Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan's Blog, page 145
August 14, 2015
A list of things I would like to propose we get "independence from"
1) Long lines.
2) No lines at all and everyone just shoving their way in anyway.
3) That horrible IRCTC website and how long it takes to do anything on it.
4) People who smell bad.
5) People who hurt weaker people/animals because they obviously have small penises.
6) People who think the world begins and ends with their penis.
7) People who drive really fast in residential areas and don't slow down until the very last minute making an "eeeeeek" sound with their tires.
8) People who flake on plans at the last minute when you're already all dressed up and perfumed and you have to take everything off and resign yourself to an evening in instead of an evening out.
9) The heat.
10) The cold.
11) The mugginess.
12) People who check my name before they bitch about other religions, so they know they're not offending me DIRECTLY.
13) People who gather round a scene and watch, I seriously want to slap all their faces, STOP FUCKING WATCHING ME.
14) People who win an argument just by shouting.
15) People.
16) Things.
17) Petrol prices.
Happy 69th Independence Day, India!
2) No lines at all and everyone just shoving their way in anyway.
3) That horrible IRCTC website and how long it takes to do anything on it.
4) People who smell bad.
5) People who hurt weaker people/animals because they obviously have small penises.
6) People who think the world begins and ends with their penis.
7) People who drive really fast in residential areas and don't slow down until the very last minute making an "eeeeeek" sound with their tires.
8) People who flake on plans at the last minute when you're already all dressed up and perfumed and you have to take everything off and resign yourself to an evening in instead of an evening out.
9) The heat.
10) The cold.
11) The mugginess.
12) People who check my name before they bitch about other religions, so they know they're not offending me DIRECTLY.
13) People who gather round a scene and watch, I seriously want to slap all their faces, STOP FUCKING WATCHING ME.
14) People who win an argument just by shouting.
15) People.
16) Things.
17) Petrol prices.
Happy 69th Independence Day, India!
August 10, 2015
Random memories triggered by songs on NOW That's What I Call The 90s
*
Gangsta's Paradise by Coolio
: This was in that Michelle Pfieffer (fffer? Something) movie! The one with the kids who came around to her way of thinking after she printed out Bob Dylan lyrics and passed them round. The kids eventually loved her. You know what happened to me when I tried to be all teacher-y for like two weeks with an NGO programme? I almost had a nervous breakdown. Kids are not easy man. And no one is singing fun songs.
* I Can't Help Falling In Love With You by UB40 : You need to read my whole essay over at Ladies Finger to get my memory of this song, but mostly, there was a boy and he wrote this on his t-shirt as a sign of his love.
* Wannabe by The Spice Girls : ZIG A ZIG AH! Also we were in South Ex the first time this song came on the radio and we sang along, and felt Spice Girl-y ourselves, so that was nice. This was right before the Spice Girls Explosion, and you wanted to be Posh or Baby, sometimes Ginger, Sporty too asexual, Scary too Scary, plus her hair was all curls and we were Dally girls and curls were only a post-bath thing, except for me, and I brushed my hair straight so it stood up with static. Poor Scary Spice.
* Cotton Eye Joe by Rednex : Okay, first of all, FIRST OF ALL, I did not realise the singers of this fine earworm were called Rednex. REDNEX! Holy appropriateness, Batman. This was the night I got very very stoned in Goa with just another acquaintance for company and all the trance music turned into Cotton Eye Joe and I wandered through the crowds searching for the DJ to ask him to change the music. (I'm lucky to be alive.)
* I Can't Help Falling In Love With You by UB40 : You need to read my whole essay over at Ladies Finger to get my memory of this song, but mostly, there was a boy and he wrote this on his t-shirt as a sign of his love.
* Wannabe by The Spice Girls : ZIG A ZIG AH! Also we were in South Ex the first time this song came on the radio and we sang along, and felt Spice Girl-y ourselves, so that was nice. This was right before the Spice Girls Explosion, and you wanted to be Posh or Baby, sometimes Ginger, Sporty too asexual, Scary too Scary, plus her hair was all curls and we were Dally girls and curls were only a post-bath thing, except for me, and I brushed my hair straight so it stood up with static. Poor Scary Spice.
* Cotton Eye Joe by Rednex : Okay, first of all, FIRST OF ALL, I did not realise the singers of this fine earworm were called Rednex. REDNEX! Holy appropriateness, Batman. This was the night I got very very stoned in Goa with just another acquaintance for company and all the trance music turned into Cotton Eye Joe and I wandered through the crowds searching for the DJ to ask him to change the music. (I'm lucky to be alive.)
August 9, 2015
Words have power and you've gotta stop calling your friends "sluts"
You’re not allowed to use the word “whore.” I mean, I guess you could use it if you wanted to, but if you considered yourself a feminist in any sense of the word, you’d probably want to stop. And here’s why.
The word “whore” comes originally from the Old English and meant, back then, a term of abuse for an unchaste or lewd woman, whether or not she accepted money for her favours. From as long ago as 1200 AD, language has been shaming women who enjoyed sex, and perhaps had sex with multiple partners. It was also synonymous with “lupa” for she wolf, from the Roman times and “pumcalli” from the Sanskrit, which translates to “one who runs after men.” (Reference from the Online Etymology Dictionary)
Well, if you MUST give all your power to a big white guy in the sky
But in our current times, the word “whore” while still derogatory, became also used for men and women who lower or debase themselves in some way for some form of attention. See: “media whore,” “attention whore,” and so on and so forth. I myself used it in an article—in which I mentioned that men were wont to look upon any woman who had sex as a whore—which puts the onus of the blame on the woman herself, and not on the men who are so blithe and easy with labels.
A few years ago, women around the world organized themselves into a “Slut Walk” to reclaim the word that had been used to spew abuse at women for centuries now. I wasn’t very comfortable with the movement, though I accepted it for women choosing to step out and become empowered, but it wasn’t until I came across a blog post on a website called Feminist Current, that I understood my mixed feelings. The author of the post titled “It’s Not Slut Shaming, It’s Women Hating”, Meghan Murphy, says, succinctly, “No matter how hard you try to take back ‘slut’, people will still use it to shit on you. And it still won’t feel good. Just because you’ve painted ‘slut’ across your chest and proudly tromped down the street in fishnets doesn’t mean that assholes across the continent are going to stop using sexist language. A lot of people like to make comparisons around ‘taking back’ the word ‘slut’ to the n-word. But as we all know, racists still use this word in a racist way. Because they are racist and because racism is a thing that still exists in our world. You can pretend that, in the last year, ‘slut’ has been taken back to mean ‘awesome-fun-times-sexy-lady’, but it’s not true.”
