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There are currently 25 member reviews
for The Milk Lady of Bangalore
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Lois P. (Hillsborough, NC)
Everything you wanted to know about cows in India
This non-fiction books takes you to India and another world. The author learns all about why people in India value fresh cow's milk and may be picky about the color of the cow that the milk came from. She begins the book with a cow being paraded into an apartment as a blessing.
If cultural traditions involving livestock fascinate you, then this book is for you.
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Eileen C. (New York, NY)
Milk, cows, and cow patties
In the beginning, I thought this book was about how the author adjusted returning to India with its rather unusual customs after spending close to 20 years in New York City. Then I thought perhaps it is about a kind of friendship that developed between a wealthy woman and a woman who lives in the slums and sells milk for a living. Then I thought maybe it was more about the role cows play in Indian culture. Although The Milk Lady of Bangalore is clearly written and very entertaining in parts, Narayan doesn't ever seem to decide what she is writing about which, for me, meant that the book never fully captured my imagination as I didn't come to any type of better understanding of the people or the place that she was writing about.
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Poornima A. (Walpole, MA)
Average at best
I couldn't figure out what this book is about: is it about the author's relationship with Sarala, the cow lady, about the author's move back to India from the United States, about the new India? Probably a mix of all, the book is light and airy at times and veers off into deep explanations about Hinduism and the role of the cow at others. All of it topped with Narayan's incredulous tone at the situations in which she finds herself gives the narrative too much distance to really let the reader dive in. An occasionally lively read but too often it reads like the author has milked much too slender a story for an entire book.
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Virginia M. (San Antonio, TX)
My opinion
This book was not what I expected. I saw in BookBrowse that it was categorized as a "biography/memoir" and I somehow expected something different than what this book turned out to be. I thought it would be more of the typical type of memoir about some part of the author's life with a little informative data about Indian cows. It turned out to mostly about milk and cows interwoven into a little bit of the typical memoir type stuff.
I did enjoy reading the assortment of experiences that the author had as she befriended the lady from whom she bought milk every day and I learned a whole lot about cows and their by-products, e.g. urine and "poop".
By the time I reached the end of the book, however, I was suffering from an overload of information about such things as which type of cow provides the best milk and other previously unknown facts and figures about cows in general and Indian cows in particular.
So now comes the question: Would I recommend this book? It may be sort of a cop-out, but I will put it this way: If you are interested in learning some interesting facts about the life of a cow in India, then I think this is surely the book for you. Or, if you are the type of person who just enjoys reading non-fiction books that can add to your overall knowledge on different subjects, then I think you might want to add this to your list. If, however, you have no reason to want to learn more about customs and mores of the cow culture of India, I am not sure this is the book for you.
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