Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan's Blog, page 21

What I'm Reading

Almost a month since I posted a book recommendation but I have been so busy, I've only been rereading. Pulled My Salinger Year off my teetering TBR pile, and was very glad I did. Salinger has informed and shaped so much of my writing, I may have outgrown him now but at 13, 14, 15, later at 22 wanting to be Franny, wanting to have a single pure experience like Seymour, I remembered all that while I read Joanne Rakoff's memoir of her year working at the great man's literary agency. Themes close to my heart: books, reading and currently, change. I had to pull all my old Salingers off my shelves with the absence of Catcher, my beloved Holden is missing but it might be for the best. I don't think I could bear being over him. #jdsalinger #bookstagram #mrmbookclub #121in2021 #mysalingeryear #joannerakoff

Today in Photo

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Sorry not sorry for this newsletter I wrote about the Nature Bro. If you know, you know. Link in bio! #naturebro #newsletter #theinternetpersonified

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The Internet Personified: The Nature Bro

Darling calico kittens,

Last night, on K’s urging (it wasn’t his fault, someone had recommended this movie to him and he had to talk to that person again so he said he should watch the film so he had something to say) we watched a Netflix documentary called River Runner.

People who know me well—and maybe even people who know me slightly well, like you guys, if we’ve never met—know that I’m not really an outdoorsy person. K likes to tease me about it, last night he said, “What would you have done if I was fully into trekking or being outside all the time?” and I said, “I probably wouldn’t have dated you in the first place” which is sad, and a reason to think beyond our biases, but I believe that if one partner is outdoorsy then the other one should be too, at least when they first start dating. When you get married and/or have a long and committed relationship, you can do what you like, like Bill Bryson’s wife who sent him off for his Walk In The Woods with like an “Okay, take care, bye.” That’s what I told K I would do too, if he suddenly had a desire to walk long distances, like Bill or Cheryl Strayed. I imagined it quite vividly, K is off on his solo walking adventure and I am in whatever city meeting friends, drinking a glass of wine and saying, “Oh yes, he plans to walk another 200 kilometres” while secretly feeling very glad I don’t have to walk at all, except to the metro. Nature is nice and all, in its place, which is watching it from behind the window of a house. And sometimes the balcony, if the weather is nice and there aren’t too many insects. If I’m going to seek out Nature at all, I want it to be exciting: a lot of my dream holidays involve sanctuaries, wildlife preserves in Kenya, going to look for gorillas on mountaintops. I don’t see the point of being in it if I’m just going to sit around a tree or something after walking for ten years.

River Runner is the story of some kayaking celebrity who kept kayaking even after he took a break for eight years after a brain tumour. Then he kayaked some more. All through the movie my default question was: why? Why would you do this? Why is this something other people want to see you do? I get climbing the Everest (I mean, I did, back in the day, now it’s just a thing you do, like Iron Man) but taking a tiny boat on an angry river just seems so... pointless.

why?

Delhi is very close to the hills. “The hills” being what we call the foothills of the Himalayas which stretch across the top of the country—and also keep this city in a state of constant dustbowl. The hills stop us from getting crazy rainfall—except this year, apparently, the hills keep all the pollution and dust confined to one spot because it can’t go any further. The hills are also what has bred what I call the Nature Bro.

Ah, the Nature Bro. You know him even if you don’t live here. He has a constantly sunburned nose and often looks like he hasn’t showered in weeks. He’s always off on a trek or a hike. He wears colourful knitwear, and over that, a bright neon jacket. He has one big battered backpack. Often he drives an Enfield, and ties tiny Tibetan prayer flags across the handlebars. His Facebook profile picture is him sitting on a rock. His Instagram page is full of photos of him smiling, sitting on said motorcycle, wraparound shades covering half his face. He is never accompanied by a woman, except rarely, and that woman is a Nature Bro herself.

The Nature Bro is different from the Sports Bro. We all know the Sports Bro, I last met one in high school, where they played cricket or football or some sort of team activity together. The Sports Bro is masculine to the nth degree, masculine as decreed by society. The Sports Bro is sort of aggressive, likes beer and beautiful women, hangs out in a clump with other Sports Bros, and appears on non-sports occassions, well dressed and drenched in some sort of cologne. The Sports Bro has a big car and when he picks you up, you’ll find a gaggle of his single bros in the backseat. They all look out for each other. They all call each other bro, sometimes brah, sometimes, in times of great affection: broseph.

