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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9 May 2005

I sink three-pointers, you wax poetically

I've just finished watching I Am Sam on HBO. And I'm not ashamed to add that I discreetly brushed away the wetness in my eyes more than once. Normally, movies don't make me cry. There are movies which will have everyone else crying by the bucketfull and I'm all like, "Yeah, so?" Which probably means I'm going to get my period, because this one PMSy time I started crying at advertisements, for gods sake. Seriously.

Or maybe it's just because I've been feeling unusually sentimental these days. Some days I'm all about the peace and the love and the flowers and go around my day with luminous eyes, others I'm all about the gloom and doom and how perfect the rain is, just like one of those old angst-filled movies, where the lonely sound of rain acted like a backdrop. I swear, the other day when I was in this mood and it started to rain, began to look around for a solitary black raven. Couldn't find one though, but wouldn't that have been fitting?

Ooh, last night was brilliant. At least, if drunken memory serves, it was. First we had to stop by at Priya's college friends do, which was interesting, I suppose, just not the kind of people I would normally choose for company. Then Golfer Ex (Aha! Ahahahaha! You see how he's trying to get in on my weekends? But I'm on to him now!) invited us for a pool party at his friend's penthouse on the ninth floor. Unbelievable.

The weather was just right last night. Actually, because it had been raining, it was a little chilly, but the lacuzzi was on in the pool and so were the lights and it glimmered bluely and wetly and so Priya and I borrowed shorts from the host and jumped right in. I was just sorta dabbling one toe into the water because it was really fucking cold, but then someone pushed me in and then, well, you know how pool parties are.

We played volleyball for a bit, drank much tequila, but since I hadn't really eaten anything since breakfast time, it was porcelain heaven for me. Which was startling, because I haven't been throwing-up-drunk since, oh, four years now? The last time I was that drunk, was right before K and I started dating and I called him, pissed to high heavens and yelled, "Stop playing fucking games with me! Either you stay with your goddamn girlfriend or you break up with her and start dating me, I refuse to be in the middle of this!" Sometimes I think my entire break up was some sort of bad karma thing, because I asked him to break up with her. But then, shouldn't he be getting his share of the bad karma too? Technically, he cheated on her, right? I was single, so I'm not totally to blame.

There have been many questions about why I choose to put lyrics as post titles. As long as I can remember, basically, as long as I have been musically aware, I use a soundtrack for my life. When I was younger, I used to act out videos to songs on the cassette player, now that I am all adult and not supposed to do stuff like that anymore, I use certain songs as backdrops. To make a moment even better. And there are lines in some songs that make you turn the volume up and sing with all your heart and all your lungs and those are the lines that define you at that moment. Like, for instance, in Losing My Religion my friends and I have very different favourite parts. Priya likes "I thought that I heard you laughing, I thought that I heard you sing, I think I thought I saw you try", Iggy likes, "That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight" and my favourite part is where he goes, "Consider this, consider this, the hint of the century". See?


Speaking of music, I've become very into cheap Bollywood songs these days. The Oh Sharabi, Kya Sharabi and Bheeghe Hont Tere types. Beeghe Hont Tere is incidentally the song you hear when you call the dhabha near my office. They make the most excellent chilly garlic chow mein ever! Along with cheap Bollywood songs, I'm also very into cheap Chai-nees food these days. Want to turn me on? Order a chilly chicken dry boneless.

Anyway, so it's six pm and for the first time in forever I don't feel like socialising. So I'm going to go, turn on the air conditioner, crawl under the comforter and channel surf for a bit, while pulling out all my old childhood books and re-reading them. I really should make a trip to the pavement stalls at Daryagunj soon.

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