A review by Madhuri on Sarah MacDonald’s book; “A good read, well-informed as to politics and history, and fresh in energy. Her style is both girly and manly, so it’s got balance. She falls in love with India: its warm heart, its chaos and its magic.”
Holy Cow!
An Indian Adventure
by Sarah MacDonald
Bantam, Australia, 2002
320 pages
A successful young Australian TV presenter and journalist quits her job to follow her journalist boyfriend to New Delhi, where they live in a gloomy, noisy flat downstairs from the headquarters of the media company he works for. Culture shock is slowly replaced by adventurousness, but then the author falls dangerously ill. When she recovers she begins a journey of self-discovery, trying out Vipassana, Sufism, Judaism, Indian Christianity, the Kumbh Mela, a New Age group, and more; each path gives her something.
She writes with sure grace and expressiveness, and we’re carried along on a candidly-described trip all over the country and into Pakistan. And she’s funny! Every exasperation you’ve ever had with India’s ways will be brought up in your memory for review! The traffic! The pollution! The touts! The beggars! The flies! The poopers-by-the-train-tracks! The starers! The gropers! The droning know-it-alls! The swindlers! And above all, the crowds!
I was particularly amused when she’s at Ammaji’s ashram having her second hugging darshan. During the first she’d requested silently to understand her purpose on earth. She had heard some gibberish breathed into her ear, but that was it – no bliss, no answers. During the second one she suddenly finds herself silently requesting bigger breasts! And it happens! Scaring her enough, and hurting enough, that she nips back to Sydney to see experts, who tell her she’s fine but is having an inexplicable oestrogen surge. It all goes away with her next period. (I did something similar once during a hypnosis session in Poona. Similar results, except I didn’t go to a doctor.)
Her story really only gets weird when she meets an American refugee from the “Raj Neeshies” who got fed up with how much everything cost in the commune, and spoke of all the sex and “crazy dancing.” That woman has decided to become a Jaina. The author dismisses Osho as a greedy Rolls Royce collector and tax dodger, and moves on quickly. She herself never went to the commune or tried the meditations.
Nevertheless, a good read, well-informed as to politics and history, and fresh in energy. Her style is both girly and manly, so it’s got balance. She falls in love with India: its warm heart, its chaos and its magic. And when she moves back to Oz with her husband – who is quite shell-shocked from covering battles in Afghanistan – and she describes the peacefulness, the cleanliness, the space, of her home country – I too remember those contrasts, and what each sort of place gives, and takes away: the wild and crazy, where no quiet is possible anywhere except inside; and the great doldrums of a peaceful land where people move as if in sleep, and slowly slowly is the speed of change; and one feels some essential thing is missing.
But after a long India sojourn, you bring something back with you, and it can never be taken away; and thus the beauties and quiet of the spacious, well-working country can also be revelled in.
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