Ted Lasso, the TV show everyone’s been recommending to everyone else, is a reaction to the Sports Bro. In it, briefly: a wholesome American football coach is sent to London to coach English football which he doesn’t realise is a different sport. Hilarity ensues. The titular character, Ted Lasso, is a foil to the English bro-ness, he is kind and sympathetic. His kind sympathy therefore, makes the men feel like they can talk about themselves, like they can fail and be sad about it, the women like they are people to be seen. I think there’s a reason this (fairly ordinary but charming) show is so popular: the Sports Bros are tired of performing masculinity and like the idea of being people like everyone else.

The Nature Bro however is nothing like the Sports Bro. Kayaking or mountain climbing aren’t team sports, and so he must rely on his own inner self to perform bro-itude. The Nature Bro spouts off about the majesty of the mountains—the kayaking guy talked about “high fiving the river” the Nature Bro is the guy who hands you a spliff at a party and then starts talking about how the best weed he ever had was from the Parvati Valley when he went there on a trek back in 2011. The Nature Bro keeps his hand in when he’s not travelling by going to a local climbing wall, Delhi has an Indian Mountaineering thing filled with walls and boulders where you see Nature Bros often, and also, essential to the Nature Bro: an Older Nature Man. The Nature Man is usually in his late forties or early fifties, and enjoyed being a Nature Bro for a bit before he settled down and had kids and whatnot (about half the time he is single) and he now teaches or guides at one of these city-based mountains. Or he runs a resort in a popular jungle town. Or he organises small treks for school children in the summer holidays. He is grizzled, wears a hat, and is often only comfortable talking to men. The Bros will have a name for him, something like “Captain” or “Chief” or just “Sir.” It’s very like the army if you think about it.

What struck me about the Nature Bro as I saw him in this documentary last night was the absurd lack of women. Oh, I know women go trekking and kayaking and mountain climbing as much as the next person, but when you think of the Nature Bro, it’s often as a group of men, no women allowed. The men get to live out their Peter Pan fantasy, the women have to think about, off the top of my head: safety, where to pee or poop, what happens if they get their period on top of a mountain, what happens if they are sexually assaulted in the middle of nowhere and so on. For women, doing a solo kayak run—well over here in India anyway—is a fraught decision, for men, it’s just communing with nature.

I write about the Nature Bro so intimately because for a long time in my teens and early twenties I was attracted to him, a sort of last ditch attempt by my brain to make me go outside. I liked that they liked books (not much to do in the middle of nowhere except read), I liked that they liked travel outside of popular tourist destinations, I got a thrill out of all the lingo they used: the “yardarm,” the “googlesnick,” the “jackturn.” (I obviously was not paying very much attention to this vocabulary but I liked it all the same.) But at the end of the day, they all turned out to be Bros, ie, they were not interested in why or how can this be better they just wanted to climb that damn mountain.

It’s absolutely possible to be into nature and adventure sports and not be a bro about it. Many people find solace and comfort in conquering physically hard things, it gives them the space to attack stuff that might have been bothering them mentally. But at the end of the day, a Bro is someone who buys into an experience without questioning it. Whether it’s a Banking Bro or a Golf Bro or a Fine Wine Bro (oh yes, those exist too, just ask my female friends who work in the liquor industry), what makes you just a person who enjoys things versus a person who is part of that ecosystem, hook, line and sinker is the difference between bros and not.

I feel like a lot of you are going to have thoughts about this, and honestly, it could just be sour grapes because I literally never go into nature for fun, so please leave a comment to tell me how wrong I am if you like. (Appreciation for my theory is also welcome!)

Leave a comment

Two bits of unrelated news (unrelated to the theme of this newsletter ie, but related to my life).

First: visa stuff is going to take longer than I optimistically thought so I will likely be here in India till we figure it out. The good news is I can say a much more thorough farewell to everything (maybe even Goa? Hmm) and everyone. The bad news is I’m itching to start my new life, I’m in such a tremendous hurry about everythinggggg.