Using it in casual language therefore, might seem to some as a way of taking the sting out of its intended meaning—certainly no one bats an eye when you say “slut”—but in reality is just a way of making sure this word lives on and on and on in our collective consciousness. Justine Musk, another blogger, says in a post about the subject: “When you call a woman a slut, it’s not because you necessarily believe that she’s slept her way through the entire NBA. You do it because there’s nothing more base than female sexuality. You want to cut her down to size, to put her in her place, for whatever transgression she’s committed that took her outside the box of ‘proper’ feminine behavior and made her such a pain in the ass.”
Why should a word that means you might have (in society’s view) had sex with more than one person, or even several persons, be such an insult? The vernacular Indian language abuses are even worse—you can call someone the son of a whore, or a vagina, and these are words that are just parlayed around, because wow, nothing is lower than someone who is born to a woman who wasn’t married to your father, nothing is lower than a female’s genitalia, so let’s use that to mortally insult someone.
And this was a headline recently on the website, India.com, owned and operated by Zee, PMC, and United Internet. “Sapna Bhavnani: Whore, Feminist or Woman of Substance?” It’s enough to make you bang your head against the wall. First of all, that the idea that a “woman of substance” cannot be a “whore” or a “feminist” (because it’s “or” not “and”). Secondly, the editor who let this headline pass. They may as well spell it out in big words: whore/feminist = bad! Especially, since the article is about Bhavnani, a stylist, who opened up on an online forum about the time she was raped. Seriously.
Is it any wonder that “whore” is tossed around so loosely then when even our media can’t seem to come up with alternatives? And now that you know the problematic connotations of it, maybe you’ll stop. Maybe we’ll all stop.
(A version of this appeared as my column in mydigitalfc.com)
The word “whore” comes originally from the Old English and meant, back then, a term of abuse for an unchaste or lewd woman, whether or not she accepted money for her favours. From as long ago as 1200 AD, language has been shaming women who enjoyed sex, and perhaps had sex with multiple partners. It was also synonymous with “lupa” for she wolf, from the Roman times and “pumcalli” from the Sanskrit, which translates to “one who runs after men.” (Reference from the Online Etymology Dictionary)
Well, if you MUST give all your power to a big white guy in the sky But in our current times, the word “whore” while still derogatory, became also used for men and women who lower or debase themselves in some way for some form of attention. See: “media whore,” “attention whore,” and so on and so forth. I myself used it in an article—in which I mentioned that men were wont to look upon any woman who had sex as a whore—which puts the onus of the blame on the woman herself, and not on the men who are so blithe and easy with labels.
A few years ago, women around the world organized themselves into a “Slut Walk” to reclaim the word that had been used to spew abuse at women for centuries now. I wasn’t very comfortable with the movement, though I accepted it for women choosing to step out and become empowered, but it wasn’t until I came across a blog post on a website called Feminist Current, that I understood my mixed feelings. The author of the post titled “It’s Not Slut Shaming, It’s Women Hating”, Meghan Murphy, says, succinctly, “No matter how hard you try to take back ‘slut’, people will still use it to shit on you. And it still won’t feel good. Just because you’ve painted ‘slut’ across your chest and proudly tromped down the street in fishnets doesn’t mean that assholes across the continent are going to stop using sexist language. A lot of people like to make comparisons around ‘taking back’ the word ‘slut’ to the n-word. But as we all know, racists still use this word in a racist way. Because they are racist and because racism is a thing that still exists in our world. You can pretend that, in the last year, ‘slut’ has been taken back to mean ‘awesome-fun-times-sexy-lady’, but it’s not true.”
Using it in casual language therefore, might seem to some as a way of taking the sting out of its intended meaning—certainly no one bats an eye when you say “slut”—but in reality is just a way of making sure this word lives on and on and on in our collective consciousness. Justine Musk, another blogger, says in a post about the subject: “When you call a woman a slut, it’s not because you necessarily believe that she’s slept her way through the entire NBA. You do it because there’s nothing more base than female sexuality. You want to cut her down to size, to put her in her place, for whatever transgression she’s committed that took her outside the box of ‘proper’ feminine behavior and made her such a pain in the ass.”
Why should a word that means you might have (in society’s view) had sex with more than one person, or even several persons, be such an insult? The vernacular Indian language abuses are even worse—you can call someone the son of a whore, or a vagina, and these are words that are just parlayed around, because wow, nothing is lower than someone who is born to a woman who wasn’t married to your father, nothing is lower than a female’s genitalia, so let’s use that to mortally insult someone.
And this was a headline recently on the website, India.com, owned and operated by Zee, PMC, and United Internet. “Sapna Bhavnani: Whore, Feminist or Woman of Substance?” It’s enough to make you bang your head against the wall. First of all, that the idea that a “woman of substance” cannot be a “whore” or a “feminist” (because it’s “or” not “and”). Secondly, the editor who let this headline pass. They may as well spell it out in big words: whore/feminist = bad! Especially, since the article is about Bhavnani, a stylist, who opened up on an online forum about the time she was raped. Seriously.
Is it any wonder that “whore” is tossed around so loosely then when even our media can’t seem to come up with alternatives? And now that you know the problematic connotations of it, maybe you’ll stop. Maybe we’ll all stop.
(A version of this appeared as my column in mydigitalfc.com)
August 6, 2015
There are a few things I want to say to young people having sex
Which is not don't have it, because duh. Sex, when done well, is everything they say it is.
Which is how you know it isn't done well: pro tip, btdubs.
Which is there is a point in your life when you feel like all everyone talks about, all everyone is doing, all everyone EVER seems to give one good goddamn about is sex.
Which is true.
But then, you need to have all that sex so you can move past it and be in your thirties and occasionally talk about other things.
Because the people who only talk about sex and getting laid and how many and for how long are probably the people who didn't get it out of their systems when they were in that phase where everyone else was.
Which is--OMG SO IMPORTANT--ladies, pee before and after, if you can. Otherwise you will know the wrath of the angry vagina.
