Nirad Chaudhuri in East and West 'I blush for the English character. Once they came to my country to conquer and rule; now they come to learn. I myself preferred them in their previous incarnation.' The idea that the East, particularly India, possesses spiritual insights we in the West lack has become almost a cliche over the past 20 years. Nirad Chaudhuri sees the matter quite differently. He is 85, and one of the most celebrated Indian scholars and writers alive today. In this film he tells the story of his 'passage to England', the attraction England exerted on him as a child in India, and the impact it made on him when he came here for the first time at the age of 57. He examines the Western pilgrimage to the East, and explains his dismay at it: 'If anything persuaded me of the degeneration of the English spirit it was this "Hinduising" by which I mean adoption of some of the sloppier forms of Hindu worship without any understanding of the essential elements of Hinduism.'