Second: I got a new laptop! This is exciting to exactly no one (except me and K), but I must quickly tell you all the salient details. It’s also the reason you are getting this newsletter because I was dying to test out writing on it, this is the first thing I have written since I got it, an auspicious beginning. It’s technically an old laptop, second hand, off OLX, where K has been buying his machines for a while. (If you look, you can find great deals on electronics.) A Thinkpad, very burly and corporate looking, but which I plan to prettify with lots of custom laptop stickers. (Many websites in India that print out stickers if you send them designs.) K installed a Linux system on it called Pop OS, which is much more beautiful than Windows (what I was using last), the screen is super large and matte, the battery lasts ages, and okay, it’s a bit fatter than my last laptop but I like to work only on my desk so I don’t foresee this being a problem except walking in airports or at train stations, which I will just have to suffer through. Anyway, it’s very thrilling and was very cheap so I’m happy.

If you liked this newsletter (and my great theory about Nature Bros) consider buying me a coffee! It would greatly help encourage me expound on more theories hehe.

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Links!

My new Auth Couture column about Naipaul and his fedora.

My favourite subreddit recently has been r/BestofRedditorUpdates. You know how sometimes you’ll read a post and wonder what happened next? Often the OP goes back and updates, and this sub collects all of those.

Speaking of Reddit, here is a piece about one of the newest and most popular subreddits: one that catalogues anti vaxxers dying of COVID.

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That’s all she wrote! Until next time, stay safe.

xx

m

Where am I? The Internet Personified! A mostly weekly collection of things I did/thought/read/saw that week.

Who are you? Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, writer of internet words (and other things) author of seven books (support me by buying a book!) and general city-potter-er.

Follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. (Plus my book recommendation Instagram!)

Got sent this newsletter? Sign up here to subscribe!

Forward to your friends if you liked this and to people who say cheerfully “shall we walk?” when your destination is forty five minutes away if you didn’t.

Also, write back to me! I love to hear from you.

Today in Photo

What a great t-shirt K is wearing. A true classic. Really great design promoting a cult novel. #whatheworetoday #youarehere #firstbook

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Today in Photo

🎶It's the same old thing, we did last week, Not a thing to do, but talk to you. 🎶 Inadvertently (or not?) 70s today made extra with my new spectacle frames. Why am I making this face? I have no idea. Hanging at a friend's house with nothing to do because everyone is "on a call" so great time to post vanity pictures of myself. #glasseshalffull #spectacleofmyself #throughaglassdarkly

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Today in Photo

New newsletter is out! This week I interviewed myself from ten years ago to figure out why we were over Delhi. Link in bio, swipe to see excerpts! #theinternetpersonified #newsletter #delhiiloveyoubutyourebringingmedown

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The Internet Personified: An interview with Me from the Past

Beloved lauki blossoms,

I feel like the subject of my newsletter today, i.e., why I am over Delhi, is going to piss some people off, including me from ten years ago, so let me preemptively say that this is really about me and my relationship with the city I call home, nothing personal, no shade on your choices. As I get older, I find myself wanting to exist more and more in a world where what I say is really only about me and not anyone else, and I think social media, especially Twitter, has ruined this. Time was you could have your own opinion and other people could have theirs, and you’d roll your eyes at them if you disagreed but this active hate for anyone who is not in your own particular Venn diagram, that’s just ten years old.

Why would it make me-from-ten-years-ago angry though? I decided to ask.

Present Day Me (PDM): Hi, 29-year-old Meenakshi, thanks for being on my podcast!

Past Me (PM): Er, what’s a podcast?

PDM: Okay, no, podcasts were actually a thing way back in 2004, so you should know this. Nice try though, trying to make me feel old.

PM: Hah, you are old though. You had how many drinks last night?

PDM: *mumbles* Three.

PM: Three! And you still have a hangover? I had like eight and I am fine.

PDM: Look. This is not supposed to be a conversation about how amazing life was at twenty nine.

PM: Hey, my life is pretty great. I have a decent job, a nice flat, a beloved cat and I just started dating someone new and amazing.

PDM: The good news is you’re still with that amazing man! Yay!

PM: Wait… what about the rest of it?

PDM: Amazing man! Yay!

PM: My cat is dead, isn’t he.

PDM: He was sick for a very long time. Oh, but you have new cats. They’re very nice.

PM: Are they though

PDM: They’re great cats.

PM: I’m really depressed now and I don’t want to talk any more.

PDM: Wait! I wanted to ask you something specific. Why do you love Delhi?

PM: Why do I love Delhi? I mean… it’s home isn’t it?

