Turning aside from the traditional India of the Hindus, Louis Malle pans his camera on to the India of forgotten tribes and tiny sects. He discovers two versions of Utopia: one, the Ashram at Pondicherry whose disciples claim through yoga to have discovered the secret of the ultimate meaning of life; the other, the natural gentle life of the Todas, a people who live in total sexual freedom, without laws, leaders or class system, at peace with themselves and with their neighbours, and whose only problem is that they are doomed by the advance of civilisation.