Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan's Blog, page 143
September 18, 2015
Today in Photo
Any excuse to escape the city! Finally on the road again, this time to Bhopal, which ok, isn't the world's most exciting destination. But a weekend away is a weekend away, and I have notes on stuff to do while I'm there. Off we go! #traveldiary
via Instagram
September 17, 2015
Here I am reading aloud a new piece I wrote at Depot 29*
* I realise that reads like I wrote the piece AT Depot 29, but in fact, I wrote it at home and only read it at Depot 29. But Depot seems like a nice place to write as well!
As some of you may know, I have a collection of short stories coming out with Westland this year. (Probably next month!) I've always been drawn to the format of the short story--perfect little universes where you can go fully macro-mode, zooming in closer and closer to the character. I wrote some of them four years ago, when I was away in the hills, trying to restart my writing.
Cold Feet happened, and work stuff happened, and I had sort of forgotten about them, until I had a bored afternoon, and was going through my "creative writing" folder, and came across my stories again, and they were still... good. At least, I thought so. The writing didn't make me cringe, as old writing sometimes does, the stories still felt fresh and tight, and so I sent them off to an agent friend, who sold it for me, and I wrote a few more--I put ideas on post-its, just a few words to indicate what I thought: "Michael Jackson kid" for example, that turned into a story about a reclusive superstar who died and is told from the point of view of his daughter, or "cat prostitute" about a cat who lived with a prostitute in Bombay, and likes to walk the streets herself. You get the idea.
A few weeks ago, my friend Karan Khosla, who is a super talented musician and in a few bands, asked if I'd like to a spoken word thing at a gig he was playing. The story had to be under three minutes, and he'd accompany me on the guitar. The Good Thing and I chopped one of my 8000 word stories into 800 words--no small task!--and then we put in breathing breaks, so I remembered to catch my breath and read slowly, and I rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed till I knew it almost off by heart. My reading aloud skills have never been great, which kind of sucks if you're a writer, so I was glad of the practice too.
All this to say, I finally uploaded it to YouTube! It's the adaptation of a longer story, but it had to be complete, so I tweaked the middle and the ending. Video off my phone, so it's not AMAZING, but I did put in subtitles so you can "read" along.
Enjoy and let me know what you think.
As some of you may know, I have a collection of short stories coming out with Westland this year. (Probably next month!) I've always been drawn to the format of the short story--perfect little universes where you can go fully macro-mode, zooming in closer and closer to the character. I wrote some of them four years ago, when I was away in the hills, trying to restart my writing.
Cold Feet happened, and work stuff happened, and I had sort of forgotten about them, until I had a bored afternoon, and was going through my "creative writing" folder, and came across my stories again, and they were still... good. At least, I thought so. The writing didn't make me cringe, as old writing sometimes does, the stories still felt fresh and tight, and so I sent them off to an agent friend, who sold it for me, and I wrote a few more--I put ideas on post-its, just a few words to indicate what I thought: "Michael Jackson kid" for example, that turned into a story about a reclusive superstar who died and is told from the point of view of his daughter, or "cat prostitute" about a cat who lived with a prostitute in Bombay, and likes to walk the streets herself. You get the idea.
A few weeks ago, my friend Karan Khosla, who is a super talented musician and in a few bands, asked if I'd like to a spoken word thing at a gig he was playing. The story had to be under three minutes, and he'd accompany me on the guitar. The Good Thing and I chopped one of my 8000 word stories into 800 words--no small task!--and then we put in breathing breaks, so I remembered to catch my breath and read slowly, and I rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed till I knew it almost off by heart. My reading aloud skills have never been great, which kind of sucks if you're a writer, so I was glad of the practice too.
All this to say, I finally uploaded it to YouTube! It's the adaptation of a longer story, but it had to be complete, so I tweaked the middle and the ending. Video off my phone, so it's not AMAZING, but I did put in subtitles so you can "read" along.
Enjoy and let me know what you think.
September 14, 2015
Today in Photo
Yummmm. A good cookbook is so full of hope, no? Like you're gonna have all these amazing meals and be satiated all the way from your toes to your soul. My friend Aparna Jain (the author) gave me this a few weekends ago, all curated family recipes from her home and today, my cook Najma and I are trying out the Mangalorean fish curry. #bookstagram #cooking
via Instagram
September 12, 2015
Please Mr Postman: Online shopping & how it's making us super lazy
I can’t remember the last time I went to an actual store. That thought struck me today when the doorbell rang in the afternoon with the latest of my deliveries: two baby board books, absolutely adorable, and neither of which I have spotted in the stores before, for two little girls I know who just had their birthdays. I shoved the package on my bookshelf, and next time I meet their mothers, I’ll carry along a book with me.