(Which is seriously the most painful thing ever, unless, I assume you have given birth, which you probably have not if you need this advice, but at LEAST at the end of labour you get to go home with a baby and with a UTI all you want to do is sit on the pot and try to pee even though there's nothing left in you to pee out.)
Which is you might think it's easier to have unprotected sex, just because you're DRUNK and HORNY and the person you want to bang is right THERE, and even though you don't have a condom you might go for it anyway, but DON'T.
Which is, waiting for test results is a pretty nerve wracking experience.
Which is, there's a point when all your partners start asking you if you've been tested and you have to tell them something.
Which is, you should start asking your partners the same thing.
Which is try everything once, because that's the way you'll figure out what you want.
And--eh, if you're feeling squeamish about something, you can skip it, but don't skip it on your partner's account because you think they'll think it's weird.
(They might think it's weird.)
(But that's okay.)
Which is blue balls are not a real thing.
So say "stop" whenever you like, ladies.
Gentlemen, please stop.
Which is talk about this shit with your friends.
Which is porn is not real sex.
Which is touch yourself often.
Which is it doesn't matter who you're attracted to.
Which is be all of you and the sex will be five hundred times as good.
Which is a promise.
Which is how you know it isn't done well: pro tip, btdubs.
Which is there is a point in your life when you feel like all everyone talks about, all everyone is doing, all everyone EVER seems to give one good goddamn about is sex.
Which is true.
But then, you need to have all that sex so you can move past it and be in your thirties and occasionally talk about other things.
Because the people who only talk about sex and getting laid and how many and for how long are probably the people who didn't get it out of their systems when they were in that phase where everyone else was.
Which is--OMG SO IMPORTANT--ladies, pee before and after, if you can. Otherwise you will know the wrath of the angry vagina.
(Which is seriously the most painful thing ever, unless, I assume you have given birth, which you probably have not if you need this advice, but at LEAST at the end of labour you get to go home with a baby and with a UTI all you want to do is sit on the pot and try to pee even though there's nothing left in you to pee out.)
Which is you might think it's easier to have unprotected sex, just because you're DRUNK and HORNY and the person you want to bang is right THERE, and even though you don't have a condom you might go for it anyway, but DON'T.
Which is, waiting for test results is a pretty nerve wracking experience.
Which is, there's a point when all your partners start asking you if you've been tested and you have to tell them something.
Which is, you should start asking your partners the same thing.
Which is try everything once, because that's the way you'll figure out what you want.
And--eh, if you're feeling squeamish about something, you can skip it, but don't skip it on your partner's account because you think they'll think it's weird.
(They might think it's weird.)
(But that's okay.)
Which is blue balls are not a real thing.
So say "stop" whenever you like, ladies.
Gentlemen, please stop.
Which is talk about this shit with your friends.
Which is porn is not real sex.
Which is touch yourself often.
Which is it doesn't matter who you're attracted to.
Which is be all of you and the sex will be five hundred times as good.
Which is a promise.
August 4, 2015
The best TV I've watched this summer
I'm huge TV lover--I really believe the television show is the new movie--I'm fairly up-to-date on what's showing, thanks to "working" from home, large chunks of time where I hate myself and binge watch television without doing anything else and subscribing to several TV and pop culture websites to see what's hot.
July through September is a fairly bleak time for those of us who watch American television. All the shows you're into are off the air for the summer and you have to settle for random rubbish or *gasp* not watch TV at all. Luckily, I have superior Googling skills, so I managed to find some TV that did not suck, although a lot of it does: this time of the year being when channels experiment with shit.
Books? Who cares about books? SO, here's my list:
(Finished): Big Love. HBO show about a polygamist Mormon, his three very different wives, the politics of the polygamist sect and MORE. There's drama! Family relations! Mafia! It's seriously awesome. I cried at the series finale. (Complete show, five seasons)
(Ongoing) Everwood. Recommended by one of my TV forums as something that MIGHT fill the Gilmore Girls shaped hole in my heart. It's not quite the same as fast talking Lorelei and Rory, BUT, it gets quite interesting. Surgeon Andy Brown moves to Everwood from NYC with his two kids after his wife dies suddenly, and becomes the local doctor. Only, there's all sorts of interpersonal relationships, and stuff happening and not just feel-good stuff either, real shit. You'll like it if you like that sort of thing. (Complete show, four seasons)
(Ongoing) The Fosters. A show about two lesbian moms who open their home to a bunch of adopted and foster kids. DO I NEED TO SAY MORE? (Ongoing show, on season 3 at the moment)
(Pilot watched) The Astronaut Wives Club. I'm a huge fan of anything period-drama-y, and this is very Mad Men or more like Pan Am (RIP) focussing on the wives first bunch of astronauts to orbit earth. I'm not sure how it'll pan out, but I did really enjoy the pilot. (1 season, 10 (?) episodes.)
(Pilot watched) Mr Robot. It's sort of hilarious this show, how it puts exciting music over the image of someone typing on a computer (it's about hackers and cyber security in a way) and yet I found it completely engrossing. Definitely going to watch more. (Season one is airing now, up till episode 7.)
(Ongoing) UnREAL. Really, really, REALLY like this show. It's a dark drama set on the sets of a reality show sort of like The Bachelor. So, fictional, but also showing us how reality TV is manipulated. (1 season, 10 episodes)
(Finished) Catastrophe. An excellent rom com, but also dark humour about a one night stand that extends into forever when the woman gets pregnant. Hilarious in a it's-funny-because-it's-true way. (1 season, 6 episodes)
And also shows that are good but I haven't finished yet, because HOW MUCH TV CAN ONE PERSON WATCH.
Daredevil: I wish they'd use some more lighting in this twisty adaptation of a Marvel superhero. But fun, action-y thing to watch with your boyfriend.
Wolf Hall: I'm putting off watching this till I have a huge chunk of time to watch it back-to-back which is basically never, but I watched the pilot and it is AMAZING.
July through September is a fairly bleak time for those of us who watch American television. All the shows you're into are off the air for the summer and you have to settle for random rubbish or *gasp* not watch TV at all. Luckily, I have superior Googling skills, so I managed to find some TV that did not suck, although a lot of it does: this time of the year being when channels experiment with shit.
