Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan's Blog, page 87
September 2, 2017
Today in Photo
A view from dinner last night at the Mint Lounge party. I've been invited to so many things this weekend it feels like many weeks worth of socialising all rolled into a three day package. Still have miles to go before I sleep but totally not complaining about living the twenty something life again. #urbanjungle #delhidiary
via Instagram
September 1, 2017
eM's Massive Travel Diary Part Two: Barcelona, Spain (and some Berlin)
(My newsletter was a travelogue for a few weeks! Sign up for regular email updates here (never spam).)
I'm in a sunny Barcelona Airbnb as I'm writing this to you. The flat is a third floor walk-up in the Gothic Quarters, and it's only really quiet in the mornings. All night, thanks to several bars and several tourists, I can hear drunken people squealing at each other, caught up in the incredible luck of being here, being in Spain. Can you imagine? I'm in Spain! I still can barely believe it myself. Like every single other world traveler for time immemorial, I love Europe. I'm madly, deeply in love with the entire continent. I love how it all feels like one country, but also how things change from place to place. I love how I can walk everywhere. I love the little bars you stumble onto accidentally. I love how when you step out of your front door, you immediately feel like you're abroad, part of something else. I love supermarkets and how they change based on where you are. I love that my love of travel has been validated: this is why I do it, this is why I yearn to do more, the world is such a big place and there are so many places to see! I'm also glad I'm in my thirties as I'm doing this, you get crunched into the space you define for yourself at thirty something and it's good to push against that, get away from your comfort zone and become a new person again and again.
art by David Michael Chandler
But compressing it all into one newsletter might be a bit hard, so I suggest you follow me on Instagram where I'm trying to put out daily photo updates.
But, here then, is what we did the last few days in Berlin after I wrote to you last.
* We went to an Austrian place famous for schnitzel and ordered a "small" one but it was still bigger than my head, and quite frankly, not all that tasty. A bit bland even. Traditional German food--except for all the various kinds of wurst--has not gone down very well with me. There just seems to be not enough of something in that food, a complete and total lack of spices. I don't mean that stuff isn't spicy (which it isn't), it's just flavourless. But apart from that schnitzel, I ate very well: ramen and pizza and pasta and innumerable doners which K is passionately dedicated to.
* Signed up for a walk with a tour company called Alternative Berlin. I've been walking like a champ, it's so easy when there are pavements and things dedicated to the people of a city as opposed to the cars. In Delhi, it's hard to walk anywhere, because either the pavements have cars parked on them, or people squatting on them, but in Europe, the cities have been planned keeping people's walking needs in mind. Also, let's face it, the climate suits. In Delhi it's either too hot, too wet or too polluted to spend any dedicated amount of time outside, let alone the ten kilometres a day I am managing with ease. EASE.
Anyway, Alternative Berlin. Found them by looking for "free things to do in Berlin" and they offer a guided walking tour to see street art and counter culture, with a little Soviet East/West thrown in. It's wasn't free though, it was "pay what you want" which always winds up being a little more expensive than what you bargained for. (We checked the website and a four and a half hour paid walking tour was 12 euros, so we gave the guy ten each for a three hour "free" one.) I learned many things about Berlin, including the story of Osman Kalin, which is fascinating, and also he was sitting there as we passed his plot of land, a very old man now, who lifted his hand to wave at all the tourists gawping at him.
* Our last rainy day there--by this time I was tired and cold of European weather, so instead of being lyrical about it, I just turned my face up to the sky and wished for the sun--we went to Templehof airport, which is this old Nazi airport, turned into a US military base, turned into an airport for West Berlin and now a public park. It's very cool to see the old radar buildings and the empty runway and the little organic gardens that are coming up everywhere. I wish more places would turn disused things like that into stuff for the people of the city to enjoy. (The old terminal itself is now a police headquarters.)
And now, on to Barcelona. My memories of this are one endless stream of debauchery, our days are filled with walking and eating and drinking. Two of K's besties are here from the UK, so we've been hanging out with them. Yesterday evening, we got empanadas, and they played Catan for three hours while I happily drank gin and tonic and read my book. (I'm on book four, the last one of the Cazalet quartet and I'm so sad it's over.) Barcelona is warm and no one has ceiling fans, so we're all a bit sweaty. I haven't seen anything apart from the Gothic Quarter yet, but it's so beautiful, these little warren-like streets that you can get completely lost in.
