, older Western religions and the beliefs and practices of First Nations around the world.

As Mehta writes of India’s working towards rebuilding the industrial and technological base: I note the trend with hope that the Oriental is to be released from the burden of being either obscure or oracular (p11). Unfortunately this hasn’t happened. Eat Pray Love is the same kind of rubbish. ISCON/Hare Krishnas are notorious for being both naïve and quite racist towards Indians.

I wonder if the urine drinking episode is one of taking the piss out of irritatingly naïve Westerners, the same way that many First Nations make up beliefs and practices to get rid of white people who persist in forcing stereotypes of the noble savage on them.

[Nirmal · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Hindu concept conceived by westerns as "being recycled" sounds more satirical than an anecdote. The book is imbalanced. Stories she makes are mostly focused on making westerners look more idiotic than local Indians. In one of the story she makes a man drink urine of an Indian baba. It is disgusting. In another story she makes a child try abusing an adult American sexually and putting blame on Indian Sadhus for such behaviour.

Of course, Indian mysticism was mainly about drugs and psychedelic in the era of hippies, but some anecdotes are plainly stupid and not funny but disgusting.

Point to be noted was: "Poverty, disease and deaths are not reality. They are inefficiency."

[Erik Akre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gita Mehta holds a mirror to the Western fascination with India and its spiritual heritage.

Mehta gives us a look at people's New Age quests to India for salvation, beginning in the 60's. So much is utterly ridiculous, even insane. We can generalize and say that embracing another culture's spirituality--without any cultural connection or deep experience with tradition--is like ditching your inner life for an impossible dream, which if you follow it far enough, will result in the surrender of all integrity or stable sense of self.

This book has many, many stories around that motif, for example: bizarre collections of Western gents and dudes in ashrams, and American hippies starving on the streets of Indian cities. The accounts are fascinating and often very funny. The book is also great for debunking the fakery of "gurus." I think that ultimately it should be read by any spiritual seeker who has fallen under the spell of India's mystique and magic. It's a little slap in the face: Wake up and discern!

It's all in the name of thinking for oneself, and no necessary critique of Indian culture per se. Mehta simply asks us to question our urges to cultural appropriation, as she skillfully chronicles a crazy episode in the history of interplay between East and West.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book because it's one of Lonely Planet's recommended books for travellers going to India. Having been to India, being of Pakistani descent, and also having loads of exposure to Indian art and music, I was curious about why they recommended Karma Cola. I see why they did, although I didn't love the book.

This book has some extremely witty bits. There were many "why didn't I write that?" moments. It is a very important work that exposes what is wrong with the mentality of "Occidentals" who travel to India as well as what is wrong with the Indians who pander to their fantasies.

There were, however many parts that went over my head and some parts I found disturbing. Also, it's a bit too anecdotal--I wanted to know the specifics of some of the stories she told; I wanted more of a researched nonfiction, factual account than this is. Since the details of some of the vignettes were murky, I became dubious about how true they actually were.

[Peter Fogtdal · Rating 5 out of 5]

My own next novel is about a devotee's farcical relationship to his Indian guru, so when a Facebook friend told me about KARMA COLA I knew I had to read it.

Well, after the first fifty pages I thought this non-fiction book was going to be another predictable work about how ALL Indian gurus are cheats (yawn, yawn), but luckily Gita Mehtha is more sophisticated than that. Yes, she's deeply critical of the Guru Business but open and knowledgeable enough not to pan it in the condescending way that's favored by most intellectuals.

Luckily Mehta is a funny writer as well, especially when she tells us about the hippies in the Seventies who came to India to get high and get laid --- all in God's name, of course.

No wonder that this book from 1979 is considered a minor classic. Read it before your yoga instructor! Or your sexually obsessed Bhagavan who wants to show you the Way ...

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book on the continuing theme (my personal one) of the corrupting influence of religion. This book was first published in 1979 and this edition was published in 1991 so some information may be dated, but Gita Mehta's main thesis, the subtitle of this book, is the marketing of the Mystic East and she shows clearly that as with all religion all that is being sold is fraudulent crap and in at least one case urine of the guru as having healing powers. The book will make you shake your head, it might make you sad or mad. The only criticism is that the thesis could be a little tighter through the book. But her point of view, as an Indian who has studied in the West, is an important one in writing about religious tourists in India. I wish she would uncover religious hypocrisy in America, too.

[Sally Edsall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this book. Sick of the psychobabble approach to the search for meaning indulged in by western hippies and dilettantes? Then this is the book for you. If you remain sceptically detached, then Mehta's bull's-excrement detector will appeal to you. In a world where 'altenatives' are equally as brand-labelled as major corporate product, Mehta turns the heat on the dipsomaniacs and freaks who are so successfully sucked in by the tricksters and con merchants in the great supermarket of 'religious experiences' that India (her country) offers.

The book is witty and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, as well as a cautionary tale for those who might be flirting with the cults (who probably wouldn't listen anyway).

[Nirmal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad one or what we should say as the good one. It says fiction but it is written not in a novel or narrative style but in a documentary non-fiction style. It is Indian spirituality meeting west and whole spectrum of things around it like Beatles / rock groups coming to India for getting the enlightenment exp., drugs, hippies, Goa, sadhus, foreign disciples in India , and all the other stuff. It is written with a light touch but covers almost all the related topics. Its lighter style and humor makes a nice comfortable read. Overall pretty good. recommended