The Bovine and the Beautiful: Brazil’s newfound fascination for India

Two weeks ago, I met up with Adriana, my Brazilian friend who had just returned from Brazil. Whilst joking about similarities between Brazilians and Indians (Brazil’s connection with India dates back five centuries. Pedro Álvares Cabral allegedly “discovered” Brazil  after being blown off course on his way to India!) she enlightened me about the existence of a Brazilian soap opera shot in India about India. It has recently become all the rage in Brazil! Caminho Das Indias or Path to India began airing in late January by TV Globo and will run five days a week every week till the end of the year. What’s most amusing is that the cast is made up of all Brazilians (trying to play Indians). For instance, Juliana Paes, pictured above, looks like any other Bollywood actress and plays Maya Meetha. 

I fully endorse this superficial fetishizing of “exotic India” even though it hurts my artistic and cultural sensibilities at some deeper level. Its quite easy to dismiss this soap opera as not being representative of “real India.” However, at the end of the day, fantasy may be our biggest export (think Bollywood movies all over Africa) and I am fine with that. On a funnier note, I read that most Brazilian cows are of Indian origin and so I am glad that our national export to Brazil has evolved from the bovine to the beautiful:)

Here is a trailer: