Sneha Jaiswal's Blog, page 290
July 5, 2020
Ads and an Asocial Writer
High five to fellow introverts and asocial people reading this.
The dictionary definition of asocial is – “avoiding social interaction; inconsiderate of or hostile to others”
I just avoid social interactions, but am NOT hostile to others. On the contrary, I believe my company is fun. Or I could be delusional too. Either way, this tendency towards being asocial is becoming a great hindrance towards my ‘writing career’. As an independent author, I am supposed to do as many ads, as many interactions and basically keep engaging with potential readers to keep my book selling. But I prefer sitting in a cozy corner of my house and lamenting that ‘maybe I will be one of those authors that become famous after their death’.
It’s actually making some sense to me now – the fact that so many authors found posthumous fame was probably because they were so horrible at making any human connections, that they couldn’t sell their books. Or worse, they were just obnoxiously unbearable people while alive.
Right now, there are so many independent authors out in the world, confidently self-promoting their books on social media platforms, and it is so amazing. I mean, I published my first book in December last year, and only started actively using Twitter a few days ago. And I see people online who haven’t even published a single book going on an overdrive, wooing potential readers and garnering thousands of followers. And that’s pretty cool, because once their book comes out, they will already have a substantial following to promote their book to. Highly unlikely that I will ever do that, unless I become rich enough to get a manager to handle my social media accounts and pretend to be me.
For example, most articles on Instagram ads suggest that video ads do a lot better than static posts. That a video is ‘more eye-catching’, ‘more engaging’ or ‘more whatever’. I started bugging husband to do a video ad for me to promote my book. My friends were just amused when they heard of my plan.
“Why are you making him do it? It’s your book, you should do it. People want to see the author with the book,” they admonished me.
“Because I don’t want to appear on a public ad,” I tried explaining. Also, husband is way more good-looking than I am, so better visuals. But in the end, the video ad idea was just scrapped. There was no way that the author (me) would come on camera. And the husband doing the ad did seem pretty lame.
I see so many weird ads pop up on my social media feeds, mostly by self-proclaimed models/yoga instructors with terrible audio promoting their pages. The kind of ad one would hit skip within the first three seconds. Poor video quality is a bit off a turn-off to the broadcast journalist in me. And that reminds me, despite having the opportunity to become an on-air TV news anchor, I had no interest in the profile.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I have confidence issues. It’s just that I am usually a very private person. Most people don’t even know I am married. A professor congratulated me over my book last week. And for no reason, she added “you are not married right?”. I laughed to myself and then informed her that I have been married for almost two years now.
“How come you never told us? 
Sunday Surprise
I woke up late as usual, only to find out that my book ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’ had climbed up ranks on Amazon India’s bestsellers’ list! It was at fucking number three. At first I thought ‘shit, does the book deserve the ranking?’ and then I was like “woohoooooo, who cares, the book is number three, the book is number three!”.
Nothing can be more encouraging for an independent self-published author than to find their book making it to any sort of list. Besides, these rankings are based on sales not ratings. Also, it’s on the Amazon top 100 free list, which means the e-book is free, only for the weekend. So please grab your copy if you don’t mind reading some realistic general fiction. They range from heartfelt to wacky.
If you get the book, do leave a rating/review, it means a lot to independent authors like me. Following are some links –
If I’ve missed your country, look for it on Amazon or on your kindle store.
July 4, 2020
Books and Bestsellers
So I had a blurry Saturday. Most of it was spent trying to promote my new book ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’. Honestly, I think I just wasted a lot of time in just refreshing to see how much engagement my social media posts got. So narcissistic and stupid right? A couple of more books and maybe I will finally get over it.
But here is something totally awesome that happened – the book hit RANK 10 on Amazon India’s BESTSELLERS list under the ‘Literature & Fiction’ section, in their TOP 100 FREE list. I am not even kidding, take a look.
And yes, the book is free just for the weekend (4th & 5th July), so grab your copy if you haven’t yet. It’s a short story collection set loosely against the Covid19 pandemic. I am super excited about the ranking since it’s hard for a new unknown author to make it to any list if they are writing general fiction. So these things are a morale booster.
If you get the book, do leave a rating/review, it means a lot to independent authors like me. Following are some links –
If I’ve missed your country, look for it on Amazon or on your kindle store.
‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’ – Giveaway
My second book ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’ is available for FREE on the kindle store across all Amazon platforms. It’s a promotional offer just for this weekend, so please grab a copy now.
A little about the book – It’s a collection of ‘ten short stories with the COVID-19 pandemic being the only common thread. The stories try to capture what the pandemic means to the common Indian man. It distills the various pressure points we see in everyday news and in some of the stories, matches against a larger philosophical outlook.’ – this is a snippet from a review left by a reader on Amazon.
If you get the book, do leave a rating/review, it means a lot to independent authors like me. Following are some links –
If I’ve missed your country, look for it on Amazon or on your kindle store.
July 3, 2020
STAYING AT HOME
“Four.”
“Four?”
“Well, three are kinda defunct. But, yea, four.”
*silence*
*long sigh*
“Well, okay, I guess”
*silence*
“Are you both sure of this?”
******
Netflix produced an Indian romcom in 2018 called “Love Per Square Foot.” It followed the antics of a young couple pretending to be married to qualify for a housing scheme which would help them get a flat in Mumbai. The movie was a hit and it spawned several think pieces. It was discussed avidly in trains and people giggled among themselves that “pretending to be married” is the least of what most would do to own a piece of this city.
T and I are married. No pretence there.
My husband has always wanted to own a place in Mumbai. We are Mumbaikars. Born and raised in the island city. My parents had bought a 438 sq. ft. (carpet area, okay) apartment in the then-swamps of Kandivali in 1983. T was raised in a tiny 220-sq. ft. chawl room in Worli once-owned by the booming Century Mills.
Unlike T, I’ve never felt an intense desire to own real estate in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the world. It didn’t make financial sense, I argued. Ever so practical, T promised he would never consider a place that wasn’t “VFM” – value for money. I gave my blessing, confident that the boxes being passed off as apartments in this city could never be considered “VFM”.
Which was the case for nearly four years. T would go “apartment hunting,” – poking around in dusty old buildings with moss-covered exteriors, pretentious show flats in bourgeois neighbourhoods and unfinished skeletons in the suburbs.
He found potential candidates by poring over Google maps looking for relatively empty patches in Mumbai and then clicking around to see if there are buildings facing the relatively empty space.
He was happy foraging apartments across the city and he never took me along. I would get involved only if he had a “good feeling” about a place. T’s “good feelings” were quite practical — pricing, size, location, view, future value appreciation, flat layout, facilities, conveniences, etc.
Of the approximate 60 flats he shortlisted online, 15 made the cut for a visit by him and only two qualified for me to take a look.
******
“It’s a 2BHK. Its………………… nice”
“Why did you hesitate?”
“Why don’t you see it first?”
“What’s the ‘but’ T?”
“Let’s go and see it.”
“I don’t like this.”
“Arre it’s nearby. Baghun tari ghe (Take a look atleast)”
******
“A balcony. Nice.”
“Yes, madam. All rooms have balconies. Even Sir liked that.”
T was dropping side glances at me since we stepped foot in the place with the realtor. Instead of relaxing and getting a feel of the apartment, I was focused on trying to dig out the factor that made him antsy of my approval.
“Is that… a hill?” I said staring outside the living room balcony.
Calling it a hill would be quite a stretch. It could qualify as a hillock or whatever the term is for a smaller mound. The protuberance was covered in luscious green blessed by the July rains. I gaped. T stood by my side, grinning and feeling very proud of himself.
I gawked some more. Any Mumbaikar reading this must have also taken a pause. It is nothing short of shocking. Having big patches of wild greenery – whether flat or jutting out from earth – in front of your apartment would be a big green check next to any dream apartment checklist.
Next up: no building blocking line of sight. From one bedroom you could see a flotilla of fishing boats and ships on the creek with a tiny island in the distance. From another was a “city-view,” with the Parel behemoths rising in the distance.
I was enamoured. I hopped from one room to another, heading directly to the balconies and staring out. Feeling the breeze. I had good feelings about the place. I turned and grinned at T.
His smile dimmed a bit and whispered out of the corner of his mouth to not alert the realtor, “You might want to take a look at the ground as well.”
I stopped smiling. I hate looking down from heights. Especially from higher floors. I looked down. There was a road. I was confused until I saw T subtly tilting his head to the left. I turned my head.
There was a graveyard.
“Ah”
“Yea”
“Ok, that might be an issue”
“Ah…uhmm..errr…Well…”
“What?”
He turned right while looking down. I followed his sight. There was another graveyard. I didn’t understand. I looked left again. Turned and looked right. Looked down. There was the road. Squinted. Both looked different.
“Wait, is it the same graveyard?”
“No. They are different. The one on the left is Christian. The one on the right is Sunni.”
Ah, yes, the tombstones. “Oh. So, then, two graveyards.”
“Ah…uhmm.. errr…Well…”
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME? WHAT ELSE IS THERE?” (Yea, fuck whispering. I was beyond that now.)
“There’s also a Chinese cemetery”
“WHAT?!”
“Yea”
“CHINESE?”
“Yea”
“HOW?”
*silence*
I was now glaring at T. He was back to grinning. “Four balconies though,” he said enthusiastically.
“And three cemeteries”
“Well, four actually. There is an Armenian cemetery next to the Chinese one. It’s apparently quite nice. There are articles on it. Called Ba’hai Gulistan. The Armenians believe that their souls should be buried in gardens. Very nice na?”
“T”
“Yes honey”
“Four graveyards”
“Yes honey”
“Four”
“Well, one actually. Three are not functional now.”
“Anything else?”
“No”
“Okay.”
*long silence while we contemplated the very-green-smaller-than-a-hillock terrestrial pimple*
“They are never going to agree to this.”
“Well… feel mine will. Yours……..”
******
Dear reader-who-may-not-be-a-Mumbai-resident,
This is a story of privilege.
Mumbai real estate is fucking expensive. Very-fucking-expensive. Unbelievably-fucking-expensive. We are in middle of a real estate slump right now and it’s still very-fucking-expensive. Even the most disconnected-from-reality Mumbaikar will talk passionately for hours on his feelings for the city’s real estate scene. It is a very sensitive topic and very close to Mumbaikar hearts. Everyone believes they are an expert. And they probably are, because everyone, at some point, clicked the “buy” instead of “rent” tab on housing websites and pored through it. Or they were part of heated family discussions where someone is ranting about the “extremely evil builder who is connected to so-and-so politician” and “he bought a flat because everyone knows they have black money” etc
There are plenty of divergent views on Mumbai real estate. However, every person – rich or poor – agrees on three points:
1) Mumbai real estate is very-fucking-expensive
2) Real estate developers, or builders as they are colloquially known, are crooks of the highest order
3) You cannot buy real estate in Mumbai unless you are incredibly privileged.
T and I are not self-made-rich. We do well. But left to our own devices, we would NEVER be able to buy any apartment of any size in this city.
Enter, the parents.
******
Unlike me, T shares an extremely weird relationship with his parents. They trust him. Shocking, I know.
His parents were going to part-finance the apartment their only progeny wanted to buy. My parents were not financing but everyone involved knew that an approval from my extremely-strongwilled-and-feminist-but-will-never-accept-she-is-one ultra-religious mom was indispensable to the entire venture.
Naturally, T and I unanimously decided not to tell her anything until we dotted our i’s and crossed our t’s.
******
“We liked a place.”
“Finally. Great,” T’s mom was overjoyed. We had hemmed and hawed on apartment-purchasing for a long time. “Both of you liked na? Not just him?”
“Yes, I also liked it.”
“Wonderful. How much is it.”
“Well, they showed us a 2BHK, but we liked the 3BHK better. It’s a stretch but it’s a comfortable stretch.”
“Great, so nice. How much is it?”
“There’s this thing.”
“What thing?”
“There are some graveyards nearby.”
*pause*
“Some?” T’s devout mom asked.
“Four.”
“Four?”
“Well, three are kinda defunct. But, yea, four.”
*silence*
*long sigh*
“Well, okay, I guess”
*silence*
“Are you both sure of this?”
“There are four balconies, Aai,” T said enthusiastically. I wanted to bean him with my tea-cup. He saw my expression and tempered down for a second and then notched it right up again, patting my thigh reassuringly.
******
“It’s a kabristan,” my mom said.
“So?” I retorted ready to fight.
“Well… I kind of feel it’s not a big deal. If it was one of ours, there would be a lot of smell all the time. Right?” T’s mom remarked softly, looking at neither of us.
I stared at her and burst out laughing. My mom was shocked into silence.
Practicality, thy name is a Mumbaikar
******
“How the hell did you agree to this?” my sister, M, remarked.
“I was seduced by the natural light and the wind,” I replied grumpily.
“You do realise there are FOUR graveyards, right?” M enquired raising her eyebrows.
“Yes, yes I know. Can everyone please stop repeating it,” I whined.
Unlike my mom, my sister had a different reason for pointing out the neighbourhood.
I am terrified of ghosts. I don’t care for your rational explanations. I’m a scientific person but everyone has their irrational beliefs and mine includes being terrified of something that I’ve never personally seen and whose existence is not scientifically proven till date. I don’t watch horror movies.
‘I Am Legend’ is the last horror movie I watched and didn’t sleep well for more than a month after that. (Yes, I know, it’s not a horror movie but zombies-from-a-virus are just a step away from the evil corporeal beings okay)
“Think of it this way. If a ghost does visit us, imagine all the authentic recipes we will get,” said T, with a smirk.
Change of plans. Forget the flat, I would like to re-think the marriage.
******
“What’s that sound?”
“The lift,” T said patiently, explaining the origin-of-sound for the one millionth time. We were settling down for the night post the housewarming puja. My mother and MIL spent a considerable amount of time warning the priests of dire consequences if their chanting didn’t “deep-cleanse” the apartment.
I spent the first week staring at the shadows the curtains threw on the ceiling-to-floor windows. Every time a curtain flapped; I held my breath to see whether it would reveal red-glowing-in-dark eyes. It didn’t.
A week after we moved in, I fell ill – not the cough-and-cold kind. Both ladies yelled at the priest demanding to know how I could possibly fall sick if the puja had been done properly.
I was as speechless as the unfortunate priest.
******
The AC stopped working in the second week of the lockdown. We were entering peak Indian west coast summer when Google Assistant says shit like “In Mumbai it’s currently 31 degrees [Celsius]. Due to the current humidity it feels like it’s 46.”
I sat in our “office space” as the cross-ventilated breeze kept me cool. Faint sounds from the TV indicated that my in-laws had settled in with their daily dose of Mahabharat or Ramayana.
The gentle breeze turned into a stronger wind.
I wasn’t sweating.
******
The fan was swaying. I sat on the bed tracking its movement while the wind made a wheeeeee sound. My hair was whipping my face and T was locking things down.
Cyclone Nisarga was heading our way.
I took selfie videos of my riotous hair – as if I was sitting next to one of those fans used to simulate storms in movies – and sent it to friends.
The hillock that turned yellow over the summer started sprouting hints of green. Over the next month it would transform into an emerald jungle – my spot of calm whenever things got too much to handle, which was quite often nowadays.
******
I don’t like debt. I don’t like being handcuffed to a job. One of my biggest issues with buying this apartment was that we needed to take a loan. An EMI to suffocate me.
We did our calculations, made our Excel sheets and I knew that the math showed the debt could handle my sudden, unexpected, out-of-ordinary salary transitions.
But, at the crux of it, I didn’t like its existence.
It’s day 103 of lockdown and expected to extend by at least 30 days as of now.
My uneasiness about the debt has been overshadowed by the gratefulness of possessing a larger-than-usual apartment overlooking a greener-than-usual space, and a lower-than-usual electricity bill thanks to non-stop stronger-than-usual winds.
This may change in future. The country’s economy is close to a collapse. I may lose my job. T may lose his. We may both lose our jobs. The Excel may not be able to handle the burden of a pandemic. I may have to bid goodbye to my spot of green.
But I’ll always remember that this weirder-than-usual place helped me survive at least 150 days of a seemingly unending, unbearable, soul-crushing period of my life.
I don’t know what’s next. But then who ever does?
