Since it's earliest interactions with the West, India has been the object of a gross misinterpretation that has survived to the present day, a vague association with ideas of peace, spiritualism, the magic of the fakirs. Constantly reframed and mythicised by Westerners fleeing their supposedly rationalist societies, India continues to fascinate with its millennia-old history, its shrines on every street corner, its ancient beliefs and rituals, and it's unique linguistic and cultural diversity.