«L’odore dell’India» fra ricerca dell’Altrove e orientalismo terzomondista

The paper starts from the vast Italian odeporical production dedicated to travels to India during the 1950s and 1960s (Emanuelli, Levi, Moravia, Patti, Todisco) to delineate the specificities of the emotional, sensorial and aesthetic relationship that Pasolini establishes with the Asian country in L’odore dell’India. While Pasolini’s perspective still suffers from certain stereotypes linked to the Orientalist conception denounced by Said (the flattening of religious differences, the underlining of the meekness and docility of young Indians, the anti-modern outlook, the role of the Catholic missions), it also highlights aspects such as the soundscape of a nocturnal and ancestral India, the prevalence of a bodily dimension that is not homologated as in the West, and the fascination with death and its rituals, with intense intellectual and human participation.