Karma Cola Sub title: Marketing the Mystic East Author: Gita Mehta-penguin india

From the late 1960s, hundreds of thousands of Westerners descended upon India, disciples of a cultural revolution that proclaimed that the magic and mystery missing from their lives could be found in the East. Recording her observations of these ‘pilgrims’ interacting with their hosts, Gita Mehta skewers the entire spectrum of seekers: The Beatles, homeless students, Hollywood rich kids in detox, British guilt-trippers and more. Brilliantly irreverent, Karma Cola displays Mehta’s gift for weaving old and new, common and bizarre, history and current events into a seamless and colorful narrative that is at once witty, shocking, and poignant.