Books? Who cares about books? SO, here's my list:(Finished): Big Love. HBO show about a polygamist Mormon, his three very different wives, the politics of the polygamist sect and MORE. There's drama! Family relations! Mafia! It's seriously awesome. I cried at the series finale. (Complete show, five seasons)
(Ongoing) Everwood. Recommended by one of my TV forums as something that MIGHT fill the Gilmore Girls shaped hole in my heart. It's not quite the same as fast talking Lorelei and Rory, BUT, it gets quite interesting. Surgeon Andy Brown moves to Everwood from NYC with his two kids after his wife dies suddenly, and becomes the local doctor. Only, there's all sorts of interpersonal relationships, and stuff happening and not just feel-good stuff either, real shit. You'll like it if you like that sort of thing. (Complete show, four seasons)
(Ongoing) The Fosters. A show about two lesbian moms who open their home to a bunch of adopted and foster kids. DO I NEED TO SAY MORE? (Ongoing show, on season 3 at the moment)
(Pilot watched) The Astronaut Wives Club. I'm a huge fan of anything period-drama-y, and this is very Mad Men or more like Pan Am (RIP) focussing on the wives first bunch of astronauts to orbit earth. I'm not sure how it'll pan out, but I did really enjoy the pilot. (1 season, 10 (?) episodes.)
(Pilot watched) Mr Robot. It's sort of hilarious this show, how it puts exciting music over the image of someone typing on a computer (it's about hackers and cyber security in a way) and yet I found it completely engrossing. Definitely going to watch more. (Season one is airing now, up till episode 7.)
(Ongoing) UnREAL. Really, really, REALLY like this show. It's a dark drama set on the sets of a reality show sort of like The Bachelor. So, fictional, but also showing us how reality TV is manipulated. (1 season, 10 episodes)
(Finished) Catastrophe. An excellent rom com, but also dark humour about a one night stand that extends into forever when the woman gets pregnant. Hilarious in a it's-funny-because-it's-true way. (1 season, 6 episodes)
And also shows that are good but I haven't finished yet, because HOW MUCH TV CAN ONE PERSON WATCH.
Daredevil: I wish they'd use some more lighting in this twisty adaptation of a Marvel superhero. But fun, action-y thing to watch with your boyfriend.
Wolf Hall: I'm putting off watching this till I have a huge chunk of time to watch it back-to-back which is basically never, but I watched the pilot and it is AMAZING.
August 3, 2015
When even veggie sellers know your name
So many nice things happened to me yesterday and I can't tell you about ANY of them. *sigh* One because even though it's a done deal, I'm waiting for it to be so irrevocable that it's basically a life change (NO, NO MARRIAGE OR BABIES) and the other because at this point it exists only in two emails, so when those two turn into an actual contract or something, I'll let you know.
My veggie seller just rang the doorbell and handed us a packet of very strange looking zucchini, if this is zucchini after all and not just some misshapen squash with stripes. "How does he know where we live?" asked the Good Thing, who is very We-Will-Not-Even-Put-Our-Names-On-The-Door. "I've lived here for four years," I told him, (I'm a pro names-on-door myself. Like claiming your territory.) "Everyone knows where I live." True, but not very comforting, I suspect.
I joined my friends' book club a few months ago, and this thing happens each time it draws closer, I've read every single book in the whole world except for the one we're supposed to be reading. This month's selection was actually my idea, and it's this massive book (Hangwoman by K R Meera
), and I now have to spend the whole day reading it in entirity. Poor ol' me.
Of course, thanks to this whole death penalty thing, the book is very topical and we should have some good debates, which is always the goal of book club. We also drink a lot of wine and eat a lot, so there's that. Which is basically the ideal book club.
I've had a lot of emails asking if I'll do sponsored posts/native ads on this blog, and the answer is always YES. Well, no. Not always. But if it's a nice brand, and I can make some money, why not, I ask you. WHY NOT. I don't know where this sudden splurge of popularity came from, but I put it all down to the post I did yesterday because after I published it, all the emails started coming in. The perks of blogging regularly!
TODAY IN CATS: So, we lock Olga and Squishy out at night and let Bruno sleep in the bedroom with us, but when he wants feeding he climbs on the bed and starts licking any part of my leg or arm that's out of the sheet. And that SOUNDS sweet, but he has this little raspy sandpaper tongue, and if he does it hard enough, I'm sure he'll give me a friction burn or something.
Also I bought a book on the history of the cat, which is actually really fascinating, and you should get a copy yourself. (BUT FIRST I NEED TO FINISH HANGWOMAN BY TOMORROW!!)
My name is Lord Squishington and I endorse this book
My veggie seller just rang the doorbell and handed us a packet of very strange looking zucchini, if this is zucchini after all and not just some misshapen squash with stripes. "How does he know where we live?" asked the Good Thing, who is very We-Will-Not-Even-Put-Our-Names-On-The-Door. "I've lived here for four years," I told him, (I'm a pro names-on-door myself. Like claiming your territory.) "Everyone knows where I live." True, but not very comforting, I suspect.
I joined my friends' book club a few months ago, and this thing happens each time it draws closer, I've read every single book in the whole world except for the one we're supposed to be reading. This month's selection was actually my idea, and it's this massive book (Hangwoman by K R Meera
), and I now have to spend the whole day reading it in entirity. Poor ol' me.Of course, thanks to this whole death penalty thing, the book is very topical and we should have some good debates, which is always the goal of book club. We also drink a lot of wine and eat a lot, so there's that. Which is basically the ideal book club.
I've had a lot of emails asking if I'll do sponsored posts/native ads on this blog, and the answer is always YES. Well, no. Not always. But if it's a nice brand, and I can make some money, why not, I ask you. WHY NOT. I don't know where this sudden splurge of popularity came from, but I put it all down to the post I did yesterday because after I published it, all the emails started coming in. The perks of blogging regularly!
TODAY IN CATS: So, we lock Olga and Squishy out at night and let Bruno sleep in the bedroom with us, but when he wants feeding he climbs on the bed and starts licking any part of my leg or arm that's out of the sheet. And that SOUNDS sweet, but he has this little raspy sandpaper tongue, and if he does it hard enough, I'm sure he'll give me a friction burn or something.
Also I bought a book on the history of the cat, which is actually really fascinating, and you should get a copy yourself. (BUT FIRST I NEED TO FINISH HANGWOMAN BY TOMORROW!!)
