Almost a century after Max Mueller made Indology fashionable, the Germans have finally woken up from their slumber and looked eastwards again.You could argue that the brief interlude that led to World War II and a lot of unpleasantness involving Austrian megalomaniacs called Hitler didn't let Germany lose the Indian touch (I mean, that whole swastika thing was hippy before the hippies were even around) but let's not go there. Recent events in India around shisha bars choosing Nazi themed decors has left a bad taste in a lot of mouths (and this without even trying the food there) so we could avoid that completely.
Getting back to the point - this post is all about how a new high gloss magazine has just recently been launched. Called, somewhat uninspiringly, "Indien Magazin", which translates literally into "India Magazine", published in German, it focuses exclusively on India & Bollywood.
The name is their only tragedy, so far as I can see (given that my knowledge of the German language is limited to a rusty one year at school, this is a totally ungrounded opinion, but hey, let's live dangerously) but you can't ignore the fact that at least their hearts are in the right place. The magazine purports to fill an important gap in contemporary German publishing - that for an informative periodical that targets a non-Indian German speaking readership wanting to learn more about India, its culture and its cinema. And as far as choosing a cover photo, you can't go wrong by picking the biggest name in the Indian fillum industry, Shah Rukh "King" Khan himself, in the biggest ever remake of the century, Don.
The magazine's first issue also has some DVD reviews, as well as retro pieces on classic cinema - there's a story about Umrao Jaan, as well as interview with Sanjay Dutt on his new movie (I'm guessing its Lage Raho Munnabhai) There also seems to be an article on the toy trains in Darjeeling (the title is a somewhat amateurish, "Full Steam Ahead into the Clouds", but the images it conjures are whimsical and definitely entertaining)
Fellow Bollywood blogger Michael already has a post on his site on it, but my German is too poor (and Altavista's Babelfish translator too random) to really make it work!
So let's see where "Indien Magazin" heads - so far, its a promising start. I'm going to see if I can figure out where to buy a copy to try to work my way through with a big dictionary and internet access readily available to run a Babelfish translation...
Check out the official magazine website here
Image from Indien Magazine
