Lost & Found in India

by Braja Sorensen

Lost & Found in India by Braja Sorensen 'The least pretentious diary of life in India I have ever read.' - Farrukh Dhondy, Best- selling author, " A New Translation"Despite how entertaining or exotic one may find other books on India to be, they share the trait of being written by foreigners on a brief journey, an adventure, and consequently they all deliver an often incorrect view of a country that is impossible to understand from the surface. Sorensen moved in, set up house, became a resident in a village on the banks of the Ganges River, and eventually called India home. Her writing swings from the depths of ancient culture, spirituality, and philosophy, through to drunk bathroom repair men and India's wedding season, and ties it all together with direction, grounding, and an easily-digested reality.Its funny, outrageous, controversial, deep, witty, spiritual, philosophical, and damned in other words, it’s India.

Genres: India, Nonfiction

172 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2013

About the author

Braja Sorensen is an author, poet, photographer, bhakti-yogini, cook, and cow lover, hailing from the beaches of Australia. She has lived in on the banks of the sacred Ganges River in Mayapur, West Bengal, since the turn of the century. She is the author of Lost & Found in India (2013); Mad & Divine (2015); her first novel, Of Noble Blood (due 2016); and her first novella, Kavita: Search for Transcendence (due 2015). She has other published works in the Vaishnava genre: 18 Days: Sri Panca-tattva's Mayapur-lila (2004), and India & Beyond: Plane Reading for Part-time Babajis (2012). Braja also worked for some years on Nava-vraja-mahima (Lal Publishing, 2013) authored by Sivarama Swami: a nine-volume treatise on the sacred land of India through the Vaishnava perspective of pastime, pilgrimage, and philosophy. Her award-winning poetry has been published in the UK and Australia, and she was the Managing Editor for several years for Mayapur Magazine and Mayapur Journal. www.brajasorensen.com.

Reviews

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had promise, but unfortunately it mostly consists of the author's rambling blog posts. While the blog might have been entertaining, the book as a whole could have used some serious editing to make it worth reading as a memoir. It's a shame because the author's experiences in India are very different from that of most expats (as far as I can tell from my own life here). If she had focused more on village life, her own experiences there, and her reasons for choosing to live in India, this could have been a fascinating book. Instead, she wanders from the trivial to the general and back again.

[Barbara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Braja Sorensen tells us we should never ask 'Why?' in India but it's almost impossible not to read her book and think a few more Whys could have been answered in it as I'm left just not really understanding her motivations to live in Mayapur or how she and her husband actually survive with little apparent source of income. It's OK to just drop out - people have been doing it for years - but I seriously doubted her claim to be ' a writer and editor' when I discovered she consistently didn't know the difference between its and it's, couldn't spell Dharamsala or haemorrhage and ended every other sentence with multiple periods...

This book needs a good spell check and an editor who understands basic punctuation. You can get away with this sloppiness in a blog but not in a book you're going to sell.

There are irritating inconsistencies - that she clearly hates the British for their past imperialism (let's not ask what Australia ever did for the world, shall we?) yet at the same time she steadfastly refuses to call Bombay by the current name Mumbai and insists on calling Kolkata Calcutta. So love the old names but still slag off the empire. Nice one Braja.

There's little 'point' to the book. It does seem to just be a collection of observations and ramblings. That's not necessarily a bad thing but it does mean there's little cohesion to the book. There are some observations about India that really do ring true. Has anybody been to India and not wished the schools would teach kids a question other than "Where do you come from?" and all travellers without children will soon start making them up just to avoid all the questions about why you don't have any (my husband tells people we have two boys and a girl - he doesn't say they are cats).

If Braja can let her meditation and yoga clean her horrible thoughts of prejudice against the British, other travellers, beggars, and if she can find an editor who'll sort out her apostrophes and overuse of ... check the spelling and teach her the difference between fewer and less, and if she'll accept the honest but harsh feedback of somebody who might advise her to put a bit more structure into her tale, there's a decent book in here. But it really needs a lot of attention.

[Lauren Mokasdar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved the hilarious way Braja told her story. I loved Braja's descriptions of things that may seem trivial to some, I feel paying attention to these things helps you soak up the wonderful of India.

This book is more of a diary than a traditional memoir, and I liked it a lot.

[Sam · Rating 1 out of 5]

Having the good fortune to live in India whilst being able to still have a western income. This book was a complete disappointment, full of the authors boring ramblings. Don't wast your time or money you'll learn nothing about the true India here!

[Suzy Soro · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are few memoirs that transport you to a country you've never seen, at least not with a lot of success. This is not one of those books. I've been to India but not to Mayapur in West Bengal, where this story unfolds. Australian author Sorensen moved to India twelve years ago and lives in a village with her husband. I was riveted by the details, the sights, the sounds, the cows! I only wish it had been hundreds of pages longer because I was totally hooked and wanted more more more. Told with humor and insight, this yogini dispenses spirituality as easily as she does words.

Sorensen doesn't sugarcoat India but reveals both the good and the bad. Even with the bad, the book is a love letter to those of us who love to travel, love to learn about other cultures and love to laugh.

[Subodh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Long time back I read in an article that foreigners visiting India fall in two distinct camps - those who find nothing right with this country; and those who find nothing wrong with it. Braja Sorensen lives in India, that too away from the metropolises and even medium sized towns in a village. She loves India, but she is not blind to India's faults. The reader gets a good, humour-laced account of the many pitfalls life in India. Some examples are the habit of staring at people, the love for noise, the aversion to following a time-table.

The book is divided into short, easy to read chapters. Each chapter begins with a short quote for general wisdom - not necessarily Indian in origin and ends with a reflection from Indian philosophy.

The problem with the book is that the author poses questions and then fails to answer them. I don't know whether it is lack of discipline on her part, or something deliberate. She could well be making the point that in India questions don't have definitive answers - they just start a train of thought which could lead one anywhere.

India is exasperating not only for visitors, but also for Indians; particularly urban, educated ones like me. Nothing works the way it is supposed to work, yet at the end of the day most things get done somehow. People like me are drawn to such books by foreigners in the hope that they may help us make sense of ourselves. This book just holds out an assurance that there is a lot to love about India, but doesn't quite give one a grasp on what that is.

[Kimberly Jayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought Lost & Found in India with great anticipation. I have enjoyed Braja Sorensen's blog for years, so I had certain expectations of her writing. I am delighted to say I was not disappointed. Lost & Found in India is part essay, part provocative memoir infused with a healthy dose of humor that is vintage Sorensen. Her journey from Australia to India is more than geographic. It's a heart-rending psychological journey as well. Sorensen skillfully packs the reader in her suitcase and carts them with her; and in doing so, we see the transformative powers of cultures and belief systems in different parts of the world. Her little village spot in Mayapur seems idyllic, and makes me wonder if I could have that much courage to trade continents. This is an enjoyable and thought-provoking book. Highly recommended.

[Latha Lokanath Pradeep · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked the humorous way in which the author has detailed life in India especially in the village of Mayapur ...... longing to visit that place after reading the book .......the author's love for India is clearly evident in spite of all the difficulties she had to face in adjusting to a permanent life in India.

[Harshit Kapoor · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most appropriate description about India and its idiosyncratic society.I loved reading this book because most of times, I was able to relate my experiences with that of the author's.

[Camellia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A first hand account of living in India. Interesting

[Alison]

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