My name is Lord Squishington and I endorse this book
August 2, 2015
A new bar, a cat in heat and other life updates from this weekend
I wonder if I should start doing "what I did today" posts again on this blog. Hmm. It would be interesting for ME at any rate, because you know, diaries always are to the person who's writing them, but would you all be terribly bored? Shall we try for like a week?
{Not that my usual day involves anything more exciting than discovering a new TV show or decided I should exercise more and pulling out my old skipping rope, attaching my phone with an audiobook to the speakers and skipping for precisely six minutes before I'm all out of breath and OMG SO MUCH EXERCISE HOW THIN AM I ALREADY!!}
But this weekend was a little more remarkable than most because it was very social. Now, you guys know I LOOOOVE to meet people, but also, in new interesting things I found out about myself thanks to the world of clickbait, I realised I was an introvert. No, seriously. STOP LAUGHING. Here's the thing: I can meet people for three days in a row, but on the fourth day I need to stop seeing anyone for the next few days until I feel completely balanced and full of energy again. I get my energy from being alone and being quiet, and even though I'm outgoing, I'm like that rare zebra-unicorn: an outgoing introvert. Actually, no, I'm sure there's more than just one of us, and maybe it's just an only child thing as opposed to an introvert/extrovert thing, but once I figured this out about myself, I was like, oh that explains EVERYTHING and I no longer feel like I need to apologise for not making plans on days when I have no plans except staying in and feeling myself again.
Eh, maybe not THAT social, just me and 50 getting drinks at one of Delhi's new loves--Delhi has a few new love every month, and this month, it is The Backyard offering competition to old loves Depot 29 and Hungry Monkey, because it is right in their neighbourhood sorta--but it has a nice terrace, and nice margaritas, and all sorts of happy hours, which is also nice. It incentivises me to drink more even though I'm not actually saving THAT much money, so Happy Hours is a nice little scam that we wink at because who doesn't love free booze?
{The Good Thing elected to stay home for the weekend, because of work and other things, and so I was flying solo, if two women in their thirties who drink from eight pm to ten thirty pm and then go home can count as flying solo.} {But listen, this going to bed early and waking up early has some pretty cool advantages despite the fact that I sound like your 80 year old grandmother. I finished a book almost entirely on this new schedule.}
The next day was more 50, as she hosted a brunch in her house, and you guys, I totally rose to the challenge and made caramel bread pudding French toast thing, which is a recipe I adapted from here, except mine was waaaay less posh, using normal Harvest Gold bread and custard powder from the box. It was still good though. And this one friend of hers brought all this homemade booze, which is totally > any amount of bread pudding with or without the caramel top, and I drank an entire bottle of rhododendron wine, which tastes like boozy Roohafza? Which is luckily, a flavour I happen to like.
And here we are, Monday, Moanday. A friend of mine runs Balcony TV Delhi and is coming over this morning to shoot four videos on our terrace. He's already done a few before, so we're used to the drill, but I should probably shower before he gets here.
Oh, I also drew this comic strip this weekend
Today's also one year since we got Olga into our lives, and she's had this awful last few months (oh, nothing major, just that the vet we took her to to get her spayed botched it up [we chose a cheaper vet, because JAYSUS IT IS TEN THOUSAND rups to get a cat spayed] [then we paid the price for being kanjoos] ANYWAY, so she's still going into heat and yowling and trying to escape and cat susu everywhere, so finally, we're having another surgery done after exploring allllll the other options and this month she should finally be ovary free. ARGH.) But she's still a great cat. Squishy, who has become some sort of cricket ball-headed muscleman follows her around from room to room, his nose like INSIDE her bum, and a great way to get him out of a room is to kick Olga out first and he follows like a shot. (Bruno, the only one with bladder control, is the only one allowed in the bedroom with us at night.)
Anyway. Hello, I guess? Happy Monday! This was raaaather fun, I think I might try it again tomorrow.
{Not that my usual day involves anything more exciting than discovering a new TV show or decided I should exercise more and pulling out my old skipping rope, attaching my phone with an audiobook to the speakers and skipping for precisely six minutes before I'm all out of breath and OMG SO MUCH EXERCISE HOW THIN AM I ALREADY!!}
But this weekend was a little more remarkable than most because it was very social. Now, you guys know I LOOOOVE to meet people, but also, in new interesting things I found out about myself thanks to the world of clickbait, I realised I was an introvert. No, seriously. STOP LAUGHING. Here's the thing: I can meet people for three days in a row, but on the fourth day I need to stop seeing anyone for the next few days until I feel completely balanced and full of energy again. I get my energy from being alone and being quiet, and even though I'm outgoing, I'm like that rare zebra-unicorn: an outgoing introvert. Actually, no, I'm sure there's more than just one of us, and maybe it's just an only child thing as opposed to an introvert/extrovert thing, but once I figured this out about myself, I was like, oh that explains EVERYTHING and I no longer feel like I need to apologise for not making plans on days when I have no plans except staying in and feeling myself again.
Eh, maybe not THAT social, just me and 50 getting drinks at one of Delhi's new loves--Delhi has a few new love every month, and this month, it is The Backyard offering competition to old loves Depot 29 and Hungry Monkey, because it is right in their neighbourhood sorta--but it has a nice terrace, and nice margaritas, and all sorts of happy hours, which is also nice. It incentivises me to drink more even though I'm not actually saving THAT much money, so Happy Hours is a nice little scam that we wink at because who doesn't love free booze?
{The Good Thing elected to stay home for the weekend, because of work and other things, and so I was flying solo, if two women in their thirties who drink from eight pm to ten thirty pm and then go home can count as flying solo.} {But listen, this going to bed early and waking up early has some pretty cool advantages despite the fact that I sound like your 80 year old grandmother. I finished a book almost entirely on this new schedule.}
The next day was more 50, as she hosted a brunch in her house, and you guys, I totally rose to the challenge and made caramel bread pudding French toast thing, which is a recipe I adapted from here, except mine was waaaay less posh, using normal Harvest Gold bread and custard powder from the box. It was still good though. And this one friend of hers brought all this homemade booze, which is totally > any amount of bread pudding with or without the caramel top, and I drank an entire bottle of rhododendron wine, which tastes like boozy Roohafza? Which is luckily, a flavour I happen to like.
And here we are, Monday, Moanday. A friend of mine runs Balcony TV Delhi and is coming over this morning to shoot four videos on our terrace. He's already done a few before, so we're used to the drill, but I should probably shower before he gets here.
