Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
32nd out of 89 books
—
88 voters
Sideways on a Scooter: Life and Love in India
When twentysomething reporter Miranda Kennedy leaves her job in New York City and travels to India with no employment prospects, she longs to immerse herself in the turmoil and excitement of a rapidly developing country. What she quickly learns in Delhi about renting an apartment as a single woman—it’s next to impossible—and the proper way for women in India to ride scoote...more
Hardcover, 352 pages
Published
April 26th 2011
by Random House
(first published 2011)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
2,078)
Being a regular listener to NPR's Marketplace (despite its frequent China bashing)over the years, I always find myself wondering how NRP's foreign correspondents such as Frank Langford, Miranda Kennedy, Louisa Lim, Anthony Kuhn got their gigs in the first place and what their lives are like in the countries they report from. In Miranda Kennedy's case, this is a very entertaining and at times frustrating account of her attempts to assimilate into Indian society and her friendships with many women...more
My biggest issue with this book was that some of it was...not inaccurate, but so generalized and oversimplified that it can lead the reader to jump to inaccurate conclusions. I noticed this most when she was talking about Hindi films because they're one of my big passions, but it was true in other sections of the book as well. There was at least one genuine inaccuracy, too--she claims at one point that Shah Rukh Khan has never kissed in a movie, but he has (in Maya Memsaab, one of his early film...more
Miranda Kennedy leaves her job as a reporter to live in India. The resulting book, her memoir, describes her experience. She finds work in India as a reporter for NPR which allows her a decent salary and means to stay.
The book looks at the cultural experience in India, the dissonance exposure to Western culture is causing within the ancient caste system, and the influence of Bollywood on the younger generation. Kennedy follows the lives of three different friends in her book, each viewing marri...more
The book looks at the cultural experience in India, the dissonance exposure to Western culture is causing within the ancient caste system, and the influence of Bollywood on the younger generation. Kennedy follows the lives of three different friends in her book, each viewing marri...more
Miranda Kennedy’s debut novel, Sideways on a Scooter, tells of her experiences in New Delhi, India as an international journalist. The memoir starts off slowly introducing Kennedy: her background, motivations, and purpose in India. It also introduces India itself, explaining about daily life, Kennedy’s neighborhood, the caste system, and a bit about general Indian history. After all of this, it seems like the book will be filled with educational information about India in general, as well as Ke...more
When I first stumbled across this book, I was expecting a one-country remix of the hugely popular Elizabeth Gilbert memoir Eat, Pray, Love. The subtitle “Life and Love in India” makes it sound a bit like another cliche rendition of the “American girl has heart broken, moves abroad, meets new people, finds self, and then finds love again” travel memoir that publishers have been snatching up lately. So let’s make this clear from the get go: Sideways on a Scooter is not that sort of book and to try...more
Miranda Kennedy lived in Delhi for a few years as a News Correspondent, before returning back to America. While living in Delhi, Miranda learned to somewhat accept the differences of Indian womens' thinking. She began to understand the Brahmin women's "superior" caste attitudes, even if they were poor, living in slums. Befriending one Indian woman close to thirty, Miranda became acquainted with the Indian single's internet, catering to caste and high expectations for women's morality. Racist tho...more
Yes, it is yet another book about India; there have been a fair few over the past four years since we lived there, and not all them have been reviewed! The country and its people baffle and intrigue, it frustrates and challenges, its all about globalisation and becoming an economic super power, yet deeply entrenched in its various cultures, religions and traditions. Its diversity and beauty and ugliness make your head spin. You can both love it and hate it several times a day, and yet, somehow,...more
When I picked up Miranda Kennedy's Sideways on a Scooter I expected the book to be about the author's experiences in adapting to a culture vastly different from what she was accustomed. Thankfully, much of the book does not follow the author, as I found myself liking Kennedy less and less with every turn of the page. The book does delve heavily into India's cultural differences and traditions, especially those concerning marriage and caste. Fortunately, however, Kennedy begins focusing more on h...more
Sideways on a Scooter follows Miranda Kennedy, a young american journalist, as she embarks on a life abroad, living for several years in Delhi, India. As someone who knows next to nothing about India, I found her book engrossing and eye-opening. It's a story about women, caste, religion, cultural beliefs, family, and how we all struggle to find our moral compass in the world. That Kennedy did it while living in a foreign country showcases her sharp insights as well as her fumbling ineptitude in...more
Dec 16, 2011
Smitha
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
those interested in India
Recommended to Smitha by:
Dr. Valerie Treloar
this was an interesting read. But I have many issues with this book, especially as it is non-fiction. I am a resident Indian and I was shocked to see the India portrayed here. Brahmins, with one or two exceptions, are shown as narrow minded, caste conscious group - they loathe to eat food made by non Brahmins, they still are class conscious, they have antipathy towards Muslims. I am a Brahmin, and the only brahmin-like behavior I have is being a vegetarian (that too not a 'pure veg' as I eat egg...more
Although I love reading books about India, I wasn't sure i would like this one. The author sounded smug at first and a bit of that flavour remains throughout. It's a kind of "I'm too special and independent for a normal life" tone, that I really don't like. Avoiding close realtionships and travelling extensively does not make a person special, just alone and well ttravelled. Richness in life comes from within (see The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating).
