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Holy Cow

An Indian Adventure

By Sarah Macdonald

(31)

| Paperback | 9780767915748

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Book Description

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 countryContinue

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.

Critics

  • "Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure"

    (reviewed by Nandini Pandya APR 4, 2004) "Irreverent and spiritual" is not an oxymoron! These are words that best describe this book. A few months back my boss saw me reading May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons during my lunch break. This book wa ... (read full critics)

    mostlyfiction published on Wed, 29 Sep 2010

3 Reviews

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  • 1 person find this helpful

    You got to love Sarah's self-deprecating humor, and this is one wonderful journey of her crazy adventures in India. Never boring, this is full of her account of her religious trips in India and how she tries to stay sane in this country.

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    Saxyscuba said on Aug 12, 2007 | Add your feedback

  • *** This comment contains spoilers! ***

    “Mil-mannered Abe, however, is Tarzan of the traffic jungle. He knows the strict species pecking order: pedestrians are on the bottom and run out of the way of everything, bicycles make way to cycle-rickshaws, which give way to auto-rickshaws, which stop for cars, which are subservient to trucks. ... (continue)

    “Mil-mannered Abe, however, is Tarzan of the traffic jungle. He knows the strict species pecking order: pedestrians are on the bottom and run out of the way of everything, bicycles make way to cycle-rickshaws, which give way to auto-rickshaws, which stop for cars, which are subservient to trucks.
    Buses stop for one thing and one thing only. Not customers- they jum on while the buses are still moving.
    The only thing that can stop a bus is the king of the road, the lord of the jungle and the top dog.
    The holy cow.”

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    noodlecup said on Dec 24, 2007 | Add your feedback

  • driving

    "When Jonathon finally returns from Nepal I pick him up at the airport. He's shaking by the time we are home; he says driving with me is scarier than being in the Taliban-controlled streets of Kabul." - Sarah Macdonald

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    Visible Procrastinations said on Apr 2, 2007 | Add your feedback

Book Details

  • Rating:
    (31)
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  • English Books
  • Paperback 304 Pages
  • ISBN-10: 0767915747
  • ISBN-13: 9780767915748
  • Publisher: Broadway
  • Pub date: Apr 13, 2004
  • Dimensions: 1290 mm x 839 mm x 129 mm Just how big is that?
  • Also available as: Audio CD, Audio Cassette and eBook
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9780767915748 Paperback $14.95 $8.22 bn.com
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