Oh, I also drew this comic strip this weekendToday's also one year since we got Olga into our lives, and she's had this awful last few months (oh, nothing major, just that the vet we took her to to get her spayed botched it up [we chose a cheaper vet, because JAYSUS IT IS TEN THOUSAND rups to get a cat spayed] [then we paid the price for being kanjoos] ANYWAY, so she's still going into heat and yowling and trying to escape and cat susu everywhere, so finally, we're having another surgery done after exploring allllll the other options and this month she should finally be ovary free. ARGH.) But she's still a great cat. Squishy, who has become some sort of cricket ball-headed muscleman follows her around from room to room, his nose like INSIDE her bum, and a great way to get him out of a room is to kick Olga out first and he follows like a shot. (Bruno, the only one with bladder control, is the only one allowed in the bedroom with us at night.)
Anyway. Hello, I guess? Happy Monday! This was raaaather fun, I think I might try it again tomorrow.
July 31, 2015
Babies! Babies EVERYWHERE!
Being a woman of a certain age—okay, okay, early thirties, with mid sliding in faster than I’d like—it’s inevitable that I have become an aunty to several children several times over. “My” first child was a bump before I realized what that bump meant, when her proud mother sailed in, stomach out in a flattering black dress that disguised that bump from long range viewing until you got very close and you could see that barrier between the two of you.
Scary things, babies.
I’m always struck by that perfect physical metaphor of contrast—the bump, the baby curled up within is indeed a barrier—the few layers of skin and sinew and beyond that a hollow, a womb, a receptacle where human life is growing rapidly, day by day, it may as well be an ocean for what the mother is experiencing and for what you on the other side cannot. And then there are the expressions on their faces when they take your palm and slide it gently to the base of their stomachs so you can feel the little ripple of a baby kick, so much greater on the inside than to me, the casual observer.
And then the babies themselves emerge, at first meeting not very impressive at all—they’re so small, so curled up into themselves like they want to return to where they came from. They make smacking noises with their mouths and they cry ineffectually and they’re soothed by whoever knows what to do in that situation. Six months later, and they’re a completely different kind of beast, alert and awake and alive and sitting up and reaching out and you wonder, “Was I ever like this? Did I ever find mystery in a fob of keys or just watching a new someone’s face as they enter a room? When was the last time I felt so motivated to rise up, to stand on my own two legs and when I fell to get up again and keep going until the standing became as natural a part of me as breathing?”
Here’s what happens though, when you’re on the other side of that barrier, the velvet rope keeping them in and us out: your lives change. Not just that of your friend’s, but also of yours. You start to juggle schedules in a way you never had to before, not even if your friend worked a punishing job, because even jobs have a weekend. You drift away for the first three months, unable to identify with that shattered expression that comes from sleepless nights, that lack of concentration when you’re in the middle of one of your best stories. You begin to learn to ask about a new person each time you check in with your friend: how are you? And how is baby? And finally, maybe, how is husband or life partner?
You learn to socialize in a different way. You learn to lower your voice at nap time, you learn to pat a small, sleeping being on his back as he finally goes to sleep. You hold a two year old on your lap, reading to him as his parents potter around you, responding to his endless questions with a patience you didn’t realize you possessed. You learn to ask the right questions. You respond to “Aunty,” until the child is old enough to form your name on his or her own and then you respond to whatever version of your name comes out of her mouth. You try not to be insulted when the child of someone you love very much declines your affections.
Then too, you make new friends. These are the people you run into at cocktail parties, the people you’ve been saying you “must meet” for some time, and now when you’re all on the other side of that rope, you have more in common than you realized. With them, you talk about men and work and you enjoy long, leisurely evenings with no one having to go home until they actually get sleepy. You open the second bottle of wine. You don’t have to tell everything in one meeting, because you know your next won’t be that far away, since your schedules match. You enjoy the company of these new people, banded together as you are, thirty something and childfree.
You say “childfree” instead of “childless.”
And then, like they’re coming home from a long voyage, your parent friends return. You start to get text messages, phone calls, invitations to see them again, and you go, and it’s not the same, it’s never going to be the same, but it’s deeper. You have so much you want to say, and they do too, and you’re in a place with your new friends and your old ones, and the barrier’s almost down and you can see into this party that everyone’s having without you, and you can smile and say, “Thanks for inviting me.”
(A version of this appeared as my column on mydigitalfc.com)
Scary things, babies. I’m always struck by that perfect physical metaphor of contrast—the bump, the baby curled up within is indeed a barrier—the few layers of skin and sinew and beyond that a hollow, a womb, a receptacle where human life is growing rapidly, day by day, it may as well be an ocean for what the mother is experiencing and for what you on the other side cannot. And then there are the expressions on their faces when they take your palm and slide it gently to the base of their stomachs so you can feel the little ripple of a baby kick, so much greater on the inside than to me, the casual observer.
And then the babies themselves emerge, at first meeting not very impressive at all—they’re so small, so curled up into themselves like they want to return to where they came from. They make smacking noises with their mouths and they cry ineffectually and they’re soothed by whoever knows what to do in that situation. Six months later, and they’re a completely different kind of beast, alert and awake and alive and sitting up and reaching out and you wonder, “Was I ever like this? Did I ever find mystery in a fob of keys or just watching a new someone’s face as they enter a room? When was the last time I felt so motivated to rise up, to stand on my own two legs and when I fell to get up again and keep going until the standing became as natural a part of me as breathing?”
Here’s what happens though, when you’re on the other side of that barrier, the velvet rope keeping them in and us out: your lives change. Not just that of your friend’s, but also of yours. You start to juggle schedules in a way you never had to before, not even if your friend worked a punishing job, because even jobs have a weekend. You drift away for the first three months, unable to identify with that shattered expression that comes from sleepless nights, that lack of concentration when you’re in the middle of one of your best stories. You begin to learn to ask about a new person each time you check in with your friend: how are you? And how is baby? And finally, maybe, how is husband or life partner?
You learn to socialize in a different way. You learn to lower your voice at nap time, you learn to pat a small, sleeping being on his back as he finally goes to sleep. You hold a two year old on your lap, reading to him as his parents potter around you, responding to his endless questions with a patience you didn’t realize you possessed. You learn to ask the right questions. You respond to “Aunty,” until the child is old enough to form your name on his or her own and then you respond to whatever version of your name comes out of her mouth. You try not to be insulted when the child of someone you love very much declines your affections.
