Caminho das Índias

Indian style soap operas have a new audience - half way across the world in Brazil ! Fact is stranger than fiction . And this is really strange fiction.

Caminho das Indias (Portuguese for 'India's way') is a popular soap opera in Brazil that has viewers glued to television sets .

Watch part of an episode here . Quite amazing and hilarious to see Ekta Kapoor type settings being enacted in Portuguese .

The serial has done (for India ) for successive Indian governments , dept of Tourism , business have not so far - generated a wide spread interest about India among Brazilians .People now use words like achha, theek hai and Bhagwan ke liye (for God’s sake) as common slang,” said B.S. Prakash, India’s ambassador to Brazil who’s been inundated with emails from curious Brazilians.

Caminho’s success is affecting everything and everyone Indian in Brazil.

“Before the show, only people interested in yoga knew about India. Now, we have many more diners coming in. And everyone wants to drink chai,” said Madhava Lila Deva Dasi, who owns a restaurant called Gopala Madhava in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city with 11.1 million people. “Suddenly, Indian costumes and jewellery have become very fashionable.”

Maybe the next Caminho das Indias will be made in China :)