When Shoba Narayan returns to India with her husband and two daughters after many years in the United States, the last thing she's expecting to see is a cow in the elevator of her modern apartment building. "It is for the housewarming ceremony on the third floor", explains Sarala, the woman holding the cow with a rope. Surprising herself Shoba asks whether the cow might bless her apartment next. So begins a friendship between Shoba and Sarala, who also sells fresh milk right across the street. 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 a story of Indian food, culture and mythology, of bridging divides - and of the inspiring connection between two irresistible women and the animals they love.

I always find it fascinating reading about other cultures and this book was no different. The attitude and mind set of the people in this book felt totally alien to me and the author was a strange mixture of a materialistic American and a Gods fearing Indian. I say Gods because they seem to worship so many different Gods and I still feel no wiser about their relationship to cows than I was before I started reading this book and certainly cannot understand how you can clean a floor using cow dung!

This is going in the Occupational bookring.

Thank you for sending this in the ring, Tanamo. Sounds very interesting, so I am keeping it to read and pass on.