Yesterday, thanks to my Rough Guide, we made our way to an outdoor food market nearby called La Bouqeria, and ate at the best food stall there--at least, that's what my guidebook told me. Bar Pinotxo has no menu (it's a food stall with tall stools to eat at the bar), so we resorted to pointing at things, but in the end, got just what the owner thought we should have. Which was a warm bean and cuttlefish thing and also a sort of ceviche with cod. YUM.
Also on one of our walks, I bought Couples by John Updike at an old second hand bookstore, partly because they had a cat who was just lying there and also partly because I think old books are the best things to remember a trip by. I'll always think of Paris when I open my copy of Ved Mehta (imagine buying an Indian author at the best second hand store in Paris, but there you are), I'll always think of England when I turn to my little hardbound volume of Grimm's Fairy Tales (dinky, and bound in gold) and now Barcelona with Updike. (The other thing I like to buy are accessories, but I haven't found anything yet.)
This flat has two friendly cats, which makes me miss ours a little bit, but also not, because it's nice to pet them and just leave them to do their own thing, not having to bother about food and water and keeping them alive and so on. But having now lived with both species on this holiday (K's mum brought her dog to Berlin who is very sweet), I can firmly say cats > dogs. Chill and sweet. The best pets.
Meanwhile in Delhi, The One Who Swam With The Fishes got a RAVE review in Scroll. We are also back up on the Kindle store. (Please leave me reviews so the book gets kicked a little higher up on the ratings.)
Since a freelance writer's work is never done, here are some recent pieces I did: In Open, an essay about the childhood memoirs of famous authors. ** On why period leave is a good thing: this article created a lot of controversy on my Facebook page with people calling me "elitist" so you know it's great clickbait. ** On Paddington Bear and why bears are so popular in kid lit. **
Also I loved this old piece by Arvind Adiga on how he came to be a writer and an outsider in Delhi.
Until next time, darlings. I am off to eat some more ham now.
I'm in a sunny Barcelona Airbnb as I'm writing this to you. The flat is a third floor walk-up in the Gothic Quarters, and it's only really quiet in the mornings. All night, thanks to several bars and several tourists, I can hear drunken people squealing at each other, caught up in the incredible luck of being here, being in Spain. Can you imagine? I'm in Spain! I still can barely believe it myself. Like every single other world traveler for time immemorial, I love Europe. I'm madly, deeply in love with the entire continent. I love how it all feels like one country, but also how things change from place to place. I love how I can walk everywhere. I love the little bars you stumble onto accidentally. I love how when you step out of your front door, you immediately feel like you're abroad, part of something else. I love supermarkets and how they change based on where you are. I love that my love of travel has been validated: this is why I do it, this is why I yearn to do more, the world is such a big place and there are so many places to see! I'm also glad I'm in my thirties as I'm doing this, you get crunched into the space you define for yourself at thirty something and it's good to push against that, get away from your comfort zone and become a new person again and again.
art by David Michael ChandlerBut compressing it all into one newsletter might be a bit hard, so I suggest you follow me on Instagram where I'm trying to put out daily photo updates.
But, here then, is what we did the last few days in Berlin after I wrote to you last.
* We went to an Austrian place famous for schnitzel and ordered a "small" one but it was still bigger than my head, and quite frankly, not all that tasty. A bit bland even. Traditional German food--except for all the various kinds of wurst--has not gone down very well with me. There just seems to be not enough of something in that food, a complete and total lack of spices. I don't mean that stuff isn't spicy (which it isn't), it's just flavourless. But apart from that schnitzel, I ate very well: ramen and pizza and pasta and innumerable doners which K is passionately dedicated to.
* Signed up for a walk with a tour company called Alternative Berlin. I've been walking like a champ, it's so easy when there are pavements and things dedicated to the people of a city as opposed to the cars. In Delhi, it's hard to walk anywhere, because either the pavements have cars parked on them, or people squatting on them, but in Europe, the cities have been planned keeping people's walking needs in mind. Also, let's face it, the climate suits. In Delhi it's either too hot, too wet or too polluted to spend any dedicated amount of time outside, let alone the ten kilometres a day I am managing with ease. EASE.
Anyway, Alternative Berlin. Found them by looking for "free things to do in Berlin" and they offer a guided walking tour to see street art and counter culture, with a little Soviet East/West thrown in. It's wasn't free though, it was "pay what you want" which always winds up being a little more expensive than what you bargained for. (We checked the website and a four and a half hour paid walking tour was 12 euros, so we gave the guy ten each for a three hour "free" one.) I learned many things about Berlin, including the story of Osman Kalin, which is fascinating, and also he was sitting there as we passed his plot of land, a very old man now, who lifted his hand to wave at all the tourists gawping at him.