Then too, you make new friends. These are the people you run into at cocktail parties, the people you’ve been saying you “must meet” for some time, and now when you’re all on the other side of that rope, you have more in common than you realized. With them, you talk about men and work and you enjoy long, leisurely evenings with no one having to go home until they actually get sleepy. You open the second bottle of wine. You don’t have to tell everything in one meeting, because you know your next won’t be that far away, since your schedules match. You enjoy the company of these new people, banded together as you are, thirty something and childfree.
You say “childfree” instead of “childless.”
And then, like they’re coming home from a long voyage, your parent friends return. You start to get text messages, phone calls, invitations to see them again, and you go, and it’s not the same, it’s never going to be the same, but it’s deeper. You have so much you want to say, and they do too, and you’re in a place with your new friends and your old ones, and the barrier’s almost down and you can see into this party that everyone’s having without you, and you can smile and say, “Thanks for inviting me.”
(A version of this appeared as my column on mydigitalfc.com)
July 29, 2015
How to travel with Facebook: Huffed at by elephants, screamed at by monkeys
I want to tell you the last story first: we had just returned from dinner and were using our phone torches to climb up the small hill back to our cottage. It was pitch black and in the night we heard the crickets and the rustling, and then we heard a great big crash. Instantly, we both paused. The sound had come from fairly near us, but we still couldn't see beyond our feet. "Might be monkeys," I said, giggling nervously and she said nothing, only began walking again, and this time the noise grew closer, it made a HMPHH and it was above our heads and everywhere, and then there was a trumpet, and she said in low urgent tones, "RUN!" and we turned around and ran and the next morning we saw the trample marks not quite two feet away from where we had been, so close to being killed by wild elephants, driven to our hill by dynamite on the hills above us, chasing them away from the villager's crops. 
Who lives somewhere pretty I can come visit for week?Come see me.
Okay! What shall we do?
Swim in the river, go for treks, eat organic vegetarian food, read.
My friend teaches at a school near Kodaikanal. It's a small school student-body-wise, only 60 students, but it has acres and acres of land, and the kids are taught to work with their hands, growing their own veggies, building bridges and houses and furniture, being One with Nature. They were all away for their break, so it was just us and a handful of other teachers on campus, but up in her quarters, it was just us and two cats--one the sweetest little kitlet you ever did see. 
I spent a lot of time cuddling this kitten, but I also read four, five, six, seven books, sometimes more in one afternoon. My friend fell ill and so for two days, I stayed completely housebound, but we had no food because we hadn't picked any veggies, and the cats--wild, feral cats who developed a yen for boiled eggs and milk--yowled at me for their dinner so I explored the village looking for something and only came home with milk powder which they rejected with insulted looks on their faces. 
There's something amazing about eating the food you grow. The avocado and the limes were from the school garden which went into our guacamole, we made egg salad sandwiches using chives and parsley and hot red chillis picked from a bush outside the kitchen, and the same red chillis went into a potato vindaloo I cooked with red rice. We'd sit out at night, the dim solar bulb barely lighting up our silhouettes, and we'd chat about everything: Delhi which she left behind, the school she joined, books we were reading, and when we grew tired we'd go to bed at ten pm and wake up at 7.30 the next day and begin again. Perhaps it's not everyone's idea of a vacation--the slow just-being of sitting still and reading and being in a place where everything stuns you with the green and the clean air and the food you're eating and the kitten you're holding captive, so soft! And after a while, your phone runs out of charge because solar power needs a converter to produce electricity and so you get used to using your phone for about 2 hours a day if you're lucky, but mostly you just sit or walk or plan your next meal, and it's not exciting but it's good. 
Maybe I'm growing old, but I need a recharge every now and then. Thanks to the internet, I've figured out I'm an extroverted introvert, and so for all the socialising I do, I need time to just plug myself in and not talk to anyone and just enjoy the silence in my head. That way, her being sick was a two day meditation for me, I only spoke when she emerged from her bedroom for tea, and then I went back to being quiet and alone and meditative.It was only seven days that I went away after all, I realised on the plane home, but it was enough. Fully charged, the battery bar above my head maxed out. I came home ready to meet people again, ready to deal with shit, and it's been a good few weeks for me at home too--I finished writing another book, a YA one called Split, about a girl whose parents are getting divorced but also about so much more than a girl whose parents are getting divorced. I have TWO books out this year, can you believe it? Book four and book five--approximately in September and November, and I can't wait to have all of you read them and tell me what you think because it's been seven years since my first book came out, and I am able to accept compliments and criticism, and you know what? I have an open invitation to go back to the hills, and to the school whenever it all gets too much.
July 20, 2015
Aarushi by Avirook Sen, a review & a cold case totally solved
I found out about Avirook Sen’s Aarushi while I was on holiday in the hills of Tamil Nadu last week. Saying a thankful prayer to technology, I instantly got it on my Kindle and began reading as soon as I possibly could. {Man, don't you LOVE the Kindle? I do. I've never understood the debate between people who are all like "oh books are so physical" because the Kindle is a true reader's best friend. You can carry your whole entire library with you on holiday--very important as someone who used to lug around five extra kilos just in books, and now the new airline handbaggage limit has gotten so strict. It lasts for aaaages without a charge, and when you do charge it, it only takes an hour or so to fill up. AND best of all, you can be in the middle of nowhere, no bookshop for miles, and buy the book everyone's talking about. [For this, you should ideally invest in the 3G + WiFi model, if you find yourself frequently in places without connectivity.] Go on, treat yourself.) (No, Amazon's not paying me, but they totally should.) (This is my second Kindle, the first one got loved-to-death.) (Now even my un-tech-savvy mum wants one.)
More about my trip SOON, with KITTEN PHOTOS!
I’ve been kind of obsessed with the Aarushi case since it first happened—and that’s a feeling I share with several other middle class Indians jolted into fear, disbelief and a certain amount of “schadenfreude” by the fact that your typical people-next-door, People Like Us, could conceive of killing their beloved only daughter. Not only were the Talwars perfectly respectable, they were also part of the new “liberal” Indian—they had a love marriage, one daughter they doted on, they both worked out of the home, and liked the good things in life. If the liberal Indian could kill their child, where did that leave the rest of us? Did we all have secret patriarchal leanings inside us threatening to detonate when a trigger situation happened? Or were liberal Indians just pretending to be liberal and actually masking a whole lot of traditional anger beneath the surface?