PDM: That’s what I’ve been saying for ten years now, and I want us to go a little deeper into it. What makes it home?

PM: Well, we grew up here.

PDM: And that means we have to stay?

PM: I guess not, but it’s been nice to feel rooted, like we have a connection to someplace.

PDM: We felt rooted in Bombay as well, didn’t we, before we left?

PM: Yeah, but Bombay never belonged to us in the way Delhi does.

PDM: Does Delhi belong to us? Oh, I know, it’s familiar, we know the roads, the ins and outs of traffic, but we spent our whole childhood pretending to be North Indian so we’d fit in more. We hid away our food because some kids would mock us saying “Ai yi yo, idli sambhar.” We referred to our grandparents as our “Naana and Naani.” We dropped Telugu completely from our list of languages and didn’t even bother to start Malayalam. And since our Hindi was always average at best compared to everyone else, we dropped that too, and now we only speak one language. One language! Delhi did this to us.

PM: We did this to us. How long are you going to go on blaming the city?

PDM: Breathing troubles much?

PM: Uh, escaping from your troubles much?

PDM: Look, they’re constructing a house next door to us, and every morning, no matter how late I go to bed, I wake up to that gnnnnNARRRRGNNNNN of a drill at 8 am. It’s a constant soundtrack. This colony we moved into…

PM: We moved?

PDM: Yeah, to a small green colony that used to be all single story houses and birdsong in the evening.

PM: I’ve never even heard of it.

PDM: And you won’t for three years, but my point is there’s no escaping! Someone described our neighbourhood as “one of the last secret green places in South Delhi” and the secret’s out.

PM: People have to live somewhere.

PDM: Well, the colony infrastructure can’t take so many people.

PM: Wow. Where are the socialist ideals you love to toss around at parties? It’s okay for everyone to sacrifice but not at the expense of your discomfort?

PDM: *sputters* It would be okay if these high rises were going to, like, social housing or something but it’s just the same rich Delhi douchebags--

PM: Like you.

PDM: Worse! At least I don’t have the same sense of entitlement.

PM: Or you’re just still afraid of confrontation. Listen, I hear you. But tell me you’d be like 100 per cent thrilled by your “quiet green colony” or whatever becoming a social housing project.

PDM: You know in Berlin, social housing is everywhere.

PM: Oh yeah? In your new neighbourhood?

PDM: There’s a very famous squat just down the road.

PM: And there you go, about to gentrify the neighbourhood.

PDM: Look, I know you’re not that interested in talking about how fucked up capitalism is yet, so why even pretend. Let’s get back to why we say we love Delhi.

PM: The food? The people? Our lovely big flat for low low rents? The sense of--

PDM: Oh do not say “the sense of history.”

PM: What? It’s true!

PDM: Come on, you’re clinging on to something you thought about when we were nineteen and thought we were so deep.

Nineteen-year-old me: HEY! I AM SO DEEP.

PDM & PM: GO AWAY!

PDM: Look, I’ll give you the food. We miss it in Berlin. We’ve learned to cook, but it’s not the same. But we’ve never been massive foodies, so while we like good food, obviously, it doesn’t make our decisions for us.

PM: Bombay had terrible food.

PDM: It did! They couldn’t even do a decent penne arrabiata let alone a kebab roll.

PM: Kari patta in everything, even the rajma.

(Everyone from Bombay sends me angry emails/unsubscribes en masse.)

PDM: See, and we still loved Bombay.

PM: People though. You can’t replace them.

PDM: No, I can’t. But a weird thing has happened these last ten years. People began to make families, to shrink into smaller units, to move away. Our life has been scattered. We’re moving with our person, and our cats. We’ll miss everyone, especially our parents and our closest dearest friends, but we can’t keep treading water while everyone else swims laps.

PM: *mutters* Our new replacement cats.

PDM: And we haven’t seen a lot of people over the last year and a half anyway.

PM: Why, what happened in the last year and a half?

PDM: Oh boy.

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I hope you enjoyed that. As you can see, I have absolutely no good reason for being over Delhi, except that I am. I mean, as a couple who have chosen to not have children, it’s important that we shake things up every now and then, just so we’re not the same people, sitting in the same house, living the same life, over and over again. Where is the challenge? Where is the excitement? While for some people, the idea of a settled life is comforting and the dream, for us, it feels stifling.