* Our last rainy day there--by this time I was tired and cold of European weather, so instead of being lyrical about it, I just turned my face up to the sky and wished for the sun--we went to Templehof airport, which is this old Nazi airport, turned into a US military base, turned into an airport for West Berlin and now a public park. It's very cool to see the old radar buildings and the empty runway and the little organic gardens that are coming up everywhere. I wish more places would turn disused things like that into stuff for the people of the city to enjoy. (The old terminal itself is now a police headquarters.)
And now, on to Barcelona. My memories of this are one endless stream of debauchery, our days are filled with walking and eating and drinking. Two of K's besties are here from the UK, so we've been hanging out with them. Yesterday evening, we got empanadas, and they played Catan for three hours while I happily drank gin and tonic and read my book. (I'm on book four, the last one of the Cazalet quartet and I'm so sad it's over.) Barcelona is warm and no one has ceiling fans, so we're all a bit sweaty. I haven't seen anything apart from the Gothic Quarter yet, but it's so beautiful, these little warren-like streets that you can get completely lost in.
Yesterday, thanks to my Rough Guide, we made our way to an outdoor food market nearby called La Bouqeria, and ate at the best food stall there--at least, that's what my guidebook told me. Bar Pinotxo has no menu (it's a food stall with tall stools to eat at the bar), so we resorted to pointing at things, but in the end, got just what the owner thought we should have. Which was a warm bean and cuttlefish thing and also a sort of ceviche with cod. YUM.
Also on one of our walks, I bought Couples by John Updike at an old second hand bookstore, partly because they had a cat who was just lying there and also partly because I think old books are the best things to remember a trip by. I'll always think of Paris when I open my copy of Ved Mehta (imagine buying an Indian author at the best second hand store in Paris, but there you are), I'll always think of England when I turn to my little hardbound volume of Grimm's Fairy Tales (dinky, and bound in gold) and now Barcelona with Updike. (The other thing I like to buy are accessories, but I haven't found anything yet.)
This flat has two friendly cats, which makes me miss ours a little bit, but also not, because it's nice to pet them and just leave them to do their own thing, not having to bother about food and water and keeping them alive and so on. But having now lived with both species on this holiday (K's mum brought her dog to Berlin who is very sweet), I can firmly say cats > dogs. Chill and sweet. The best pets.
Meanwhile in Delhi, The One Who Swam With The Fishes got a RAVE review in Scroll. We are also back up on the Kindle store. (Please leave me reviews so the book gets kicked a little higher up on the ratings.)
Since a freelance writer's work is never done, here are some recent pieces I did: In Open, an essay about the childhood memoirs of famous authors. ** On why period leave is a good thing: this article created a lot of controversy on my Facebook page with people calling me "elitist" so you know it's great clickbait. ** On Paddington Bear and why bears are so popular in kid lit. **
Also I loved this old piece by Arvind Adiga on how he came to be a writer and an outsider in Delhi.
Until next time, darlings. I am off to eat some more ham now.
August 30, 2017
eM's Massive Travel Diary: Part One, Berlin, Germany
Since I was away for a whole MONTH, something you may have seen on the today in photo posts, I sent out four newsletters during my trip. Putting them up here in case you missed them, but you can subscribe here if you'd like up-to-date musings.
Darlings, I am writing to you from the sunny back room of a flat in West Berlin. Across the window, I can see a park which usually has children in it, but since the monsoon seems to have followed me to Europe, it is a grey, wet day, which I sort of like, because it feels so much more European. Sunny days are for beach holidays, in Germany, we turn up the collars of our coats and eat warm, bracing things. That's just the way it is.
Yes, my European holiday has begun! It really began late on Sunday night, when--having packed up Elvira The Backpack--I stood in line for an awfully long time waiting to get on a plane. Late night flights are the worst, they're always so crowded. When I'm rich, I'm only going to fly in the middle of the day. And also business class, since I'll be rich anyway. The good news is that they've done away with filling up those ridiculous little immigration cards which always caused a bottleneck right before you went to security check. Now I guess everyone has a new fangled passport, because they just swipe them on a little machine and send you on your way. It also means the immigration officer doesn't know I'm a writer, which is GREAT, because otherwise EVERY.SINGLE.TIME there would be this whole "what do you write? who do you write for?" and while I'm as happy to talk about myself as the next person, entertaining a bored immigrations officer is not my idea of fun. (They knew I was a writer because you had to fill in "occupation" in those forms.)
