Eat, Pray, Love!

I have no words to express how much I loved this book. I is just beautiful. I had fallen in love with the idea of living in Rome for at least a few months when I was a teenager. Recently I am into reading a lot of spiritual books in hope that I become as still as the mountains and as clear as rain water. Here Elizabeth(the writer) narrates her life story. How she had a bad divorce and hence to recuperate she travels to 3 most beautiful countries in the world: Italy, India and Indonesia. I don't know if it is just coincidence but all the 3 countries have I in it. She chooses to live 4 months in each country.

I love the way that the book has been split up into 108 chapters. The prelude is called as 109th bead(very very nice). She mentions the importance of the chanting beads. Why they have 108 beads. Rosary came from the Indian monks. The last bead is used to denote the end of 108 beads. She gave each country 36 beads adding up to 108. I am so much in love with the book and the tyle of writing. She knows everything from science behind Phantom limb to Kundalina Sakthi. But she is not bragging anywhere. She very humble especially in the way she writes. Its like listening to the story of a friend right off her lips. She has imposed celibacy

Secretly I wish that I could get to live in those 3 countries just like her. I love the do nothing but what your heart says vacations. That is truly possible only when one is alone. No planning no pre booking and planned tours. Just making new friends and roaming aimlessly. Nothing I do must have anything useful what so ever. Wow! dream come true. I am going to tell all that I loved in the tale told in each country.

ITALY 

Ah! I have dreamed of vacationing in Italy. I have heard about the serious problems in the country like corruption, lack of respect for women, people might get mugged and what not. But my love for it grew in multifolds due to this book. There are so many things Liz(short for Elizabeth) could have done in Italy but she choose to learn Italian. Again it is something I wanted to do. I always wanted to learn Italian and Spanish. I really don't know why. She wanted to learn Italian because she thinks that it makes her feel romantic and sexy. Well might be true. There is so much description about food. I am all gaga about Italian food. Anything with cheese count me in. She eats gelatio, pizza, pasta and tiramisu (Its pure heaven! In Italy in must be like encounter with God himself). She goes to Italian classes during the day and just roams the city with no purpose what so ever.

My favorite chapter is the one in which she goes to Naples(birthplace of pizza) just to eat pizza(Isn't that obvious?). The way she describes food make you earn for some nice Italian food. Naples is not all high class. I has a lot of ruffians. She calls spade a spade no over romanticism of anything. She breaks the glossy image of Venice.

She made me long to be in Italy to learn Italian, to eat my heart out, to go see all fountains, and everything else.

INDIA

India is always see as this beautiful land filled with mystics and snake charmers. This seems to be the evergreen western view. She went to an Ashram in India. She learned about mediation and found God within herself. She had to struggle a lot to clear all the wounds of her divorce.

She found new friends and new peace within her. Ever since I went to Esha in Coimbatore I wanted to go on a spiritual retreat. Just to disconnect from all the fuss and noise and feel like a new person.Hope I get to do it some time soon. I am not describing mush here because its better understood when read.

INDONESIA

This whole journey started because there was a medicine man she had met during her last official visit. He predicted that she would be back to Bali and would learn medicine from him. She does so many things here. Meeting people, partying, learning wonder of non conventional medicine, understanding the grid of life in Bali.

She makes friendship with a healer. She helped the woman buy a house. She found love. She learned to balance between the pleasure she experienced in Italy and peace she found in India. This gave her courage to lose her heart once again.

It was like a fairy tale ending. A very well written book. I recommend it to everyone who feeling that something is a miss and life is confusing to read the book.