Easier to make a random plan than having to wait till I go to a bookstore the next time.
I actually never considered buying presents online before. I don’t know why — I certainly buy everything else. But presents always seemed to me a thing of brick and mortar stores, you spend a long time in a market figuring out what you want to give someone and, finally, in a panic, you buy the first thing you saw anyway. But now even that barrier is broken and my switch from offline to online is almost complete.
There are many advantages to buying from your local mom-and-pop grocer. In my own colony, we have three grocery shops, all around each other, and each offering more or less the same kind of goods. One is a little bigger than the other two and as a result is always so crowded, that it takes a good 15 minutes just to get anyone to take your order. But old hands like me are allowed to go behind the counter and choose what we want. However, there’s a peculiar odour that emanates from the shop especially during the height of summer, Eau De Dead Rat or something. Calculating the amount of time it takes to walk there and then wait and then walk back again, it seemed almost too stupid not to take advantage of one of the many grocery delivery apps there are right now.
My own particular choice was Grofers. Not because they are superior to others (they may or may not be) but because theirs was the first ad that I happened to see for that service. The app is ridiculously easy to use — you download it and then type in what you need and it gets delivered to your door. Two things sealed the deal for us: one, you could pay online so it didn’t matter whether or not you had cash in the house and two, they also deliver cat food, an essential for lazy pet owners.
Today, the doorbell has rung about six or seven times and I have received: two bras bought on the Myntra shopping app, just in time to go under the new dress I was planning on wearing tonight, one Grofers man with a box of tomatoes, another Grofers man with my “dry” groceries and Amazon, like I mentioned before, with my baby board books. Yesterday we received a multi plug and a magazine, the months before had a microwave and an oven and a vacuum cleaner and so on and so forth, you get the idea. We never have to leave the house again.
Me in five years.
It’s sort of perfect. But is it really? I can’t help thinking of Wall-E. The little garbage cleaning robot left to sort out the mess on earth while humans wait in space for a sign that the planet is inhabitable. Wall-E stands on a pile of our making, a pile of things we have consumed and when the frame zooms out you see earth is buried under these things, like a dystopian nightmare. Meanwhile in space, you see the future humans, only they’re obese and always consuming, hooked into their screens, seated on chairs that hover them from one area to the next and am I saying this might be my future if I stick to ordering all my things online? No. But somewhere there’s a catch to all of this.
Oh well, until I figure it out, I can keep going.
(A version of this appeared as my column on mydigitalfc.com)
Easier to make a random plan than having to wait till I go to a bookstore the next time.
I actually never considered buying presents online before. I don’t know why — I certainly buy everything else. But presents always seemed to me a thing of brick and mortar stores, you spend a long time in a market figuring out what you want to give someone and, finally, in a panic, you buy the first thing you saw anyway. But now even that barrier is broken and my switch from offline to online is almost complete.
There are many advantages to buying from your local mom-and-pop grocer. In my own colony, we have three grocery shops, all around each other, and each offering more or less the same kind of goods. One is a little bigger than the other two and as a result is always so crowded, that it takes a good 15 minutes just to get anyone to take your order. But old hands like me are allowed to go behind the counter and choose what we want. However, there’s a peculiar odour that emanates from the shop especially during the height of summer, Eau De Dead Rat or something. Calculating the amount of time it takes to walk there and then wait and then walk back again, it seemed almost too stupid not to take advantage of one of the many grocery delivery apps there are right now.
My own particular choice was Grofers. Not because they are superior to others (they may or may not be) but because theirs was the first ad that I happened to see for that service. The app is ridiculously easy to use — you download it and then type in what you need and it gets delivered to your door. Two things sealed the deal for us: one, you could pay online so it didn’t matter whether or not you had cash in the house and two, they also deliver cat food, an essential for lazy pet owners.
Today, the doorbell has rung about six or seven times and I have received: two bras bought on the Myntra shopping app, just in time to go under the new dress I was planning on wearing tonight, one Grofers man with a box of tomatoes, another Grofers man with my “dry” groceries and Amazon, like I mentioned before, with my baby board books. Yesterday we received a multi plug and a magazine, the months before had a microwave and an oven and a vacuum cleaner and so on and so forth, you get the idea. We never have to leave the house again.
Me in five years. It’s sort of perfect. But is it really? I can’t help thinking of Wall-E. The little garbage cleaning robot left to sort out the mess on earth while humans wait in space for a sign that the planet is inhabitable. Wall-E stands on a pile of our making, a pile of things we have consumed and when the frame zooms out you see earth is buried under these things, like a dystopian nightmare. Meanwhile in space, you see the future humans, only they’re obese and always consuming, hooked into their screens, seated on chairs that hover them from one area to the next and am I saying this might be my future if I stick to ordering all my things online? No. But somewhere there’s a catch to all of this.
