Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan's Blog, page 139

Today in Photo

Soooo uninspired this year but throwback Thursday from several years ago reminds me of when we had a Diwaloween/Hallowali party in Bombay. The theme was gods and goddesses and here I am as Lakshmi (paper money round my waist) with a friend dressed as Kama (hence the condoms around his neck.) fun times! No Halloween party for us this year, I can't be bothered and we have a good one to attend anyway, but I am still costumeless. Arya Stark? Hermione? Zombie flapper?

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New Feminism Column!

That's right, someone heard me ranting and decided to pay me money to do it for realsies. 

(Okay, okay, I'll mention the redesign first. Isn't it nice? I was kinda bored of all the white. This is a standard Blogger template, but with a little help from the Good Thing, we managed to make it super personal. Do you love it? I DO!) 
ANYHOW, so I'm sharing space in The Week online with the amazing Meena Kandasamy (who is a poet and a novelist and really quite kick-ass, so I was super flattered. We split so we each do every other week. 
Here are my three so far. 
On abortions and why we should talk about them more. 

"Sometimes condoms gave in to the pressure of being in a leather wallet for several months, nestled against hot thigh on a hotter summer day, sometimes you’d feel it give during the act itself; other times you’d only notice when you rose to have a shower, there’d be a trickle that wasn’t yours emerging from you. It was in those moments that my partner and I would look at each other with consternation: I could tell you about finding the right gynae—you’d have to ask a friend of a friend of a friend, always hush hush—or driving to a maternity ward in a major hospital at night, hoping to find some sort of contraceptive that would hold. Mostly I hated the young doctors rolling their eyes at me, their expressions clearly saying, “These girls never take care of themselves.” But I was a feminist already! I said things like, “No glove, no love!” It wasn’t my fault the gloves were so delicate you probably had to store them in your fridge or something."

On aggressive staring and moving to gated neighbourhoods to get away from it all.

It’s hard to explain the “aggressive looking” to anyone who isn’t a woman in India. Yes, it’s just staring, and yes, staring isn’t going to kill me, but it’s the way the stares happen, face immobile or sometimes just plain unfriendly, eyes skittering past your clothes, resting on your face for a second or on your butt or your bosom, men continuing to do whatever they were doing before, only this time their eyes never leave you. They’re talking, chewing paan, their arms around each other’s shoulder and they make looking into an almost physical gesture. 

On why we apologise so much and how we should really stop. 

Emoticons are great for people who can’t convey subtle tone. I use them all the time out of laziness. When I bite back at someone sarcastically on Facebook, I add the tongue-sticking-out face. Don’t take me too seriously! I was only joking! When I’m not in the world’s best mood but want to convey happiness anyway, I add a smiley. It doesn’t matter what my words say, just look at my smile! Somewhere along the way of talking about my emotions on the internet, I had grown uncomfortable about having any feelings that weren’t all happy-happy-joy-joy and so had to hide behind the little yellow face. 

Have a read if you're interested in any or all of the above. I think they're fun.



(You know what's full of women's writing? My new book! Now out on Amazon! Buy it!)

Today in Photo

Feminist mornings with my wanderer girl kitty and this amazing print from @kultureshopindia. A present from a dear friend "to inspire you." Totally ok taking on patriarchy now. #feminism #catsagram

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Today in Photo

Schlepped alllll the way to Gurgaon for the Grub Fest this weekend. First stop, the #Absolut stall for a cocktail. Looking at those clouds I'm drunk already. #happy #foodfestival

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Everything changes, and everything stays the same

