Regis Airault, a former staff psychiatrist at the French Consulate in Mumbai was the one who coined the term “India syndrome”. This happened during his visit to India the year 1985. He ended up writing about his crazy experiences revolving around this condition in his book called Fous de l’Inde (Crazy About India)
India is the perfect definition of a mystical land. It ends up stirring in one’s aesthetic emotions resulting in anxiety among the travelers. It is also important to note that it also depends upon an individual's personal history, past traumas, and their want to travel that was deeply buried in their subconscious and are suddenly brought to the surface while visiting India. India somewhat provokes these feelings and makes them overflow.
One of the most famous physiologists in India who specially deals with this syndrome was quoted as saying, “the contrast was shocking. “I would see them perfect when they arrive and after one month, I would see them totally unstable.
Some of the travelers were lost forever”. He further said that more than any other country, India has a way of stimulating the imagination and stirring intense aesthetic emotions which can at any moment plunge the traveler into complete anxiety.
This syndrome was kind of highlighted in the movie ‘Eat Pray Love’. when Julia Roberts’ character visited India in search of spirituality and was also quite impressed by the cultural exoticism that she went on to practice Hinduism in real life.
Many embassies and consulates in India have in-house psychiatrists and psychologists that help in addressing such issues found in these tourists.
Westerners love to travel around places in order to gather new experiences, meet people, understand their traditions, and follow something or the other from their culture. They love to travel to India because it is a country that holds year-old traditions and whose culture has been impacted by various rulers from around the world.
In the whole world, India is one of the most colorful countries known for its rich cultural heritage. But sometimes these new emotions and feelings can be really very overwhelming. It might end up taking a tow on their mental health.
It also depends on each individual's personal history, their want to travel and explore, and also their past traumas which they have buried deep inside them.
Their visit to India acts as a subconscious way of bringing them face to face with them at certain times of their lives. Because India as a country speaks to the unconscious. It provokes people, makes them boil, and, sometimes, overflow with feelings and emotions. It brings forth, from the deep layers of our psyche, the buried.
Though India syndrome, like many other syndromes, is not universally recognized or officially accepted as a diagnosis by certified researchers and psychologists. Several embassies and consulates in India have permanent psychiatrists on staff to address and treat their nationals in distress.
Triggers related to this syndrome take place in gradual transition. It all starts when some of them begin to wear one of the many forms of Indian clothes such as saris, kurtas, dhotis, etc.
They carry around walking sticks, wear red bindis and threads tied around their wrists denoting blessings, and sport long necklaces. They stay in ashrams or monasteries, where they study and learn, reform their lifestyle or system of belief, or preach asceticism.
According to researchers and psychologists in most cases, the treatment is simple that is a plane ticket back home. But in other, more severe cases, the experiences of some individuals in India can leave permanent marks on their behavior even after they return home.
Some of the travelers who spend longer periods of time in India exhibit a strange condition referred to as the ‘India syndrome’. This condition is more of a psychosis that affects people from developed European or other western countries. It affects all those who are looking for an escape to a mystique land of culture. A land that is pure and exotic and where its core values are well preserved by its people.
Written by : Varima Tandon
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