what is the last book you read?

[MangusKhan]

Karma Cola by Gita Mehta



Such a witty account from an Indian woman of the clashes and confusions caused by the mixing of eastern and western cultures. The total irreverence for all which proclaims itself holy in India, and all who believe the claim, is just outrageous and hilarious.

Inside the tent the Englishman discovered, through the signs and gestures of the Sage, that he was to be privileged to carry the guru's effulgence to the devotees waiting outside, As the warm vessel was placed in his hands, he sniffed the contents.

"It smelled," he later remarked, "like ordinary urine."

Nonetheless, he carried his precious cargo to the crowds outside. The devotees gave him a polite round of applause. Then the cheering got louder. He turned around to see what was going on. The congratulatory din was becoming deafening. When he finally managed to decipher the urgent signals being made by the guru's assistants, the aristocrat grasped that the guru was allowing him, an Englishman - in a gesture of unprecedented magnanimity - to drink the entire contents of the vessel.

"It tasted," observed the aristocrat later, ''remarkably like ordinary urine."

-from the book, in the context of a Englishman's visit to a remote holy man who was purported to have urine which changed daily into rose-water