The Movie Outsourced
Todd, a Seattle sales department manager for kitsch American products, is leading an unremarkable American life, making a good living. However, before he knows it, his routine is shaken, along with many of the preconceptions he has about himself and the world because, he is moving to India.
The film Outsourced is a comedy. The move to the East is mandatory for Todd following the transfer of the company's sales team to India, and is comical in a way familiar to anyone who has ever traveled this continent.
Comedy as we know, can come from exaggerated differences, and when Westerners land in the Bombay airport they find themselves in a sea of contrast. Among experienced travelers the phenomenon is know as "India Shock". But, this same disparity is an opportunity for self-observation, as well as deep transformation. This is perhaps what attracts so many Westerners to go East.
Going To India
The Indian experience is the kind of thing you cannot really describe to people who have not lived it for themselves. I have been to India eight times. A number of visits have been to travel and sightsee, and still more have been part of a spiritual quest.
When I meet a fellow India lover, there is a familiar thrill of mutual understanding especially if they too have been to common travel destinations like Pushkar, Manali, Varanassi and Pune. And they too may have memories like the chai sellers, bazaars, the children and beggars, the ashrams and beaches, the bouncy busses and honking trucks, and streets filled with cows and rickshaws.
And the mentality that is so different in India, which is so hard to understand at first, and then so infatuating. This is perhaps the center of the Indian experience, to be caught in a peculiar place where people's way of thinking may be so different from your own.
What You Staring At?
I remember how many times I was in India standing in the street with a woman, and a group of Indian men would gather around, and stare at us. Something catches their attention: a camera, a hairstyle, a musical instrument, or the girl herself, and then they just stare. They stare directly into your eyes for minutes without shame, without reacting, and without a word.
Is it possible that while there are a million thoughts running through my head, not a single thought runs through theirs? Is it possible that the Indian person staring at me is experiencing the mental calmness that I try so hard to achieve through meditation?
And what about that cow standing back there? It too is staring at me. Is it possible that the entire world around me is functioning without motive or action? Is it only happening to me?
With India, I find the only way to be, is to surrender to her ways. Whether it's to move your head from side to side in way that doesn't say yes but doesn't say no, eat with your hands, peacefully bargain, or give up on any hope of having a schedule.
The Movie Hero's Transformation
For me the success of the movie Outsourced is its' portrayal of India as it really is. Todd lands at the airport, passes the Indian guy holding a sign with his name misspelled, searches for a cab but gets a rickshaw, and catches a train where he will experience his first intimate encounter with the Indian people.
As the movie progresses Todd goes through a transformation.
From annoyance, embarrassment, frustration and sickness, Todd will be forced to observe and reexamine himself to the point where he recognizes his own limited and suppressed upbringing filled with defined behavioral and thinking patterns and narrow mindedness.
In the beginning he is scared and looks for familiarity - like processed foods - and then the smells and flavors of India work their magic on him (as well as a pretty employee!) and he starts to relax into his environment.
Like the anonymous Indian in the movie who offers Todd a flower on his food tray, India has offered me a flower. Outsourced touches the soul of everyone that has ever been to India or will ever be in India.