(This is a guest post by a friend who lives in Mumbai)
July 2, 2020
Fuck You ‘Fair & Lovely’
The hashtag ‘#FairandLovely’ was trending on Twitter on Thursday and piqued my curiosity. Obviously.
For the uninitiated – ‘Fair and Lovely’ is a widely popular skin whitening cream in India. It promises to make dusky women ‘fairer’. If only it were that easy. A quick google check and the reason why it was trending was apparent.
‘Fair & Lovely’ cream rebranded ‘Glow & Lovely’ – screamed some headlines. Unilever, the company that owns the cream thinks that ‘Glow and Lovely’ sounds more ‘inclusive’. But who the fuck are they trying to kid? It’s still a bloody skin whitening cream.
A product that promises to make your skin light, is a lot different than a product offering you a healthy skin. This superficial tokenism to change names and ‘re-brand’ themselves is not fooling anyone.
There are a lot of people arguing that even if fairness creams like these were banned, it’s not going to end the prejudicial attitudes Indians have towards people with darker skin tones. Sure. I agree. But that also doesn’t change the fact that the existence of these creams helps re-enforce and strengthen those attitudes. These products are basically telling you – FAIRER IS BETTER.
A lot of us are starkly aware that products like ‘Fair & Lovely’ only feed on the insecurities of young women and girls, making them believe they are not enough. And I feel so strongly about this issue because I have grown up hearing people say shit like “oh, she is not as fair as her mother” or “poor thing, she gets her skin color from her father”. Chatty Indian aunties do not know how to whisper discreetly. And their words stung. Thankfully, I was always a pragmatic child. So after the first few seconds of feeling hurt, I would just decide that they were ‘mean bitches who were better off ignored’.
Although, all the hoopla over the cream does remind me of little things I never really paid attention to. Like how my maternal grandmother whose skin tone was a lot lighter than mine would always use ‘fair and lovely’. There were times when she asked me to use it too. It was always in good humor, she would never comment about my skin color.
But I would be lying if I said that there haven’t been times when I wished I was indeed ‘fairer’. What with all our Bollywood songs, ads, poems and pretty much everything in the world subtly telling us that ‘lighter skin is prettier’. But those insecurities have long died. I have never paid a dime for skin lightening creams and never will.
With increased awareness over these beauty products, Unilever has been trying really hard to change the image attached to its best-selling cream over the last few years. They’ve tried changing their ads. While earlier they would feature dark women, who would slowly transform into ‘fairer’ ones. These days, the ads show women who are already fair, glowing like a tube-light after using the cream. I am not even kidding.
Sample this old ad of the same cream, where from the left to right is the supposed skin color transformation. (After usage of the cream, of course)
Now look at one of their newer ads. The woman is already pretty light colored on the extreme left, but at the right, it’s just photoshop. Nobody’s skin glows like that. Give me a break. Those guys are STILL trying to feed on the insecurities of young women and selling them horse-crap.
[image error]
Our skin color or it’s glow level does not define us.
SO FUCK YOU FAIR AND LOVELY. OR GLOW AND LOVELY. WHATEVER.
P.S – On a completely unrelated note – I published my second book ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’. It’s a collection of short stories, so check it out.
Death & Darker Realms #17
“For days I didn’t bleed
The nightmares began
Loathing of the seed
Regret despite plan
Yes, it was agreed
The tree had to grow
Seeds were freed
Reap what we sow”
First few lines from poem number seventeen in ‘Death & Darker Realms’. Wrote this one last year. It dwells on an issue that is rarely talked about in poetry or even fiction for that matter – women who do not want children.
For the full poem, you could get a copy of “Death & Darker Realms” on Amazon. Following are some country specific links –
If you are not into poetry, then maybe you could check out my debut fiction book “Love, Loss, Lockdown“, a collection of short stories set against the Covid19 pandemic. It’s free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
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July 1, 2020
40th Book – I am the Kraken
For some strange reason, I assumed that my 40th book for the year was going to be a small quick read, and boy was I wrong! ‘I am the Kraken: The Buccaneers’ Relic’ by Micah Kolding is a big book of adventure meant for kids. Guess I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I was younger, but it’s definitely a fun one for the age group it targets.
