I'm not for the death penalty

I waited for a long time for someone to offer me a column about my views on capital punishment, and since no one did (STILL WAITING, NEWSPAPERS),  I've decided to do it for myself.

I do not get glee out of watching someone killed. True, I have even LESS glee when it's someone innocent, something in my stomach twists and knots and turns, but even when it's a person with a machine gun who killed lots of other people, I want him punished, yes, but not from stone-throwing or tarring and feathering and tying him to a horse. No guillotine. I want him to suffer slowly, in long solitary confinement, to go mad inside his prison cell. To live a long life regretting his mistakes.

Things I Object To In Louisa May Alcott

Rereading Little Men and I have some thoughts about the March saga.

1) What in the name of ever loving hell does John Brooke die of in Little Men? It's like one day he's walking around all lalalalala and the next day he's dead. Quickly. In The Night. (My theory is murrdeerrrr. Think crossover book called: The Little Men... Of the Night!)

2) While we're on the subject of death row, Beth, it is largely believed, died of TB. Right? But there's no mention! First she goes to feed some sick family, blahblahblahBORING, and then she's never the same again. The characters who preach at you most die first. Novel Rule Of Thumb. (John Brooke was SUPER preachy during Good Wives.)

The Next Big Thing: Cold Feet (a meme response post)

Samit Basu (who, incidentally, is one of the co-dedicatees of my new book) tagged me in a new thing that's going around on author's blogs called The Next Big Thing. It's basically a set of questions about your new piece of work. Which is easy to do, and I love easy. So, here goes:

1) What is the working title of your next book?

Cold Feet. I played around with different titles for a while, and all of them were really long (eg: "You Might Have Heard This Story Before, But Actually You Haven't) (Not a real title.) The .docx file was called cold feet. I liked the name when I first came up with it, but then going to parties, people began saying,  "Like the TV show?" I didn't know what TV show they were talking about (answer: this one) but the thing is, no author actually wants their new book to be "like the blah blah?" It has to be their book, because we are all narcissists and the world revolves around us. True story. Go hug a writer today, we're very sad people.

And it's not a working title, it's a TITLE-title. 

Can't read my, can't read my p-p-poker face

I'm back from my Diwali weekend in Bombay! It was awesome, as always. Although there is something to be said about the romance of Diwali in Delhi, North India just takes the festival one step further, plus the lights and the change of season, it's actually chilly without being COLD-cold. But since my parents were away, I went home to "other" family, ie, the Good Thing, and we had a lovely time.

Good morning!

The two of us hosted a Diwali party together and even a game of teen patti, which I forgot to get tokens for, so we all wound up playing with, um, lentils. Yup, little teeny tiny pieces of daal. This made winning fun (NOT) especially when you kept dropping the pieces and cries of "I lost a lentil!" were quite common.

Here are my abbreviated teen patti rules, since it turns out a lot of people don't automatically know it. More people should move to Delhi where this stuff is taught in your cradle.

1) Everyone gets three cards. (Not dealing with the variation version here, just straight up.)
2) You can win in a number of ways, but mostly by bluffing your way to the end. Unlike me, who never bets till I have good cards, which is a tell that most people figure out after round five. Oh well, I still won. Take that!
3) The lowest way to win is with a "tops" or a high card. Play with a face.
4) Then there's a pair, two of the same kind.
5) Then there's an impure sequence: 6, 7, 8 for example, but of different suits.
6) Then there's a pure sequence: same as above, but with the same suit.
7) And then there's a trail--three of the same card. An ace trail is as high as you can get, and if you get dealt this (VERY RARE) everyone has to give you a pre-stipulated amount of "luck money".

A list of reasons why I haven't been super regular with posts this week

1) Yesterday my car broke down in the middle of Baba Kharak Singh Marg. Do you know this road? I didn't want to, but I became very familiar with it over the course of yesterday. It begins with Mohan Singh Place, where you buy bolts of cloth (friend I was with went a bit crazy buying corduroy, and finally, I succumbed to heart patterned denim for skinny fit jeans) and ends with the Bangla Sahib Gurudwara. In the middle is a multi level parking lot where we had some fun watching the car go away on a lift and be returned to us, all very poshly. Halfway out of it, it gave a funny jerk and then just stopped entirely. Some friendly men pushed it, but no luck. I went to call a mechanic from a nearby petrol station, but even with his jumper cables, no luck. We called Hyundai repairs, no luck. Finally, I gave up and called a tow truck and we hitched a ride home in the back of that which was awesome. I felt a bit like a queen. A traffic violating queen, but a queen nonetheless.

Knight in shining tow truck

My car is almost ten years old (we have the same birthday!). Maybe it's time to change it, but new cars are SO EXPENSIVE, and I don't want to change a Santro to an i10, you know? I want to change a Santro to a.. oh, Mercedes or something. What's the point of getting a new car if you keep getting the same car over and over? Facetiousness aside, you guys, what's the best budget-y car for a self-driver, with fun features and mileage and all that jazz? Please help! (I'd like it to last another ten years or something.)