Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure [Paperback]

Sarah Macdonald (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 13, 2004

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 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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Australian radio correspondent Macdonald's rollicking memoir recounts the two years she spent in India when her boyfriend, Jonathan, a TV news correspondent, was assigned to New Delhi. Leaving behind her own budding career, she spends her sabbatical traveling around the country, sampling India's "spiritual smorgasbord": attending a silent retreat for Vipassana meditation, seeking out a Sikh Ayurvedic "miracle healer," bathing in the Ganges with Hindus, studying Buddhism in Dharamsala, dabbling in Judaism with Israeli tourists, dipping into Parsi practices in Mumbai, visiting an ashram in Kerala, attending a Christian festival in Velangani and singing with Sufis. Paralleling Macdonald's spiritual journey is her evolution as a writer; she trades her sometimes glib remarks ("I've always thought it hilarious that Indian people chose the most boring, domesticated, compliant and stupidest animal on earth to adore") and 1980s song title references (e.g., "Karma Chameleon") for a more sensitive tone and a sober understanding that neither mocks nor romanticizes Indian culture and the Western visitors who embrace it. The book ends on a serious note, when September 11 shakes Macdonald's faith and Jonathan, now her husband, is sent to cover the war in Afghanistan. Macdonald is less compelling when writing about herself, her career and her relationship than when she is describing spiritual centers, New Delhi nightclubs and Bollywood cinema. Still, she brings a reporter's curiosity, interviewing skills and eye for detail to everything she encounters, and winningly captures "[t]he drama, the dharma, the innocent exuberance of the festivals, the intensity of the living, the piety in playfulness and the embrace of living day by day..--he drama, the dharma, the innocent exuberance of the festivals, the intensity of the living, the piety in playfulness and the embrace of living day by day."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Australian MacDonald didn't fall in love with India her first time there, at age 21. So when her boyfriend, Jonathan, a reporter for ABC, is sent there for work, she reluctantly follows after a year of separation. At first, life in India is as bad as she remembered it--overcrowded, smoggy, disturbing. A serious bout of pneumonia puts her in an Indian hospital, but as she recovers, she begins to make friends in India and to understand the culture. She finds herself attending lavish Indian weddings and trying to comfort her friend Padma, whose mother commits suicide after Padma marries without her permission. MacDonald makes an effort to understand the many diverse religions of the area, including taking a 10-day sojourn in a Buddhist temple and discussing religion with Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, and even a group of visiting Israelis. With Jonathan, she takes a trip to war-torn Kashmir, an area that is at once achingly beautiful and devastatingly dangerous. A lively, snappy travelogue. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 291 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; 12th ptg thus edition (April 13, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767915747
• ISBN-13: 978-0767915748
• Product Dimensions: 0.6 x 5.2 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (147 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #120,031 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #52 in Books > Travel > Middle East > General
  • #53 in Books > Travel > Asia > India > General

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars I couldn't put it down December 12, 2006

By Mr. Prasad Seshadri

Format:Paperback

I am an Indian and a Hindu and I would like to affirm that I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

If Hinduism stands for tolerance, I fail to see how other Indians could not read between the lines to see that she is quite attracted towards the Hindu approach to life as being wonderfully suited to every individual's aspiration to find a unique path to his or her own goals rather than the prescriptive approach followed by other faiths.

After getting a grasp of her own questioning, irreverant and open mind - I think she is more a Hindu than she is a Christian. I can totally relate to her.

It is totally true that most North of India is patronizing towards women, it totally true that there is dirt and filth, it is totally true that the weather is oppressive - and if all that is true - would it not be a writer's duty to report it as it actually is? But wait a minute - if in spite of all this, she was totally overwhelmed with the affection showered on her by the people - to the extent that she weeps when she bids adieu to the country, is it not the ultimate tribute to India?

Why is it that we are are conditioned to be admired only for our material possessions, our so called victories or our magnificent monuments? Our most endearing possession is the warmth in our hearts and Sarah responds to that better than she does to anything else.

Her name is Sarah. I believe that she is Sarasvati incarnate :o)..as I indeed believe that Sarah and Abraham were none other than Sarasvati and Brahma who migrated West after Brahma's fall of favor within the Hindu religion.

I would love to be able to chat with her some time and get to know her.

62 of 75 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "Gorgeous splashes of color among filth, flies, and forlorn" April 21, 2004

By S. Calhoun

Format:Paperback

Eleven years after backpacking through India with complaints of the poverty, heat and pollution Australian Sarah Macdonald relented to never return; she even went to the extreme of flipping the middle finger to the ground below as her plane ascended into the sky. Sarah wasn't necessarily happy to quit her successful job in Sydney to relocate to New Delhi to live with her journalist boyfriend; she often wondered if she was making the right decision. Upon arrival she started having flashbacks of pugnant body odor and beggars with leprosy. The pollution and thick smog affected her health and wellbeing. It is clear that she isn't quite cut out to live in New Delhi.

After reading the first couple chapters I expected HOLY COW to be filled with constant whining of India's derelict living conditions and complaints based on a Westernized perspective resulting in a mediocre travel narrative. But low and behold, I was soon pleasantly surprised how Sarah slowly evolved and reevaluated the country that she has scorned for so many years. After she started becoming reacquainted in her new home she started looking beyond the mayhem and dirt and began to see the beauty of India. Being a devout atheist when she first moved to New Delhi she slowly awoke and embraced the dynamic religions of Hinduism and Buddhism; she began to appreciate the sounds and surroundings of her new home.

While her husband is busy working Sarah was able to travel throughout India with her new perspectives and begins to enjoy the dichotomies that India offers. My favorite side trip was the Buddhist retreat in the Himalayan footsteps that taught her to meditate by concentrating on her breathing. I cannot imagine undergoing anything close to that endeavor.

Throughout HOLY COW Sarah Macdonald succeeded in digging past a traveler's first impressions of India to highlight the beauty of this varied land. By reading HOLY COW I now understand just a little bit more of India, and that was my initial goal when I first picked up this book.

58 of 71 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Obnoxious and condescending May 1, 2004

By Rachel Manija Brown

Format:Paperback

Macdonald's book deals with a fascinating topic, but her approach to it is shallow, smug, and dull. Her writing style is overwrought and clunky, and her persona is unbearable.

Almost every chapter has the same repetitive structure: Macdonald hears about some aspect of Indian religion or culture and decides to investigate it. At first she thinks it's stupid and pointless. But by the end of the chapter she realizes that though it's not for her, it does have something to offer. If she asked for some blessing, she will have received it by the end of that chapter or the beginning of the next. As you can imagine, this structure gets very old very fast.

The author's attitude toward India and Indians combines the worst of both the old and the new West: patronizing sneers at a culture she doesn't understand mix uneasily with breast-beating over her own pain at seeing poor people and a greed for exotic eastern spirituality to fill her inner shallowness.

(...)