It’s almost the end of October with Diwali fast nipping at our heels and for those of us in the North, a distinct tang of winter in the air. Which means that another year is almost over. This isn’t a year-end column though—even though Dusshera and its burning of all evils should be a good place to start—but a way of examining my feelings about the news lately. Which is a great weary feeling that nothing has changed, nothing at all, and we’re still stuck in the same place, outraging about the same things. Here’s a list I made of the more “evergreen” news stories as it were. (Warning: it’s very depressing.)
1)   I guess we’re still talking about beef? It all began with a ban(g), when the sale of beef was stopped in Maharashtra. This actually had a personal impact on me, because we were travelling in Goa at the time, and one night all of us had a great steak craving. There was none to be had for love or money, the owner of the restaurant we picked said. I think that was the first time it struck home for us that a ban on a certain kind of meat could actually happen. But, naively, I assumed it would blow over. Blow over? Hardly. Over the next six months, beef became such a hot button topic that people are dying all over the place and trucks are being burnt and people are being told to go back to Pakistan if they like beef so much, that argument so loved by the uneducated. 2)   Caste shouldn’t be a thing anymore in 2015, should it? But it is. This is the year that saw huge injustices against Dalits. I’m thinking of just a few days ago, the story of two small children killed in a fire set to their house while they slept because of some pride thing the upper castes of their village had. Or a headline that said, “In Jodhpur, a family lives in fear after boy touches non-Dalit’s plate.” Or the several lower caste women who are sexually assaulted in villages across India, unable to get justice because the system is so heavily biased towards the upper castes, their rapists. 3)   Dengue! Again, I’m going to marvel that the year that Marty McFly chose to travel to is the year where we still haven’t managed to come up with a way to keep away an illness which is basically caused by a mosquito bite. I get that it’s mostly a question of a social situation: crowded areas with more stagnant water get dengue mosquitoes, but instead of panic and fear, just get everyone to slap on a cheaper version of Odomos (or Odomos itself, since that’s the only thing that seems to work against the mosquitos in my house). It would be truly ironic if I got dengue after writing this though. Ironic, and yet, proving my point. 4)   Murder most foul and our not-so-great justice system. Ugh, the cops and investigators tumbled from one bad story to another. If it wasn’t the whole Aarushi case resurfacing, it was the very weird Sheena Bora one or the lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq (where the cops very usefully performed a post-mortem not on the body but on the meat in the fridge.) Here’s a fun fact I unearthed when researching this: “India has earned the dubious distinction of securing a spot for the eighth year in a row on a global index which ranks the countries around the world where journalists are murdered and their killers go unpunished.” Yup. 5)   Finally, this last thing is less of a news story and more of a way people react to a news story: people have got to stop responding to a rant about one thing by saying, “Oh, why didn’t you rant about this other terrible thing? Did you not care then? Therefore you do not care now! QED!” (You know who you are!) That’s just stupid. An argument can be made that increasing exposure to bad news can make you feel worse and worse about it till it all comes spilling out, and so you didn’t make a passionate speech about it then, but you will now. An argument can also be made that by derailing an entire discussion and turning it to who-said-what-when you’re kind of killing the point and that’s not doing any good to anyone. Think about that one, internet people. Think hard. 
(A version of this appeared as my column in mydigitalfc.com)
(My new book is out and you should totally buy it. LINK.)

Today in Photo

Feeling super spiffy in my new favourite shoes! I've been wanting these McQeen for Puma sneaker heels since last December but they were way too pricey. But I found them online for 60% off! I love bargains. #ootd #designer #shoes

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Today in Photo

My friend (also the editor of my next book!) is a famous cook. She had a Dusshera dinner party last night with some other awesome women around the table. The conversation passed the Bechdel test with flying colours, I'm happy to say. And i had to document that food! From top to bottom (all homemade): baguettes, carrots and mozzarella (?), potatoes gratin, and a chicken stew thing. Yum yum YUM. #dinnerparties #cooking

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Before And Then After

Attention! 

My new book is OUT! 
It's full of stories.  I'd say more but my laptop is still at the shop so I'm writing this on my phone.  Okay, okay, I guess II can say a little more. 
The first story is all about young writing and India's cray literary scene. And sex. 
The second story is about a famous superstar who dies & how his kids deal with the aftermath because he was a recluse. 
My favourite story?  Gosh. So hard to say! For content,  maybe the one about the prostitute's cat because CATS! OR ooh, the last one about a mermaid who was adopted by humans. Or the one about a girl whose dead best friend rings her doorbell one day. 
Actually I kinda love them all. 
Here's where you can buy a copy! http://www.amazon.in/Before-After-Mee.... 
It says pre order but I think the book is already in stores & definitely already on the Kindle so maybe Amazon just needs to update. 

 I hope you love it. 

Today in Photo

It's here it's here it's here!!! Please buy my new book! #BeforeAndThenAfter short stories out now!

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Today in Photo

Although this is a fun time to be back in Delhi (with another trip planned for a few weeks from now, visa gods willing) I can't help wishing all my afternoon drives looked a bit like this. Bit blurry coz I shot it from the window of a moving car but the hills! THE HILLS! #traveldiary #ontheroad

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