My latest book is The One Who Swam With The Fishes.

"A mesmerizing account of the well-known story of Matsyagandha ... and her transformation from fisherman’s daughter to Satyavati, Santanu’s royal consort and the Mother/Progenitor of the Kuru clan." - Hindustan Times

"Themes of fate, morality and power overlay a subtle and essential feminism to make this lyrical book a must-read. If this is Madhavan’s first book in the Girls from the Mahabharata series, there is much to look forward to in the months to come." - Open Magazine

"A gleeful dollop of Blytonian magic ... Reddy Madhavan is also able to tackle some fairly sensitive subjects such as identity, the love of and karmic ties with parents, adoption, the first sexual encounter, loneliness, and my favourite, feminist rage." - Scroll



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19 December 2004

Tis the season to be not-so-jolly

Two Cures for Love by my absolute favourite poet--Wendy Cope
1. Don't see him. Don't phone or write a letter
2. The easy way: get to know him better.


And a Christmas poem, also by Wendy Cope.
At Christmas little children sing and merry bells jingle,
The cold winter air makes our hands and faces tingle
And happy families go to church and cheerily they mingle
And the whole business is unbelievably dreadful, if you're single.


Mmm.. Christmas cake.
Someone gave my editor a huge plum cake with white sugar frosting and he shared it with the rest of us. As a result, I now have a sticky mouth and a lovely raisin-y taste lingering around my tongue. I love plum cake. When K and I were together, I used to love his house around Christmas time. Most of my friends are Hindu, so we don't really do anything at Christmas, except use it as an excuse to party and wear our Santa hats. But K is Catholic so that meant huge Christmas bashes, with carol-singing around the piano, egg-nog and rum punch, homemade ham and oodles of the most alcohol-soaked plum cake you can ever imagine. I used to stuff myself on that cake. And since his mom made so much of it, there was always some left over till the middle of January and so the alcohol got more and more potent, till only eating it made me a little giggly. I miss that cake.

I went to Delhi's hottest new nightclub--Athena---last night, feeling very proud of myself for venturing out of Turquoise Cottage's sweater wearing, sling bag carrying crowd into a world where all the women had identical straight hair, identical sulky expressions, all tucking teeny-tiny bags under their armpits. I conformed only in that I wore a halter. But I did wear a coat over it, and I didn't wear any make-up except for a little gloss and a little eye pencil. And I was probably the only girl there with short hair. Oh well.

Athena was nice, though they could have had more seating arrangements. I was ready to drop by the end of the evening. And oh, the loos! They were equipped with everything, from the ordinary (cotton swabs), to the luxurious (five different brands of perfume), to the practical (tampons and sanitary towels) and to the really rather bizarre (lollipops and condoms).

On to other news: New Boy and I are pretty much over. Yes, I know it was quite promising, and yes, sigh, I had a crush which is a terrible thing to happen to any woman (five points if you know what book that line is from), but it turned out thathe has family issues bigger than anything I could ever imagine. Now, my parents are quite an exception. They're liberal, we "discuss" my rules and priorities and as long as I'm safe and happy, they pretty much let me do as I please. Which is as it should be.

New Boy, on the other hand, had a big blow-out with his family (this after a night of being loved long and hard). Things got pretty melodramatic, with his mother bursting into tears (for fucks sake, all he did was party a little and cut his hair. Big sin.) Bottom line is, New Boy calls me and goes, "I think we should put us on hold for a while."
And I go: WTF?

Apparently they don't approve of his "new friends" (insert eM here) and they pretty much gave him an ultimatum--them or us. Wow. I swear, the next guy I date is going to have parents like mine. I can't handle this. Talk about a scene from Hindi cinema.

So I told him I refuse to be on hold for something that's technically not even a relationship. That meeting up is important to me, since I have not much time for personal calls during the day. That someday, whenever his "issues" were over, we could see what happened then. I did give him the whole "we can still be friends" thing, which I, for one, fully intend to implement. I mean, Shiva and I, surprisingly enough, find we can have friendly, non-sexual type interactions.

I feel bad, yes, but I have a feeling it's all for the best. I need right now to be with someone who will spend as much time with me as I want him to, who will not have "permission" and "curfew" hassles and who will, preferably, live alone, or if not, will have parents who work or who are cool with him bringing women over.

Will New Boy and I get back together? I can't say as of now. I gave him my little speech, if he cares enough, he'll do something about his parents, if not, then he's just not that into me (Sorry, but I just finished the book yesterday--- and it's fast becoming my bible).

~Heartily know, that when half-gods go, the gods will come~

But he really was pretty. Peh.





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