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Searching For Women Who Drink Whisky: Life And Love In India (2011)

by Miranda Kennedy(Favorite Author)

3.58 of 5 Votes: 2

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

HarperCollinsPublishers

review 1: Because I'm anticipating a trip to India, I've been reading as much as I can, both fiction and non-fiction, in order to better understand what I am going to encounter, including the assault on the senses. Miranda Kennedy's book is a memoir, likened by some to Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love. Susan Cheever of Daedalus Books says, "If you liked [that book], you have to have this book." I didn't like Gilbert's book at all, primarily because she was completely self-absorbed. Everything about her life was about her--and I wasn't alone in my being put off. In contrast, Kennedy creates a most interesting memoir which reveals "life and love in India" during her five-year sojourn in Delhi as a correspondent for NPR and Marketplace Radio. She experiences the sharp contrast ... moreof a rapidly developing country as well as an old one, in which both men and women are caught in tradition. A very independent woman, Kennedy faces the cultural mores of women's lives being primarily defined by family. While she does eventually develop some friendships with a few women, she finds herself alone for an extended period of time. Because she is in her late 20's and unmarried, she is viewed as if she were a woman of questionable moral character. When the neighborhood "president" tells her she must hire someone to clean for her and to pick up her trash, she struggles with her own values--by submitting will she be supporting the ongoing caste distinctions, and even reinforcing them? In the midst of discovering the ties of family, the complete lack of privacy, the insistence on arranged marriages, as well as respect for elders, she confronts her own individualism and how that has caused her to back off of a serious romantic relationship and that she has not nurtured close relationships with her family or with others. Her introspection does not dominate the fabric of her discussions. From the beginning to the end, Kennedy's attitudes change toward food, acceptable attire, even marriage and the family. She comes to appreciate the culture before she decides to leave. Many of Kennedy's observations about the Indian culture are consistent with those I've encountered in other reading I've done. Kennedy includes a briefly annotated bibliography and suggested reading list which covers a wide variety of subjects--an excellent addition.
review 2: Thankfully large parts of this book are not about the author herself but about the everyday lives of Indian women around her - her Indian friends, her maids, and the "gym ladies". It's an honest account of various events in these Indian women's lives as seen through the foreigner's eyes with no attempt to pass judgement on their cultural traditions. This part was very interesting and eye-opening. Of course it's just a small slice of the incredibly complex culture but nonetheless interesting to non-Indians like myself. The other parts - the author's attempts to fit in (and the realization that that's not going to happen), her relationships and commitment issues, even her journalist career - are tainted with a murky sense of desperation and unfulfillment and were of passing interest to me. less

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