I’m basing all these questions on the popular version of what happened to Aarushi. When the 13-year-old was murdered all those years ago, there was a long and elaborate court case, and finally, the story that everyone bought, hook, line and sinker (this despite the fact that the parents were completely denying it and there were no eye witnesses, so why were we all so convinced about the sequence of events?) was that Aarushi was caught in a compromising position with the 50-year-old help, Hemraj, and when her father discovered them, he flew into an impassioned rage, killing them both with a golf club and then working with his wife to hide the bodies in possibly the worst way a body has ever been hidden.
I took most of the stuff I read in the newspaper as fact—this despite being a journalist once upon a time and knowing exactly how news can be manipulated—a crime story like this one? Surely the reporter had followed up and fact checked and all that. Sen’s book however, hinges on the fact that no one did. There is a very clear villain of the piece who emerges shortly after the murder investigation begins, a CBI cop in charge called AGL Kaul. Kaul is such a villain in fact that you sometimes forget you’re reading non-fiction at all. In fact, I’m just going to damn him with a tribute to him I found online by CBI director Amar Pratap Singh, upon Kaul’s death. The tribute says: “He had methodically investigated the case in such a manner that by eliminating all other theories there was only one conclusion, that the parents were responsible.” Actually, Sen says, he decided on this conclusion and then deliberately twisted or suppressed evidence so the Talwars were guilty. No other testimony counted but the ones that fit his own pet theory—the story I mentioned above.
The fact that the Talwars were guilty seems to have been a foregone conclusion, not just by the police investigating but also the judges trying their case. No one actually believed in the theory that outsiders did it, despite multiple evidence to that account. We saw the people-next-door and we hanged them because we were guilty of rubbernecking on this sordid affair, pausing to gasp from doorways: “You know their daughter was having sex with the servant?!?” “Who can say what goes on behind closed doors?” “It’s a sad world, that’s what it is.”
Of course, I need to also mention that I brought up the book to a friend who had been working in an NGO in Noida during the 2006 serial killer case in that area. Businessman Moninder Singh Pandher and his manservant Surinder Koli were accused of killing over 40 children and hiding them around their house. “Where are the Avirook Sens writing about those kids?” asked my friend, “Aren’t 30 or 40 murders more important than just one?” To which I say: yes. But sadly, those kids weren’t Indian middle class and so didn’t capture the imagination of the Indian middle class as much as the darling only daughter of two high profile dentists.
In all that, Sen’s book stands out for its honesty and ability to cut through the drivel. He says in the very beginning of the book that we may never know who killed Aarushi, but he is quite convinced by the end of his investigation that it wasn’t her parents. And I was too.
Buy it here.
(A version of this appeared as my column on mydigitalfc.com)
More about my trip SOON, with KITTEN PHOTOS! I’ve been kind of obsessed with the Aarushi case since it first happened—and that’s a feeling I share with several other middle class Indians jolted into fear, disbelief and a certain amount of “schadenfreude” by the fact that your typical people-next-door, People Like Us, could conceive of killing their beloved only daughter. Not only were the Talwars perfectly respectable, they were also part of the new “liberal” Indian—they had a love marriage, one daughter they doted on, they both worked out of the home, and liked the good things in life. If the liberal Indian could kill their child, where did that leave the rest of us? Did we all have secret patriarchal leanings inside us threatening to detonate when a trigger situation happened? Or were liberal Indians just pretending to be liberal and actually masking a whole lot of traditional anger beneath the surface?
I’m basing all these questions on the popular version of what happened to Aarushi. When the 13-year-old was murdered all those years ago, there was a long and elaborate court case, and finally, the story that everyone bought, hook, line and sinker (this despite the fact that the parents were completely denying it and there were no eye witnesses, so why were we all so convinced about the sequence of events?) was that Aarushi was caught in a compromising position with the 50-year-old help, Hemraj, and when her father discovered them, he flew into an impassioned rage, killing them both with a golf club and then working with his wife to hide the bodies in possibly the worst way a body has ever been hidden.
I took most of the stuff I read in the newspaper as fact—this despite being a journalist once upon a time and knowing exactly how news can be manipulated—a crime story like this one? Surely the reporter had followed up and fact checked and all that. Sen’s book however, hinges on the fact that no one did. There is a very clear villain of the piece who emerges shortly after the murder investigation begins, a CBI cop in charge called AGL Kaul. Kaul is such a villain in fact that you sometimes forget you’re reading non-fiction at all. In fact, I’m just going to damn him with a tribute to him I found online by CBI director Amar Pratap Singh, upon Kaul’s death. The tribute says: “He had methodically investigated the case in such a manner that by eliminating all other theories there was only one conclusion, that the parents were responsible.” Actually, Sen says, he decided on this conclusion and then deliberately twisted or suppressed evidence so the Talwars were guilty. No other testimony counted but the ones that fit his own pet theory—the story I mentioned above.
The fact that the Talwars were guilty seems to have been a foregone conclusion, not just by the police investigating but also the judges trying their case. No one actually believed in the theory that outsiders did it, despite multiple evidence to that account. We saw the people-next-door and we hanged them because we were guilty of rubbernecking on this sordid affair, pausing to gasp from doorways: “You know their daughter was having sex with the servant?!?” “Who can say what goes on behind closed doors?” “It’s a sad world, that’s what it is.”
Of course, I need to also mention that I brought up the book to a friend who had been working in an NGO in Noida during the 2006 serial killer case in that area. Businessman Moninder Singh Pandher and his manservant Surinder Koli were accused of killing over 40 children and hiding them around their house. “Where are the Avirook Sens writing about those kids?” asked my friend, “Aren’t 30 or 40 murders more important than just one?” To which I say: yes. But sadly, those kids weren’t Indian middle class and so didn’t capture the imagination of the Indian middle class as much as the darling only daughter of two high profile dentists.
In all that, Sen’s book stands out for its honesty and ability to cut through the drivel. He says in the very beginning of the book that we may never know who killed Aarushi, but he is quite convinced by the end of his investigation that it wasn’t her parents. And I was too.
Buy it here.
(A version of this appeared as my column on mydigitalfc.com)
