Culture vs. Cliche

"... mixing that cocktail of spurious tradition and manufactured modernity, while adding his signature flavour to the combination. He told his listeners stories about traveling to America, Europe, and Japan — the ultramodern places that middle-class India had been emulating and suddenly found within its reach. Yet few people in the audience had been to these countries, and if they did go, they would not encounter them with any degree of intimacy. The very places they were most drawn to — the business centers, the shopping plazas, the franchise restaurants — would remain slightly unreal in spite of the photographs taken, the souvenirs bought, the money spent."

— The Beautiful And The Damned, Siddhartha Deb