THE SACRED IN MODERN INDIA: WILLIAM DALRYMPLE’S NINE LIVES AS A DELINEATION OF DEMYSTIFIED INDIAN SPIRITUALITY

Religious identities are in chaos and jeopardy in the post-colonial India. Unlike what the west often discerns, idealises and romanticises; spirituality and the sacred in India is coloured by personal motives, politics and economy like never before since the onset of this century. The original aspects of Indian spirituality prevail, but in voids that can only be detected by an authentic Indian sensibility and an understanding that is true and sympathetic to India’s complex cultures, structures, and above all its history. The author of Nine Lives graduates in taking the readers out of the preconceptions and clichés about India being the answer for all spiritual quests. William Dalrymple ardently listens to his subjects talk but he is, most of the times, unconvinced of their words. His views, doubts and questions find nooks and crannies to fit in. He looks at this alien land of bizarre and eccentric lives arguably not free of prejudices and an Occidental perspective, but explicitly with a genuine urge to understand it.