Oh well, until I figure it out, I can keep going.
(A version of this appeared as my column on mydigitalfc.com)
September 6, 2015
Today in Photo
Seven years ago, my infamous You Are Here book launch at Agni and sorta, in a way, the launching of me as an author. Then I was young and hopeful, now I am old(er), cynical but still hopeful five books later. For what it's worth, I still choose to do what I do,so there's that.
via Instagram
Today in Photo
Nostalgia lunch. Do you remember the time when this was The Burger and Nirula's was The Pizza and there were no other choices? It's cool to have choices, but sometimes it's nice to go back to a simpler time. #wimpys #delhidiary
via Instagram
September 5, 2015
Without you, one night alone, is like a year without you baby
Addictions. We all have some small demons we have to fight. In my case, my demons are socially sanctioned- sort of. Cigarette aren't illegal (yet) and I didn't even know I had another addiction until last week.
What happened last week? Well, regular readers of this column may know I have three cats. They're all under two years old, and still fairly kittenish. One of their favourite pastimes, in fact, is playing follow-my-leader boisterouly, with no regard for the things they are jumping over. One of these things was a coffee cup, and before I could save it, the dregs of my evening coffee lay all over my most precious possesion: my Macbook Air.
A writer without the tools to write is a funny beast. Even if you may not be writing anything at the moment, robbed of your implements, the tool of your trade, you feel somewhat naked. Exposed. Like you're going out into the world with no armour.
But more than that fiddly twitch--much like smoking, I may point out--what I missed most was my unfettered access to the internet. I know, I know. You're saying, "But why not use your phone?" and I do, I am, but there are so many things about a laptop I take for granted, the ease of tabbed browsing for example, or just the bigger screen, that I feel very much like a marathon runner whose legs have been hobbled together. There it lies, the great big world of the internet, and here I am, only able to experience it in dribs and drabs.
But a funny thing happened in the last week while my laptop goes off to be repaired. I began to sink into my digital detox and then, on day two, actually to enjoy it. My usual morning routine is get out of bed, feed the cats, put the coffee on and go straight to my desk to catch up on what the world's been doing while I was asleep. Now I linger in bed longer, only hopping out for said cats, and coffee, but that too at a certain pace and time. I open the door and pull in the morning papers, something I usually put off till later in the day, and I read them carefully cover to cover, pausing not to check Twitter or Facebook like I normally would, but to stare out of the window and think about what I've just read. Then as the day goes by, I wander over to my to-be-read shelf, and select what I feel like reading that day. I usually go right back to bed and sit with my pile of books under the duvet with the AC on.
I am lucky in that I have finished two big projects already, and this was meant to be my fallow time, to come up with new ideas. I am also lucky that I don't have a day job or that many deadlines, I am free to lie in a hammock thinking deep thoughts should I choose.
That's when it struck me. Why don't I choose? With no jobs and deadlines holding me to my desk, why do I insist on acting like an office drone? I am living the life and it's passing me by in a cloud of who said what on Facebook. I don't even like half these people so much, why do I keep checking what they have to say?
Hopefully my laptop will return this week, and then my life can go back to its usual routine, deadlines and all, but until then, I'm sort of enjoying myself. Today, after I finish writing this on my phone with an external keyboard that slips into my purse, I'm off to a cooking class in far away Gurgaon, because why not? What else do I have to do today?
A version of this appeared as my column.
September 3, 2015
Today in Photo
Sitting on the rooftop of Galleryske in Connaught Place and watching CP unfold beneath us. Interesting Thursday. #delhidiary
via Instagram
September 2, 2015
Today in Photo
They fuck you up, your mum and dad, They may no mean to but they do, They say, "Oh, my precious lad!" And then cut off a ball or two. - Squishy, poet, Nizamuddin #catsofdelhi
via Instagram
Today in Photo
Since my laptop was the unfortunate victim of a coffee spill (sob sob) I'm drowning my sorrows in the printed word. Finished The Devotion Of Suspect X which many of you recommended, then had a No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency morning and afternoon & now moving on to Nisha Da Cunha's short stories. The back cover describes her as one of India's finest short story writers, which makes me wonder why I've never heard of her before. Two pages into the first story and it is golden. My hoarding instincts which lead to lots of unread books languishing (sometimes so forgotten that I buy a second copy) have paid off. #nowreading #bookstagram
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