About this item
The elevator door opens. A cow stands inside, angled diagonally to fit. It doesnt look uncomfortable, merely impatient. "It is for the housewarming ceremony on the third floor," explains the woman who stands behind the cow, holding it loosely with a rope. She has the sheepish look of a person caught in a strange situation who is trying to act as normal as possible. She introduces herself as Sarala and smiles reassuringly. The door closes. I shake my head and suppress a grin. It is good to be back.. When Shoba Narayan - who has just returned to India with her husband and two daughters after years in the United States - asks whether said cow might bless her apartment next, it is the beginning of a beautiful friendship between our author and Sarala, who also sells fresh milk right across the street from that thoroughly modern apartment building. The two women connect over not only cows but also family, food, and life. When Shoba agrees to buy Sarala a new cow, they set off looking for just the right heifer, and what was at first a simple economic transaction becomes something much deeper, though never without a hint of slapstick.. The Milk Lady of Bangalore immerses us in the culture, customs, myths, religion, sights, and sounds of a city in which the twenty-first century and the ancient past coexist like nowhere else in the world. Its a true story of bridging divides, of understanding other ways of looking at the world, and of human connections and animal connections, and its an irresistible adventure of two strong women and the animals they love.
About the Author
Shoba Narayan dreams of being a trapeze artist or a stand-up comedienne, both of which are unrealistically ambitious given that she is galactically un-funny and clumsy to boot.Meanwhile, she writes about food, travel, fashion, art and her native India for many publications. They include Condenast Traveler (US edition) , The National, Financial Times, Destinasian, Gourmet, Time, Silkroad, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Town & Country, British Airways Highlife, Cathay Pacific's Discovery, Singapore Airlines' Silverkris, Knowledge@Wharton, Departures, Food & Wine, Saveur, Newsweek, Beliefnet and House Beautiful, among others. She is not sure why she said "among others" given that she has given a fairly exhaustive listing.Shoba is a weekly columnist for Mint Lounge, an Indian business daily which is affiliated with the WSJ. She writes frequently for The National, based in Abu Dhabi. She does freelance features for a number of publications; and teaches an MBA course at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.Shoba's essays and commentaries have appeared on NPR's All Things Considered Weekend. Her essay, The God of Small Feasts, that was published in Gourmet, won the James Beard Foundation's MFK Fisher Award for Distinguished Writing. She is the author of a book, "Monsoon Diary: a memoir with recipes," published by Random House (US) in 2003. It was a finalist for a James Beard Award.Shoba graduated from the Columbia Journalism School with a Master of Science degree. The school awarded her a Pulitzer Travelling Fellowship given to the top three graduating students in the class. She used her fellowship to travel to Israel. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Bangalore, India. She can be reached at shoba@shobanarayan.com