However, I can't get myself to go to sleep on flights. No matter how hard I tried, changing positions, putting on an eye mask, just lying there and closing my eyes, it wasn't happening. As a result, I just stayed awake. There were some movies to watch, I saw three back-to-back, read my book, ate the snack, considered my existence as the whole plane slumbered gently.***This week in plane movies: I watched Wilson, where Woody Harrelson plays this weird guy who has no concept of personal space etc, who looks up his ex-wife who is a waitress and then they hook up and he's all like, "I wonder what would happen if you had kept the baby" and she's like, "Oh, I did, and I gave it up for adoption" and then they trace their daughter who is now sixteen and they hang out, and you're like okay, sweet, but then the movie suddenly turns into a completely different one because Wilson gets arrested for kidnapping and putting a child in danger (the daughter has lied to her parents to hang out with them), and there are a lot of prison scenes and then redemption on the other side. Weird movie. (46% on Rotten Tomatoes, but I had to watch all these films WITHOUT checking the reviews first, which made me feel a little crippled.)
I'm surprised the next film I watched--The Boss Baby-- had a higher rating than Wilson (but only just at 52%)--because it was pretty schlocky. There's a kid who is the apple of his parents eyes, the centre of his heart and they have a second kid, and suddenly kid one is treated to the kind of isolation previously only experienced by overweight ageing labradors in a house with a new baby. But it turns out this isn't just any baby, it's a special management one, climbing the ranks to Super Boss Baby, and the two join forces and blah di blah, sibling rivalry turns into love. And I KNOW, it's an animated movie, but I love animated movies, they're usually not so pounding you over the head with the point. And this one was by the creators of Shrek so I was surprised.
Finally I saw Table 19, where a rag tag group of misfits is seated at the worst table at a wedding and they all become friends and because I love the rag tag genre as a whole, I quite liked this one. (Alas, the one I liked the most got the WORST rating: 23% so my mind is a little shaken right now. Should I... NOT be reading reviews?)***
Just went out and ate some soup. There's a place quite close to where we stay in Berlin which has a rotating list of daily special soups. They even have a punch card so your eleventh soup is free. I don't think we can eat ELEVEN, but K's dad only has three to go on his card, so we've just taken that. Today's lunch: potato and carrot stew with beef. Yum.***K's trying to get me to talk to people more. I can't, I'm too embarrassed of my less than schoolgirl German, I know my face is screwing up in odd ways to get the "sh" noises right, and I could switch to English (and I do!) but I'd like to be that person who converses freely with the locals everywhere she goes. So then I feel bad even as I'm speaking in English, and basically, it's just way easier for me to not say anything at all.***A lovely wine bar yesterday and meeting a friend I haven't seen in five years. The last time we met, I lived in Bombay and he lived in Singapore, but since then our paths diverged wildly. Berlin suits you, I told him, and it does! He looks happy and fulfilled. On another recommendation, we went to a wine bar in a rapidly gentrifying yummy mummy area. The wine bar was still delightfully dim and smoky and overcrowded, so no Invasion Of The Prams yet, thank goodness. What I liked is that you could get a glass for 4.50 euros or a whole bottle (the waitress gave us a cheap one for 15 euros, but prices went up to 450 on the chalkboard menu behind us), but if you couldn't finish your bottle, you could return it and pay for what you'd drank. Plus free antipasti just to get into the mood.***And now in book-related news, there's FINALLY a Kindle edition, for those of you who live abroad and/or prefer ebooks and an interview I did with the Hindustan Times is getting quite a lot of interest!
This week in non-book-related things I wrote: For my friend Nayantara's journal (attached to her amazing label Taramay's website) a list of my favourite female detectives in fiction. ** My Tsundoku books column in Hindu Blink is out again with three books I think you should be reading. ** And rebooting Aunty Feminist to be more "listcle-y" here is a myth-busting column on the single modern Indian woman. **
This week in links which might be kinda old since I haven't spent much (any) time browsing the internet: I met a Freegan once. It was an interesting evening. ** Why "how to be gorgeous like a French girl" means nothing. ** Margaret Atwood talks to Junot Diaz. Yes please to this interview. ** Finally Shrayana takes all those conversations we've had and turns them into this compelling, cutting article on dating the posh gentry. ** She's baa-aaack. The Urban Poor is now a book. **
Have a great week!
xx
m
Darlings, I am writing to you from the sunny back room of a flat in West Berlin. Across the window, I can see a park which usually has children in it, but since the monsoon seems to have followed me to Europe, it is a grey, wet day, which I sort of like, because it feels so much more European. Sunny days are for beach holidays, in Germany, we turn up the collars of our coats and eat warm, bracing things. That's just the way it is.
