Book Review of "Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure."

(Tina)Theresa Hannah-Munns
RLST 303 - Dr. Leona Anderson
Sept. 20th, 2004

An Outsider’s Perspective

Reference: MacDonald, Sarah. (2002). Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure.
New York: Broadway Books.

With sarcastic humour and a foundation of spiritual pessimism, Sarah MacDonald writes of her two trips to India and how it evolves her perception of religion and of humanity. Through her transformation of living and opening to the spiritual pluralism of India, she shares her process of growth by starting from the foundation of a factual journalist and delving into an exploration of her own humanity through becoming aware of how she deals with the world and herself.
MacDonald’s sarcastic humour is refreshing after all the romanticizing of India, and I enjoyed her descriptions of polar perception that describes India in both its beauty and ugliness. Through sharing her resulting culture shock from the chaotic ability of South Asian people being able to live with multiple diversities, I was able to look at myself throughout traveling with her.

MacDonald highlighted India’s multiple diversities found within the numerous religious options, from a unique version of Indian Christianity to the secular use of deities in dealing with everyday life. For example, MacDonald describes how cows are revered as “powerful enough to stop traffic and holy enough that they’ll never become steak” only to continue to point out how horribly they live as they “graze on garbage” (11). Her descriptions remain outside of herself, until an earthquake makes her vulnerable to stepping inside her projections to gain a stronger foundation in which to perceive her world of the moment, India (23). She moves into a deeper ability for insight rather than outsight; she begins the journey into her own repressions, judgments and opinions about herself and the world around her. MacDonald moves from selfishly perceiving others as wrong to a position of accepting a more pluralistic logic that allows her to gain deeper awareness of her being human and having an adventure through experiencing life. She becomes open to her own curiosity rather than sitting in the center of her world in despair, “hat(ing) myself for hating” (23).

Her spiritual pessimism turns to psychological exploration as she opens to the experiences of India rather than trying to act superior as an outsider. Her big shift happens after her girlfriend’s mother commits suicide because of her daughter marrying for love (67). Her realization that “India is the worst of humanity” is altered to “India is the best of humanity” when Pooja, a small beggar child, tells her she will be okay after seeing MacDonald so upset.

MacDonald then resolves to “find peace in the only place possible in India. Within.” (67). The journalist in her opens up to begin an exploration of India’s diverse traditions, India’s cultural smorgasbord, and India’s diversity of extremes that introduces religion better than any Religious Studies introductory class. With humour she quests for peace by retaining her sense of humour as she starts with a Vipassana retreat - a ‘brain enema’ (68), visits an Ayurvedic healer to reclaim her head hair (83), through Sikhism, Islam, Hinduisms of various sorts, Buddhism, Judaism, Jainism and more, all the while bringing up the diverse experiences that may be both good and bad, especially for the women involved in each of the traditions. Philosophies are succinctly positioned in the cultural experience of MacDonald’s everyday life. Her foundation as a journalist shows through with dates, histories and well afforded research below the humanistic experience of her flowering into her own self discovery.

Even though her pessimism and sarcasm made this book one hard to delve into at the start, I was ‘enlightened’ by the end of the book through journeying with MacDonald’s open sharing and refreshing ability to admit her humanity and share it with her readership.