That said, the book improved and was an interest...more
That said, the book improved and was an interest...more
The cover of Miranda Kennedy's Sideways on a Scooter, with its lanky Western woman walking, Abbey Road style, between two women in bright pink traditional Indian dress, suggests the all-India version of Eat, Pray, Love. So does the subtitle: "Life and Love in India." In fact, there's a blurb on my copy assuring me that "if you liked Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love, you have to read this book."
I did like Eat, Pray, Love, but if you buy the book expecting Kennedy to do little but dish up her l...more
I did like Eat, Pray, Love, but if you buy the book expecting Kennedy to do little but dish up her l...more
First of all, I get that this is a memoir.. but even with a memoir, the narrator can SHOW the story if they choose. This entire memoir is TOLD. Telling makes for very dull reading and I'm sorry to say I fell asleep trudging along thru this one.
Good idea, just poor execution in my opinion. Three women in India from three different situations, all trying to be independent. However, the book at times comes across as a travel brochure for India and a history textbook on Indian history.
I did find m...more
Good idea, just poor execution in my opinion. Three women in India from three different situations, all trying to be independent. However, the book at times comes across as a travel brochure for India and a history textbook on Indian history.
I did find m...more
This was an enjoyable read about an American moving to India to be a foreign correspondent. The most interesting parts are her adventures in trying to find an apartment as a single foreigner, and the love lives of her new Indian friends. The parts about Bollywood movies were just too detailed and boring for me, and she refers to these movies frequently. So, the first half of the book was slow, and I almost gave up. But then a little more than half way through, one of her Indian friends decides t...more
This is a fascinating, insightful book—as gripping as a good novel—because it gives the reader an intimate glimpse into the hearts and minds of several Indian women navigating their lives in a country that’s still bound by caste and tradition but modernizing at a dizzying pace. There’s lively, charismatic Geeta, a “modern girl”, who is nevertheless torn between hoping for a marriage arranged by her parents and finding herself a love match. Parvati, another highly opinionated friend of author Mir...more
Miranda Kennedy spent five years in India, working as a reporter. Of all the quirkiness that is today’s India, the most intriguing is the way women find husbands in this otherwise-quite-modern country; despite all the modern aspects of life that India has acquired, most women still find their spouses through arranged marriages. Kennedy has reached a point in her personal life where she longs for the companionship of a long-term relationship and so much of the story looks at relationships, both K...more
In short, this book is amazing. I picked it up thinking I was going to get just a travel memoir type book, but it was so much more.
Miranda Kennedy found the soul of India and wrote from there, and wrote about her experiences in a way that those of us who have never visited India before could perfectly picture what was going on. I felt like I knew her friends, Geeta, Parvati, Radha, Maneesh, Usha, Azmat. And although their lives are very different from mine in many ways, we are all the same, wan...more
Miranda Kennedy found the soul of India and wrote from there, and wrote about her experiences in a way that those of us who have never visited India before could perfectly picture what was going on. I felt like I knew her friends, Geeta, Parvati, Radha, Maneesh, Usha, Azmat. And although their lives are very different from mine in many ways, we are all the same, wan...more
My favorite kind of book, where you have both en enjoyable story AND you learn something. I have been on this huge kick of reading a ton of books by Indian authors, most of the fiction that take place in India. So I rather enjoyed this book, which was an outsider's look at India. Miranda lives as a journalist for many years in India, and tells what it's like to live as a foreigner in India (but not in a foreigner enclave, or a rich area, but in an area with locals, and for an extended period of...more
Interesting piece about Ms. Kennedy's time in India.
A bit rambling and slow to start, with an occasional digression that felt more like an ADD moment; but at about the halfway point, the stories gain a coherence that the book initially lacked.
It feels a bit voyeuristic as the book narrates the events in the lives of Ms. Kennedy's friends. I was a bit disappointed that after all the talk of relationships and love, we learn of Ms. Kennedy's own marriage as almost an afterthought.
Also disappointin...more
A bit rambling and slow to start, with an occasional digression that felt more like an ADD moment; but at about the halfway point, the stories gain a coherence that the book initially lacked.
It feels a bit voyeuristic as the book narrates the events in the lives of Ms. Kennedy's friends. I was a bit disappointed that after all the talk of relationships and love, we learn of Ms. Kennedy's own marriage as almost an afterthought.
Also disappointin...more
Miranda Kennedy lived in Delhi for 5 years as both a freelance correspondent and later working in Asia for NPR.
