Eat, Pray and Love

Author: Elizabeth Gilbert

As the front page of the book says, its a true story of a woman who travelled Italy, India and Indonesia. Its all about her experiences in those countries. In Italy she savored food, in India she immersed herself into devotion and in Indonesia she found love.

You would think so what is so special about it that she wrote a book?!?! I would say not much, you too could write your own if your experience was as novel as hers. She left America in a mentally devastated state and reached Italy. Why did she chose Italy? Because it was her long time desire to learn the italian language, the italian way. How many people would do that? Doesn't mean all she did was study italian, she enjoyed the good food.

After her stay in Italy, her next stop was India where she went to an Ashram. She'd been introduced to the Guru of the ashram in America and had decided that she wanted to go to the Ashram in India. She spent a few months there, getting up before sunrise, chanting sanskrit shlokas in the wee hours of the day, sweeping temple floor for hours, eating vegetarian food and getting aclimatized to a place so constrasting to her own. It was most interesting to read this part of the novel and I think that was for multiple reasons. Being an Indian, I felt proud reading about India. Then this was the spiritual portion of the book and spirituality always interests me. It was here that she attained mental peace.

Last was her stay in Indonesia where she went because a few years back she'd met a medicine man in Indonesia who'd said that she'd be back in Indonesia and then she should teach him English. Her stay here was in stark contrast to that in India. It was here that she indulged.

It was not an overwhelming novel as I expected it to be based on its ranking amongst the best sellers. What I enoyed reading was her courage and adventorous spirit.

Some take-away quotes from the book:
"Devotion is diligence without assurance."
"You can control a lot of things and one of those is the thoughts that you harbor in your mind".

Bottomline: Ok.