iMahal:  What other projects are you currently working on? Are we likely to hear a lot more about Robert Arnett and his love of India in next few years?

Arnett:  My goal for the book is to update the photography and stories. Currently I am also assembling a team to make a documentary film about India. The plan is to start shooting the film in January 2001 and to have it done by the end of the year. Due to advances in digital video technology, the project in this timeframe is viable. We forecast that our budget will be a tenth of what it would cost to work with a full film crew.

The Dharma Foundation, which I am in the process of starting, will give us a non-profit framework to raise the necessary money. We are privately raising money for this movie. We hope to create a documentary film that can be aired on television. We want to make sure that people can see and learn about the eternal verities of India that most people have not seen. Some of the topics in the documentary will be dharma [literal translation is religion, but the term is also used in a broader sense as how religion reflects in our individual lives as "righteous action"] and bhakti [devotion]; these are the two major traditions in India. For this reason we feel that this movie can be successful both within and outside of India. I am very excited about this project because we will be showing the aspects of India that most travelers never see.

We will try to show the completed documentary on as many North American television stations as we can. This will be a challenge. Just as no publisher would publish India Unveiled, I'm told that no television company or network station like PBS [Public Broadcast System - a publicly funded network in the US] would put up the money for this project. I have no past experience to show them. Heck I've never even taken a home video! Hopefully the final product will be something so beautiful that the networks will be pleased to show it. Although I will get some professional help, I hope to do some of the camera-work myself since I do have an aesthetic eye. Currently someone at Universal Studios in Los Angeles is consulting with me on doing this project.

iMahal:  Through your lectures, books and exhibits, what part of your mission have you already accomplished? What else do you hope to accomplish?

Arnett:  It is an on-going effort. I have been going to various cities to lecture about India. Right now I am doing a youth camp tour, and I talk with the children of Indian descent. I feel that children listen to me -- more than they do to their parents, or other Indians, or swamis -- because I am an outsider. When the kids see me, they are curious about how I, a non-Indian, can lecture to them about India. For this reason they are interested in what I have to say. Most of these kids go to India to see family and have not seen a lot of India. To them, I show an image of India that they don't know.

		... children listen to what I tell them because I am American, more so than they will to their parents or swamis because they are Indians ...

Since I am not married and have no children of my own, lecturing to children is also quite fulfilling for me. Fate has given me an opportunity to play this unique role. The children listen to what I tell them because I am American, more so than they will to their parents or swamis because they are Indians! I'm sure I do not tell them anything different from what their parents tell them, but since I put it to them through my own experiences, in American vernacular, they respond to it very well.

As you well know, it's very difficult for children to be raised bicultural. I experienced such a difficulty, growing up as a Jew in Columbus, Georgia. Having faced discrimination against Jews at that time, I can relate to the pressures the kids of Indian descent are going through. It's not an Indian thing but a cultural thing. I did not want to be thought of as Jew but as an American. Even today there is tremendous pressure for any ethnic group, outside of the white, Anglo-Saxon Christian mainstream, to conform. It is quite unnecessary to exert such pressure since no culture has the exclusive on truth.

... Don't throw out the best of Indian culture for the worst of American pop culture ...

I tell the children: Let's not lose the richness of the India culture, the oldest surviving continual civilization that goes back some 10,000 years. I urge them to combine the best of the East and West. Don't throw out the best of Indian culture for the worst of American pop culture. Many of them are trying to distance themselves from being Indians. That's understandable. I did that too. I refused to learn Hebrew for the most important Jewish ceremony of becoming a young man (or a young woman) is considered to become an adult. So I can relate to what they are going through. I try to encourage them to take the best of both worlds.

Fortunately, my viewpoint is thought of as an objective viewpoint and not an Indian viewpoint. I have found that the only way to change the youth's negative thinking of India is to paint a very positive upbeat picture of India. Although some of them are taught Hindu scriptures and the religion, most have never really been exposed to the beautiful aspects of Indian culture.

iMahal:  A documentary, update of the book, lectures, seminars - that is a pretty ambitious schedule!

... in America -- as wonderful a country as it is with its material efficiency and democracy -- we have no clue how to find lasting peace within and without ...

Arnett:  Yes, it is ambitious. And, I have other things I would like to do after that. I plan to stick with the India theme. India has captured my heart because India offers the key to peace in the world through finding peace within the individual. I think the most important thing a person can do in his or her life is to learn how to tap into the inner peace within us -- yoga and meditation provide us the means to do that. Like many other cultures, in America -- as wonderful a country as it is with its material efficiency and democracy -- we have no clue how to find lasting peace within and without.