This book was in the women's studies section at my library which is why I have missed it before. The book focuses on the women Kennedy meets, employes, and befriends during her stay in Delhi. But a women's studies book? No. There are descriptions of women struggling with marriages, motherhood, families, careers and general life as a woman in a country that is often ranked pretty high a...more
This book was in the women's studies section at my library which is why I have missed it before. The book focuses on the women Kennedy meets, employes, and befriends during her stay in Delhi. But a women's studies book? No. There are descriptions of women struggling with marriages, motherhood, families, careers and general life as a woman in a country that is often ranked pretty high a...more
..."In fact, it's just the Indian government's effort to cover all bases: Unani medicine for conservative Muslims, Ayurveda for South Indians, and homeopathy for the middle class. Almost everyone I knew in India would visit the homeopath before seeing a mainstream doctor."...
Really, Miranda Kennedy? You're a journalist and you couldn't verify if this,l and other 'facts' in your book were true? It's probably time that American journalists stop quitting their job, going to India and relying on 3 s...more
Really, Miranda Kennedy? You're a journalist and you couldn't verify if this,l and other 'facts' in your book were true? It's probably time that American journalists stop quitting their job, going to India and relying on 3 s...more
Initially, this is a book about the author moving to India for personal and professional reasons and trying to navigate a foreign country and society. However, the centerpiece is really the author's friendships with the women she meets in India, who span a broad socio-economic/class spectrum. She writes about the hopes, outlooks, and experiences of everyone from her journalist friends to her maids. Her tone strikes a delicate balance between discerning outrage and nuanced respect for a complicat...more
I enjoyed this book a lot more than "Holy Cow," another Western woman's memoir of life in what will soon be the world's most populous country. While "Holy Cow" covered the country's many spiritual traditions, albeit with a healthy sense of humor, "Sideways on a Scooter" addressed the less meaty but, to me, more interesting elements of what it would be like to live in India: gender and class/caste disparities, cultural misunderstandings, language (I love Indian English!), transportation and housi...more
A memoir of a few years spent living in Delhi, this journalist in particular follows the lives of several women including friends and maids, opening up the world of contemporary Indian culture and showing that the caste system, poverty,and ancient customs still affect women's lives there, even with some improvements from globalization. Told with humor, although some aspects of Indian life, (the glaring poverty for people and animals), are just plain sad. I give her alot of credit for affecting m...more
Kennedy's memoir of her life in India as a young woman is well worth reading - more so for her portrayal of her Indian friends and community than for her own thoughts about life as a freelance foreign correspondent. While not crammed as full of solipstic navel-gazing as others in the genre, Kennedy admits in several places that her Indian self, nicknamed "Demanda," wasn't very pleasant.
More interesting are the passages where Kennedy compares and contrasts herself to a missionary great-aunt - and...more
More interesting are the passages where Kennedy compares and contrasts herself to a missionary great-aunt - and...more
Miranda Kennedy does an excellent job of covering all of the practicial ways that India is different from the US. During her time living there, she has her share of problems blending. The role of marriage and family is still the cornerstone of Indian society. Single women do not live alone, since no one will rent to them. (thinking she is a prostitute) Marriage customs have changed little in the past fifty years. When a person is married, the family does all the planning (including the honeymoon...more
Miranda Kennedy writes about her five years in India working as a free-lance reporter. I loved learning about this modernizing country through the women Kennedy befriends, all caught between traditional roles and their expectagtions for the future. "If India had been a man, we would have had a very unheathy relationship indeed. The place overwhelmed and infuriated me; sometimes after a hot day of frustrations, I felt as though it was taking blood from me to feed itself. Yet in the morning, wakin...more
A very long book but maybe justified considering the subject. There's a lot of the usual stuff - firangi in India facing issues, etc. However, the author lives in a non-expat locale, has Indian friends and lives the Indian life for a few years complete with 3-4 maids/help around the house and the rest of it. She speaks of a lot of things that affected her or made an impact and most of them are predictable. In fact, I learned a bunch of stats and details about Bollywood and poverty in India that...more
Though a memoir, this reads like a novel. Set in New Delhi, India, where I grew up myself, this book describes the author's perspective on the lives of 6 women she met. I can relate to some of the incidents related based on my own experiences in Delhi. More recently, my daughter who is currently there has experienced some of these as well. The influence of caste system and movies on daily life, I believe, is overdone. But this is the author's perspective and I would leave it at that. The book is...more
This is an engaging memoir about the author's experiences in Delhi. The author moves to Delhi on her own, wanting to make it as a foreign correspondent. However, we learn next to nothing about her work or travel on the job. primarily the memoir is about the various women in Miranda's life-her widowed maid Tasha (and the complex maid/employer relationship), her friend Parvati (who is involved with a married man), and Geeta (the woman who is straddling the line between independence and tradition-a...more
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
For five years, Miranda Kennedy reported from across South Asia for National Public Radio and American Public Media's Marketplace Radio. From her base in New Delhi, she covered the conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and other major stories across Asia.
She wrote extensively about women, caste, and globalization in India, and her stories have appeared in publications like The Washington Post, T...more
More about Miranda Kennedy...
She wrote extensively about women, caste, and globalization in India, and her stories have appeared in publications like The Washington Post, T...more
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
Nov 29, 2011 06:04am