Yes, my European holiday has begun! It really began late on Sunday night, when--having packed up Elvira The Backpack--I stood in line for an awfully long time waiting to get on a plane. Late night flights are the worst, they're always so crowded. When I'm rich, I'm only going to fly in the middle of the day. And also business class, since I'll be rich anyway. The good news is that they've done away with filling up those ridiculous little immigration cards which always caused a bottleneck right before you went to security check. Now I guess everyone has a new fangled passport, because they just swipe them on a little machine and send you on your way. It also means the immigration officer doesn't know I'm a writer, which is GREAT, because otherwise EVERY.SINGLE.TIME there would be this whole "what do you write? who do you write for?" and while I'm as happy to talk about myself as the next person, entertaining a bored immigrations officer is not my idea of fun. (They knew I was a writer because you had to fill in "occupation" in those forms.)
However, I can't get myself to go to sleep on flights. No matter how hard I tried, changing positions, putting on an eye mask, just lying there and closing my eyes, it wasn't happening. As a result, I just stayed awake. There were some movies to watch, I saw three back-to-back, read my book, ate the snack, considered my existence as the whole plane slumbered gently.***This week in plane movies: I watched Wilson, where Woody Harrelson plays this weird guy who has no concept of personal space etc, who looks up his ex-wife who is a waitress and then they hook up and he's all like, "I wonder what would happen if you had kept the baby" and she's like, "Oh, I did, and I gave it up for adoption" and then they trace their daughter who is now sixteen and they hang out, and you're like okay, sweet, but then the movie suddenly turns into a completely different one because Wilson gets arrested for kidnapping and putting a child in danger (the daughter has lied to her parents to hang out with them), and there are a lot of prison scenes and then redemption on the other side. Weird movie. (46% on Rotten Tomatoes, but I had to watch all these films WITHOUT checking the reviews first, which made me feel a little crippled.)
I'm surprised the next film I watched--The Boss Baby-- had a higher rating than Wilson (but only just at 52%)--because it was pretty schlocky. There's a kid who is the apple of his parents eyes, the centre of his heart and they have a second kid, and suddenly kid one is treated to the kind of isolation previously only experienced by overweight ageing labradors in a house with a new baby. But it turns out this isn't just any baby, it's a special management one, climbing the ranks to Super Boss Baby, and the two join forces and blah di blah, sibling rivalry turns into love. And I KNOW, it's an animated movie, but I love animated movies, they're usually not so pounding you over the head with the point. And this one was by the creators of Shrek so I was surprised.
Finally I saw Table 19, where a rag tag group of misfits is seated at the worst table at a wedding and they all become friends and because I love the rag tag genre as a whole, I quite liked this one. (Alas, the one I liked the most got the WORST rating: 23% so my mind is a little shaken right now. Should I... NOT be reading reviews?)***
Just went out and ate some soup. There's a place quite close to where we stay in Berlin which has a rotating list of daily special soups. They even have a punch card so your eleventh soup is free. I don't think we can eat ELEVEN, but K's dad only has three to go on his card, so we've just taken that. Today's lunch: potato and carrot stew with beef. Yum.***K's trying to get me to talk to people more. I can't, I'm too embarrassed of my less than schoolgirl German, I know my face is screwing up in odd ways to get the "sh" noises right, and I could switch to English (and I do!) but I'd like to be that person who converses freely with the locals everywhere she goes. So then I feel bad even as I'm speaking in English, and basically, it's just way easier for me to not say anything at all.***A lovely wine bar yesterday and meeting a friend I haven't seen in five years. The last time we met, I lived in Bombay and he lived in Singapore, but since then our paths diverged wildly. Berlin suits you, I told him, and it does! He looks happy and fulfilled. On another recommendation, we went to a wine bar in a rapidly gentrifying yummy mummy area. The wine bar was still delightfully dim and smoky and overcrowded, so no Invasion Of The Prams yet, thank goodness. What I liked is that you could get a glass for 4.50 euros or a whole bottle (the waitress gave us a cheap one for 15 euros, but prices went up to 450 on the chalkboard menu behind us), but if you couldn't finish your bottle, you could return it and pay for what you'd drank. Plus free antipasti just to get into the mood.***And now in book-related news, there's FINALLY a Kindle edition, for those of you who live abroad and/or prefer ebooks and an interview I did with the Hindustan Times is getting quite a lot of interest!
