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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11 March 2005

Seven Other Things You Probably Didn't Need To Know About Me (Subtitled: Procrastination Is The Thief Of Time)

(If you're curious about the first thirteen, go trawl through the August archives. The list is up there somewhere, i'm just feeling too lazy to link to it)

1) I have a passion for airhostess fiction. I have read Coffee, Tea Or Me, Round-The-World Diary and even Fly Girls. With a passion. Then I have gone back and re-read them. There was a time when I looked at their glamorous lives and secretly sighed and secretly wanted to be an airhostess. (Secretly because if I admitted it in real life, I wouldn't hear the end of it).

2) I have an obsession with strange knick-knacks. Or junk. Po-tay-to, Po-tah-to. Anyway, so I've got stuff in my room dating back from class seven or eight--like a little sleeping man a friend gave me, with "World's Laziest Person" on the base, or the plaster head of a cocker spaniel that used to sit on top of my mirror for ages until I developed finer feelings and put it away.

3) I don't dance. Unless I'm really, really buzzed. But if I was to dance (and by dance I mean standing in a corner and bopping my head around) it would be to the songs Butterfly (Crazy Town), Sexual Capacity (Color Me Badd) or Turn Me On (Kevin Lyttle). Evidentally, I have barbaric taste in music. : )

4) Most of my shopping is done from Sarojini Nagar's export surplus market. That may not be such a big deal for you, but I am also resident SN expert with my friends. I manage to find pretty good designer rip-offs and they'll look at me and go "Benetton, Rs 2,500?" and I say smugly, "Sarojini, Rs 250." It's good to have talents.

5) The first time I ever, ever got stoned was in Dharamsala on a college trip. (Now I'm all middle-sged and prudish about drugs, but I wanted to try it back during my "wild" phase) Anyway so we were told to put a piece of hash the size of the button that switches off a Nokia phone. So we did, rolling it in a cigarette (of course, now my friends are so sophisticated about it that they always carry around sheets. Rolling paper, i.e) and we smoked i and nothing really happened. "This is ridiculous," I said sternly and picked up the second joint and managed to inhale most of it before my friends got out of their stoned stupor and made me share. I got very violent giggles and lay sprawled on the hotel bed going, "It's hot! It's hot!" (Winter time, in the hills. You do the math). Yeah. Well. Those were the days?

6) I can also almost always remember handy household hints. I know that to stop odour in refrigerators you should put a cut lemon in, or that old and scratched CDs can be covered with wrapping paper to make attractive coasters. My favourite one though, and the one that works like a charm is putting toothpaste on zits. Seriously, sometimes at night when I have somewhere special to go the next day I put on some toothpaste before I go to bed and the next morning my skin is zit-free! But, I should warn you, my friend tried the same thing and woke up with big burns on her chin.

7) But while I'm good with those things--there are several things I just cannot do. Play any sport, for instance (unless you count Scrabble), or do any form of mental arithmetic, or tie an effective knot with my shoelaces.

EDIT: Ooh, look at me! Very nice, to be in hallowed company of all these other eminent bloggers and all. Only I wish the reporter had spent a little more time actually READING my blog, instead of quoting from the first post she saw. But it was a good story, even if they did whittle down my profile to make it fit in with everything else--and very nicely written. And I'm in the newspaper. But again, I reieterate, MY name is eM, the BLOG'S name is The Compulsive Confessor. So, ya, Compulsive Confessor isn't really what I call myself. But who cares? Did I mention I'm in the newspaper--as a blog entity rather than a byline? That brings me one step closer to taking over the world...muahahahaha.. oops, forget I said that!

5 comments:

  1. hmm...try not to put toothpaste on ur face..it ain't a good idea. however, if u have a mouth ulcer (or a gum boil) put some toothpaste on that and it takes away the pain pretty quickly and helps in the healing.

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  2. Excellent, another handy hint... but why is toothpaste on your face a bad idea? And also, if you put the toothpaste inside your mouth on the ulcer, won't it dissolve before it has time to work?

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  3. everything you probably need to know about geekbird...

    geekbird.blogspot.com

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  4. I dooo so read your blog and I've read all the archives and everything! But what to do... when 300 words have already been chopped, it really hurts to spend some more words qualifying names vs. blog names when you're aiming for the big picture. Sorry though!!!
    H

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  5. Hello Hemangini, thanks for the clarification! I'm sorry, I didn't realise you had actually read i, coz a lot of reporters doing blog stories just copy-paste from the first page! And ya, I know how I have to keep groping for smaller words and sentences so that my story won't be completely butchered... breaks your heart though, doesn't it?

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