The book follows the story of Destiny Curry, a 16-year-old, who finds herself in an alternate world, where pirates still rule the oceans and wild creatures run amok. Most of the names of the characters were really weird and funny, like there is a character called ‘Tankini’, I think I cracked up every time a reference was made to the moniker.
While I am not a big fan of books with pirates and monsters, Kolding weaves an interesting & elaborate tale and keeps you hooked to the story. There are all sorts of interesting things happening and you wouldn’t really know what to expect. Like a Mermaid that fancies belly buttons!
P.S – On an unrelated note – I published my second book ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’. It’s a collection of short stories, so check it out.
June 30, 2020
What Needs To Be Said
Since it’s the last day of ‘Pride Month’, I want to share something on the theme from Quora, a Question-Answer site.
Somebody requested me to answer a question that went – What do you want to say out loud on the occasion of ‘Pride Month’ 2020?
Here’s my answer from June 19th –
Just yesterday, in view of ‘Pride Month’, I published a list on my blog titled ’10 Nations, 10 Gay Films’. The films are non-tragic and largely feel good movies from 10 different countries.
Now I usually do not promote my blog posts on my social media pages, but I thought maybe I should share the post, considering it’s ‘Pride Month’. But I did think twice before sharing it. Wondering if it could make some people uncomfortable and then thought ‘to hell with them’.
Here’s a screenshot of my conversation with a friend –
Translation of my first message – I have been doing LGBT posts these days and I even shared one or two of them. And I thought ‘should I?’, Since I don’t ever promote my blog posts anyway. But then I would think again ‘it’s all right, if there are any homophobic people on my list, they will un-follow me. Good riddance. But at-least if someone in the closet reads it, they will know they have allies.’
And here is what I want to say out loud to people who may not be a part of the LGBTQ community but are accepting of them – LET THEM KNOW.
It’s important that we talk about it now and then, raise the issue at home, let people know around us that IT IS NOT UNNATURAL. (Homosexuality has been found in animals and it’s just weird about how most ‘educated’ people are not aware of this fact)
I remember getting into an argument with my dad about homosexuality in 2018. I think the topic came up because there was a newspaper lying around that talked of the Indian Supreme Court’s decision of decriminalizing gay sex in India.
Funnily, even boyfriend (now husband) was around at the time of the argument and he nudged me to not argue too much on the topic. I mean obviously it wasn’t my problem right? But I have friends who are gay/lesbians, and I don’t appreciate anybody thinking they are ‘abnormal’ and need to be packed off to correctional facilities.
I know somebody who came out to their parents last year and their folks were horrified and wanted to send them to a ‘reformative centre’. This wasn’t happening in some movie, or in some far off land, this was happening to someone I knew, someone I hung out with. Just heart-breaking.
Small gestures, something as simple as putting up the LGBT flag on our statuses to show that we care and understand, can go a long way in helping someone know that they are not alone in their ordeal. That there are people they can talk to.
So speak up and show you care.
P.S – On an unrelated note – I published my second book ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’. It’s a collection of short stories, so check it out if you are looking to read something new.
June 29, 2020
Duck & Dive.
It’s pride month still and I read my first LGBT themed book this year. It’s a novella called ‘Duck & Dive’ by G.B. Ralph and was a quick and fun read.
The plot focuses on Arthur, a closeted man on the verge of turning 30, who has decided to come out to his childhood best-friends. But something or the other always comes in the way of his ‘coming out’ plans.
There’s no drama, no complications in the story and that makes it an easy read. It has all the makings of a fun gay romantic comedy. Grab a glass of coffee/wine or whatever it is that you like on the sides while reading and get yourself a copy. Especially if you looking for something that’s chick-lit, but with a gay lead.
A lot of it is very relatable. I took a screenshot of a page where the hero whines about how he never gets to celebrate his birthday his way, and sent it to a friend. Because it reminded me of him. There are very few characters in the book, which is a boon, because you never get confused about ‘who is who’. I usually have a hard time following a plot with too many characters.
The only hiccup with this book – it’s a pretty predictable. But enjoyable nonetheless!
P.S – On an unrelated note – I published my second book ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’. It’s a collection of short stories, so check it out if you are looking to read something new.