Then too there’s the fact that I seem to be living my life slower than other people. My friends went, did their years (or five) abroad, returned, got married, are living good lives. Mine is in reverse, giving up the good life in exchange for newer pastures. Choosing discomfort and excitement over comfort and ordinariness.

Meanwhile I am having a whale of a time in Delhi (here for the next three or four weeks). I’ve gotten a lot of clothes made at my brilliant local tailor, updated my glasses prescription and met friends and hung with my mum, and eaten a lot, and spent time alone in my flat, the last time I’ll be doing that here. (K stayed back in Germany but is arriving tonight.) (I hate to say “last,” so I’ll say “for the forseeable future.”) I got a haircut, and finally, for the first time in my adult life, got bangs, which I’ve always wanted but was told my “face was too small for.” I hired a temporary maid, which is a great and incredible luxury, except I’m finding I prefer to be a lazy housewife (housespouse?) and do everything myself slowly rather than give someone instructions. The instruction-giving seems to sap more of my energy than actually doing a thing, so weird. I guess it’s lucky I’m moving to Berlin where there will be no maid and only us and our pigsty.

Oh, I almost forgot! My reunification with my cats was just as loving (on my side) and anticlimatic (on theirs) as you’d expect. Olga is delighted, Squishy is like “Olga happy so Squishy also happy” and Bruno has been avoiding me except when there’s food involved so all is status quo. I have a feeling they’re going to sulk mightily when they are relocated but I also know (okay, I think. I hope?) they love us enough that our presence will make up for this small upheaval in their lives.

If you liked this newsletter (or any of my newsletters!) please buy me a coffee! Tips are great and encouraging that I am doing something right here.

Buy Me A Coffee

Links I Liked (A bit thin on the ground this edition, apologies)

I wrote a column about Sarojini Naidu’s tiger claw necklace.

How Dubai became the social influencer capital.

What Goop really sells women.

Crafting the world’s best kitchen knife.

That’s all I got! Have a great week!

xx

m

Where am I? The Internet Personified! A mostly weekly collection of things I did/thought/read/saw that week.

Who are you? Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, writer of internet words (and other things) author of seven books (support me by buying a book!) and general city-potter-er.

Follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. (Plus my book recommendation Instagram!)

Got sent this newsletter? Sign up here to subscribe!

Forward to your friends if you liked this and to thirty nine, kicking your butt each time you drink more than ONE cocktail if you didn’t.

Also, write back to me! I love to hear from you.

Today in Photo

Another! (only two to go and they are cold weather things: a kimono style shrug made with orange and saffron brocade and a satin ajrak dress, so you won't see either of them on on this trip.) I'm particularly pleased with how this turned out because it isn't a copy or a picture, it's something I sort of designed myself. Well, only sort of. Took inspo as the kids say from a strappy low cut brocade cocktail dress from the 60s and added puffed sleeves that roll up and button. Puffed sleeves are everywhere right now by the way, and of course, I keep thinking of Anne of Green Gables. Also raised the neckline slightly and made the back square. I'm serving Sandra from Bandra going to Sunday mass. All in all, delighted. I'll think of Delhi and this rainy September whenever I wear them next. #whatiworetoday #tailormade

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Today in Photo

People keep saying to me "you look more and more like your mother as you age" and even though I can't usually see it, I can in this photo. In another custom made dress, my tailor actually screwed this up by swapping the design and the fabric I had intended for each but it still turned out so nice! I love the patridges. This is very thin cotton so will not be a winter dress, but loose enough to wear over a tight sweater for some extra styling. 📸 @shortpantsromance background interiors @sambhwmck #whatiworetoday #tailormade

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Today in Photo

Was super excited to start wearing my new tailored dresses but was waiting for a slightly cooler day (and air conditioning) for this one. I'm having a bunch made so I don't have to walk around a German winter looking as blah as I will inevitably feel, I'm told, after several months of barely seeing the sun. Fun! Why am I doing this again? 😬 ANYHOO this is a poly blend cotton I think (my mum got me machine washable thick material from Hyderabad) which I used an older Anokhi dress as inspiration, shortened the skirt and added the border as stripes on the side (well OK also because we ran out of material). I love it! I'm really going to miss this guy but never mind, next time I'm back I will go forth again. Meanwhile eyeing this ugly blue silk sari I have, wondering if I should cut it up into pants and a jacket. What do you think? #whatiworetoday #tailormade

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