Friday, August 3, 2007

Book Review: Holy Cow: An Indian adventure by Sarah MacDonald

Talking of the Dervla Murphy book reviewed below brings me to a book: Holy Cow: An Indian adventure by Sarah MacDonald

Seems to me to be just the sort of book one writes with an eye to making money, slightly embellishing it with fanciful experiences. Maybe I am wrong on this count, but again maybe not.

Madam Sarah, sorry to say but I found a layer of snobbishness and snootiness throughout the book.

Views such as the ones below makes me feel you are better off in Sydney then India

  • “………..many Indian flight attendants are rich girls whose parents pay a massive bribe to get them a job involving travel and 5-star hotels”

Now that’s a new one. I have heard that India is a mecca for grafts and related activities but I never heard of this one.

  • “Hindus revere cows, probably because one of their favorite gods, Krishna is a cowherd and Shiva – the Lord of Destruction - has a bull called Nandi”

Doesn’t that sound a bit simplistic to you, Sarah. I mean Lord Ganesh rides on a mouse, why don’t we revere the mouse and put it on a pedestal? With a background of 2000+ years of cow worship in India, you probably thought about it for about 10 minutes, wrote it down in 2 simplistic statements in 2 minutes. Wow, wish life was as simple as that. How about taking a bit more pain in researching, Madam Sarah??

  • “Hari Lal (whose name means ‘green red’).”

Didn’t it occur to you to ask around a bit. ‘Hari’ means ‘God’ or ‘Krishna and ‘Lal’ means ‘son’. You seem to be bent on proving your dumbness or maybe those smart-ass statements rake in money for you at the expense of all those goras laughing at us ‘dumb Indians’ for naming their kids ‘Green Red’. And yes Hari and Lal also mean ‘Green’ and ‘Red’ in some other context.

  • …..Mogul invasion wiped out Buddhism in its country of origin

Hmm, thanks for contributing another ‘original’ theory to the disappearance of Buddhism from its country of origin

  • Didn’t it occur to you to present this book to some of your Indian friends for whetting. ‘Worly Hill’ in Mumbai. ‘Worli’ works just as fine for 99.999% of Mumbai-ites
  • Amma the hugging guru whispering in your ear ‘rootoongarootoongarootoongarootoongarootoongarootoongarootoongarootoonga’? “…….A five-second flash of nonsensical babble is hardly inspiring faith”

Didn’t it occur to you to explain in the book that Amma probably can only converse in Malayalam, her mother tongue and that her words probably made more sense that you could understand…….if you could understand Malayalam.

  • “Indians………they can get married at the age of fifteen but cant drink in this state until twenty-five”

I wonder which version of the marriage laws has she read…Indians getting married at 15. Going by her vision, there must be hordes of them doing that legally.

One wishes for more sensitivity in books someone writes about other cultures. Is that too difficult a demand?

4 comments:

Beth Loves Bollywood said...

Just found your blog via bollywoodbloggers - hi!

I just finished this book too - it's sitting right here, waiting for me to write a review. I feel much as you did, and I just hope that if I were to be able to talk to the author one-on-one I'd have a much clearer sense of the other facets of her experiences. The overall tone struck me as a bit whiny and smug, and while I'd never deny that her experiences were other than as she reported, I think there are so many other, more useful approaches she could have taken in writing about them.

cheers
Beth

eliza said...

dear Nirvana,
I have read your review carefully but I must admit that it didn't change my standpoint at all. Still, I respect the fact that your impressions on "Holy Cow" may have been different. Let me ask you one question: are you an Indian? I got the feeling as if you were not able to accept a single word of criticism on the country, people, and their style of living. Don't be so touchy! There's no country on this planet that would be perfect, India is not an exception!
To address all the quotes you mention in your review I'd have to write another one. And this is supppsed to be a comment only. Let me address one thing:
“Hindus revere cows, probably because one of their favorite gods, Krishna is a cowherd and Shiva – the Lord of Destruction - has a bull called Nandi” This opinion you call simplistic. What did you expect? The whole lecture on hinduism? This is not an encyklopaedia on India but a novel that is supposed to read well and be a source of entertainment. By the way, not a single word in the sentence above is false, why do you scold McDonald so much?
"Holy Cow" is a story based on IMPRESSIONS of an INDIVIDUAL on the county she visisted and lived in for a while. If you want a source of objective information you should look for it elsewhere. On my part I can only say that I've been sharing at least 70% of her experience and I'm living in India right now as you probably know. In my opinion many of her remarks are very true and I wouldn't be able to put them into better words. Let me repeat that again: this is a story from McDonald's life, it cannot be objective and apply to everybody, nor it claims to do so.
Why didn't you pick up so many beautiful sentences about India she puts in her book?

Nirvana said...

Hi Eliza,

Thanks for your comments. My comments

1. Yes I am Indian.

2. You mention that 'I got the feeling as if you were not able to accept a single word of criticism on the country, people, and their style of living'. In my blog, I have given 7 examples (bullet points) from the book, of which only 2 can be called as criticisms of India/Indians. These are regarding the point about bribes given by Indian flight attendants and Sarah's statement about Indians getting married at 15.

My point is that both of the above 'criticisms' seem to be factually incorrect. I am reasonably well-read and i have not heard of a single case of Indiahn flight attendants giving bribes to be employed. Perhaps there are one-off cases, but the way the author puts it, she talks about it as if it is widespread.

Secondly, the way the author says '“Indians………they can get married at the age of fifteen', as if there is a legal sanction for that. This is absolutely untrue. Indians cannot get legally married at 15.

Other than these 2 things i have not objected to the authors 'criticism' of India. So your statement in this context, seems to me a bit patronizing.

3. In this age, one is supposed to be culturally sensitive, historically and otherwise accurate: especially when u are using the medium of a book which is read by thousands. And it is here that i am objecting to the authors continuous supercilious tone throughout the book, backed by a superficial reasearch that leads to incorrect racial profiling and cultural insensitivity. That reminds me of the experience of a Western Journalist who encountered a Taliban fighter who held notions like 'Westerners take delight in burning the Koran', 'they teach pornography in schools' etc. Just another (extreme!) example of where racial profiling, preconceived notions and inaccurate research can take you and others who share your racial background

4. All the other points that i have raised in my blog either refer to cultural insensitivity and arrogance, or historical/factual inaccuracies, besides typo errors.

So, Eliza hope i have made clear what i have objected-to. As to her other criticisms of India/Indians, if i had any issues with that, i would have pointed out the same in my blog: but i have not. There are many other examples in her book of her haughtiness and arrogance, that I havent detailed, but perhaps i should have.

Sorry for being so verbose in my reply, but I couldnt stop the flow :-)

Btw, would love to have your reply on that, unless you are absolutely exhausted reading mine.

Warm Regards

Nirvana

Neha Sharma said...

Its a wonderful story of a wonderful person in a wonderful country! The Author's alice in wonderland story, but the only difference is, its all real! she comes to India, and it all changes for her. This is not another eat pray love where a hippi is in search of nirvana after going through all sorts of shit in their past life.... this book is different, I almost smiled every page I have turned.
Go for it, if you would like to read a book smiling, yet, learn important lessons of life....Go on, its pure fun..