Sarah Macdonald (1) (1966–)

[Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure] by Sarah MacDonald
-1★'s

From The Book:
In her twenties, journalist Sarah MacDonald backpacked around India and came away with a lasting impression of heat, pollution and poverty. So when an airport beggar read her palm and told her she would return to India—and for love—she screamed, “Never!” and gave the country, and him, the finger.

But eleven years later, the prophecy comes true. When the love of Sarah’s life is posted to India, she quits her dream show more job to move to the most polluted city on earth, New Delhi. For Sarah this seems like the ultimate sacrifice for love, and it almost kills her, literally. Just settled, she falls dangerously ill with double pneumonia, an experience that compels her to face some serious questions about her own fragile mortality and inner spiritual void. “I must find peace in the only place possible in India,” she concludes. “Within.” Thus begins her journey of discovery through India in search of the meaning of life and death.

[Holy Cow] is MacDonald’s often hilarious chronicle of her adventures in a land of chaos and contradiction, of encounters with Hinduism, Islam and Jainism, Sufis, Sikhs, Parsis and Christians and a kaleidoscope of yogis, swamis and Bollywood stars. From spiritual retreats and crumbling nirvanas to war zones and New Delhi nightclubs, it is a journey that only a woman on a mission to save her soul, her love life—and her sanity—can survive.

My Thoughts:
I read this to complete a challenge and the cover looked interesting. Both bad reasons to read a book. Shame on me! I found her entire approach to "investigating" the people and beliefs of this country to be obnoxious and condescending. No one forced her to return to India and I'm sure the people of India were more than happy to see her backside getting on the plane. The author's attitude toward India and Indians combines the worst of both the old and the new west by patronizingly sneering at a culture she doesn't understand and obviously has no desire to, much less offer any sign of respect. I've guess I've read worse books but I can't remember when. show less

Macdonald worked as a journalist in radio in her native Australia until making the decision to move to New Dehli to be with her boyfriend. Since he was also a journalist covering wars and disasters in the region, Macdonald found that she had so much time alone to travel the country and explore the different ethnic groups, religions, gender roles, world views, entertainments and food. Coming to the country an atheist, Macdonald eventually began attending workshops and religious events, some show more extremely intense, in hopes of learning why a certain belief would draw someone from another life. Along the way she moved from cynic to falling into the trap of wanting to belong, something I had hoped wasn't what the book was about. But the journalist and storyteller in her always beat out the latest religious attachments and her story is fascinating because she befriends so many people, from the high caste to servants, hangs with famous Bollywood stars, loses her hair and runs from lepers. I could never spend two years in the heat and dust and deprivation she describes in much of her travels but I recommend this book. show less

I enjoyed this vivid account by an Australian woman who lived in India for a few years. She’s a journalist with a snappy writing style and an eye for detail. She’s cheeky, irreverent, honest about both India’s dreadful bits and its wonderful bits. She’s intellectually curious, but she’s also on a sincere quest for a little spiritual sustenance. So she covers a lot of ground, sampling the wide variety of religions India has to offer. From the gurus to the Parsis, she finds something show more to admire and respect in each one. show less

India as a giant spiritual supermarket! Sarah Macdonald peruses the aisles and samples the product. Jainism here, Judaism there, Hindus, Parsis, Buddhists, Sufis and Christians she samples all their wares. And the book is just about as superficial as it sounds. It is not about these religions (although Sarah does try for some depth) but about her experiences of them with some rather wacky people. Both the 'magical' gurus and the hippie-types who sit at their feet and swoon.

Sarah, like the show more adventuresome Australian she is, backpacks to India, has a crap time, leaves but meets an ugly old soothsayer who tells her she will come back to India and find lurrrrve. And eleven years later she comes back with her boyfriend. He works in broadcasting and is always off covering the latest insurrection and massacre with the high point being Afghanistan. So to fill in the time she becomes a spiritual tourist shopping for the 'truth'.

Now this is the interesting part. She really does see India as it seems to be, a society of great contrasts. Whether it is between rich and poor, or the religions, the languages or the cultures everyone (apart from those involved in insurrections and massacres) meaning the ordinary people, just rub along together.

She goes to ashrams, temples, 'coffee shops' in Nepal and other places of worship and attempts to learn the path about who we are and where we are going. There isn't any universal path to be found, everyone has to make their own, or not bother (me, the apatheist). Quite a lot of these spiritual homes charge a lot of money for imposing fairly punishing regimes on Westerners who would seek the truth. Religion is quite an industry in India.

One of the funniest parts of the book is detailing the various people she meets. I would never have guessed that the stonedest least spiritual tourists around are the Israelis who are considerably less precious than the sort of hippie type travellers she meets in the Hindu ashrams (think [b:Shantaram|33600|Shantaram|Gregory David Roberts|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1333482282s/33600.jpg|3174890]).

The most fanatical people are the Parsis, known as Zoroastrians in Iran, who are the most exclusive of exclusive types in the world. No one can convert and no child that doesn't have both parents from the Parsee community is accepted. The group she met saw the preservation of that exclusivity as the most important part of their culture and are willing to accept the problems of inbreeding that results from this. Their other preoccupation is breeding vultures - pollution seems to be killing them off - so that their dead can be eaten by them in their traditional funeral rites.

The book took me about six months to read. I just couldn't get into it. I kept it next to the stove in the kitchen and read a few pages when I had to stir something and as it went on it got more interesting. It helps that the author can write well. It helps that she has a very strong, somewhat bolshy, opionated personality, very Australian, and it was more Sarah MacDonald, the author, who sucked me. I wanted to know what she would do next much more than I cared about 'the next'.

So three and a half stars rounded up to four because Sarah is just the sort of person you'd love to go out to lunch with and amid the chatter she would tell you about how these a-mazing people she met in India are coming to stay and would you like to meet them? How about dinner... Oh yes, you think, I'll bring a couple of bottles. show less