An ancient outpost of the Hindu world is under threat from banal conformity, and the traditional Legong of Bali is simply turning into background music. The tourists are gone, but there may yet be hope.
Located in the equatorial underbelly of the Indonesian archipelago, the island of Bali is one of the few remaining Hindu-Buddhist cultures south of the Malaya peninsula that, at an earlier time, dominated the landscape of Asia from Sindh and the Himalayan massifs downwards in a southeasterly arc. Nestled next to the much larger island of Java, Bali is tropical, green – a formerly remote outpost of an ancient world known to tourists as "the island of the gods" and termed by Jawaharlal Nehru as the "morning of the world". It is an emerald tucked into a corner of the warm, blue ocean, and home to a culture that has resisted successive waves of conquest and conversion.
Bali is also a land of picturesque extremes. Its majestic volcanoes touch the clouds while its skilled musicians play gentle variations of traditional Legong court music as vigorous dancers step barefoot on burning coals in the nocturnal bravado of ritual performances. Painters labour over unique canvases in studios on the edges of deep and mysterious canyons. These are the scenes of 'exotic' life that frustrated city-dwellers come from the around the world to experience and appreciate. Is Bali then a paradise on earth?
Definitely not. It is an awkward, clumsy Shangri-la, retaining many of its original qualities but ravaged by colonialists and globalisation. Despite its charm and beauty, Bali is like the rest of the world – a confused place fighting to retain its uniqueness, its way of life, its old and deep Hindu culture that seems to be under constant attack from 'modernisation' and Western influence. It is desperately trying to find a third way between newly introduced consumerism and ancient traditions, and struggling with the nuanced act of balancing culture and commerce, heritage and high-rises.