David Passiak
I came across this book thanks to an article on the web that quoted a paragraph from this book. The paragraph comes pretty late in the book and deals with the ‘cycles of birth and death’ tenet in Hinduism. It is indeed one of the several bright sparks in the book.
Let’s start from the beginning. It’s pretty much the typical ‘story’ of a Westerner feeling disgusted with the levels of greed and materialism rampant in the US suddenly deciding to drop everything and come to the East for ‘the answer’. To his credit, the author himself acknowledges it, and calls out the fact that everyone is in search of the elusive ‘answer’. I actually saw the title in that context but it actually is about Red Bull being considered a legit offering made to the Buddha by his devotees in parts of Thailand. I found some of the events narrated a tad difficult to believe – specially the encounters with the sadhus in India – but hey, as the author states, ‘our beliefs create the world we live in’. Also, the experiences indeed make for good stories at the very least.
What worked for me is the honesty of the inner journey and the travelogue itself. (I am anyway biased towards all travel documentation!) The effects of the US influence in Thailand, Vietnam and even Burma are brought out in an excellent commentary that offers a context of the present through the lens of the past. What did not work for me was the whole ‘traditional values’ and ‘innovation’ narrative. I felt that this was quite a forced bit of work that, at regular intervals, took away from the actual substance of the book, except for the initial points made about wisdom. If the author had kept it to the spiritual autobiography and the cultural essay territory, it might have made for a much more compelling read. Having said that, it is a fairly good read if you’re into travelogues.