This week in non-book-related things I wrote: For my friend Nayantara's journal (attached to her amazing label Taramay's website) a list of my favourite female detectives in fiction. ** My Tsundoku books column in Hindu Blink is out again with three books I think you should be reading. ** And rebooting Aunty Feminist to be more "listcle-y" here is a myth-busting column on the single modern Indian woman. **
This week in links which might be kinda old since I haven't spent much (any) time browsing the internet: I met a Freegan once. It was an interesting evening. ** Why "how to be gorgeous like a French girl" means nothing. ** Margaret Atwood talks to Junot Diaz. Yes please to this interview. ** Finally Shrayana takes all those conversations we've had and turns them into this compelling, cutting article on dating the posh gentry. ** She's baa-aaack. The Urban Poor is now a book. **
Have a great week!
xx
m
August 29, 2017
Today in Photo
Before I knew it, I had started a book bag collection. Ok, this is only three, but when life gives you cool tote bags you hang them up on your bookshelves. These are from left to right: JLF, Shakespeare And Company and Strand. The last one I've never been to, but now it's an aspirational thing. #bookstagram #shelfie #totes
via Instagram
August 27, 2017
Today in Photo
#repost @shreyabookblogger • • • #sundaybookpost #boooreview: The One Who Swam With The Fishes by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan Rating: 4.5*/5 I've always believed that Mahabharata was fought by great men but it was always women who were running the show, whether it is Satyavati or Draupadi. The story of the book goes back to the beginning of Mahabharata when in a quaint fishing village, Matsyagandhi was staying and was pondering over her life. Unwelcomed and alienated by her family, she used to dream of a different life. And her fate nodded in her direction and made her Satyavati, the queen of King Shantanu. Although I have read about Satyavati before, in The One Who Swam With The Fishes, Meenakshi Reddy has twisted the incidents in a beautiful way. The incidents in Satyavati's life which made her the queen, I read them with deep interest with a fresh take. A new life is given to the character by Meenakshi and now I'll be looking forward to read more about girls of the Mahabharata. Goes without saying, this one is a must read! ❤️ QOTD: Which is your favourite woman character from Mahabharata? Mine is Draupadi ❤️ @ig.reads @decemberschild @bookstagramfeatures @bookstagramindiafeatures @bookish.features @bestbookgrams @bookstr_ @bookriot @harpercollinsin @bookstagramretweet #bookreviews #bookblogger #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagrammers #bookstagramindia #booksofinstagram #instabooks #booklove #bookgasm #delhibookblogger #indianbookblogger #books
via Instagram
August 26, 2017
Today in Photo
If one MUST get one's period on a Saturday evening, at least one is being suitably pampered for the Snug As A Bug feels. "Hygge" as the Danes say. One glorious sprawling historical novel about the rise and fall of a royal family at the end of the British Raj in India PLUS a coming of age story of a powerful woman, Raj sounded like my kind of scene as soon as I heard about it. Then; serendipity! The doorbell rang with a man bearing chocolate and an invitation to dance next weekend when my cramps are all history. Could be worse, ladies, could be worse. #bookstagram #150in2017#mrmbookclub #nowreading #periodparty
via Instagram
August 25, 2017
Today in Photo
A handful of garden produce. Even karela is beautiful if you look at it closely enough. I call them Rhaegourd, Drogourd and Visirikarela. #motherofkarelas #eatwhatyougrow #terracegarden
via Instagram
August 22, 2017
Today in Photo
WiFi down all morning, so I'm using that as an excuse to read (and post to Instagram.) As though I need one. But I wanted to recommend this book almost as soon as I started to read it. Just now, a single passage made me almost start to cry but I don't want you to think it's a heavy read for all that. Untouchable is lightly written, the point of view of a young "untouchable" man and one day of his life. It's deeply moving and sadly as relevant today as it was when Mulk Raj Anand first wrote it in 1935. #bookstagram #150in2017 #mrmbookclub #nowreading
via Instagram
August 21, 2017
Today in Photo
Thanks to two kind friends' recommendations, I have found a new favourite dive bar. It's called Road Romeo which put me off for ages but super cheap drinks, comfortable seating and Hyderabadi/Kashmiri food? Yes thanks. #delhidiary #divebars #dipsochronicles
via Instagram
Today in Photo
#repost @beautywithbooks • • •
