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



Sign up for my newsletter: The Internet Personified

22 September 2017

Newsletter: Dispatches from the domestic front

(I sent this out as my newsletter for 01.05.2017. For more up-to-date madness, subscribe here!)

K has taken to exercise in a way that is alarming for me. If we were animals, he'd be something strong limbed and energetic--a big cat, perhaps--and I'd be a sloth. Or a panda. They're cute, right? But they conserve their energy and move only very slowly, and I am a slow moving kind of person. Oh, I don't mind walking as long as the walk isn't the PURPOSE of the thing. Walk and shop, walk to get somewhere, fine, but walking just for the sake of walking? I'm always checking the time to see if I'm done yet, whether I can go home now please. Even the Mi Band I bought isn't spurring me on, on the contrary, the days where I manage to do one kilometre just pacing the house are red letter days for me, I feel so virtuous and alive. And in the meanwhile, there is K with his skipping rope and his pull-up bar. Some of us just aren't meant to exercise. I am one of those people. I never get "addicted" to it, never need to stretch my limbs unless I've been on a bus or something, never feel like my well-being depends on it. Luckily, I also eat moderately, so my body keeps a balance, staying the same size mostly. I say that now, but in my thirties I'm way heavier than I was in my twenties and in my forties I probably will double that as well. Ugh. Ageing sucks. Having to "look after your body" also sucks. I miss the old days where no one cared about health and pregnant women bummed cigarettes from children and everyone drank till they dropped dead. 




This week in Khan Market: Surprised by the fact that I don't miss Khan Market. I thought I was going to once I moved away from Nizamuddin, but moving away also made us explore so many other places in this city. Like, our Nizamuddin selves would not pop over to Little Saigon at least once a month for lunch. or try and find new exciting places to hang out at instead of the same ol', same ol'. It is damn convenient--Khan Market ie--though. Everything that you need for a fancy life: your well-stocked grocer, your book store, your bar, even your roadside jewellery shops. And Khan Market will always have a place in my heart, just not the only place, I don't think.

Anyway, I was in my old stomping grounds twice this week--once for a friend's birthday at Public Affair (which I always think of as PUBIC Affair for some reason, sorry guys, it's very fancy and nothing remotely pubic about it, it's just my brain association); and the second for a conversation my mother was doing with Sunil Sethi at Cafe Turtle. Both times, I went out to the terrace (both for a cigarette and to get away from relentlessly cold air conditioning. K has a theory that the posher the place in Delhi, the colder it has to be, which is funny because it's true. I'm going to have to start carrying a little shawl around.) If you also haven't been in Khan Market for a while, you may not know that there's this whole MCD thing to close down the terrace sections of restaurants. Apparently one collapsed in Connaught Place even, so terraces in all these heritage type markets have this desolate sad look. Gossip has it (and this is just gossip, so don't quote me) that this one prominent family that owns a bunch of buildings in Khan pays the NDMC a lakh a week or something for them to look the other way and so their restaurant is the only one allowed to keep tables and things outdoors.


This week in other places that are not in Khan Market: My dad was in town so full parental week for me. We went to Delhi Club House, which I've been wanting to try, but which all my friends are bored of, so no one wants to come with me. Quite nice--again with the super high air con though. I was battling a hangover from Public Affair the night before, so could not stomach the idea of a cocktail, but they looked pretty good. Surprisingly, a large number of patrons looked like Gymkhana-Club-On-A Thursday members, so either a) they're really into clubs, or b) they're dressing aspirationally.

This week on books-to-television: From all accounts the new Netflix adaptation of Anne Of Green Gables is going to be that dreadful thing for nostalgia reading: gritty. It's now called Anne-with-an-E,  and is written by the same writer who did that Breaking Bad episode called Ozymandias. Uff, what an episode that was. BUT that's okay for a meth lord and Santa Fe, but not for idyllic PE Island and a little girl with red hair who always saw beauty in things. As a palate cleanser for my soon-to-be outrage, I watched the 1985 CBS adaptation of Anne, starring Megan Follows who WAS Anne, who was so, so perfect in the show. It made me feel better.

This week in Kittenamas: I THINK (knock on wood etc) that the two kitties we are fostering are mostly spoken for, it's just a question of my friends making up their minds. They're both SO sweet, and have really blossomed. I wish we could take more credit, but really it's just a matter of giving kitties lots of food and a secure place to live, out of the mean streets. Mack--the brown kitten--is especially a Love Cat, and likes best to be cuddled and picked up and have his tummy tickled (very rare trait in cats), while the Hobgoblin is a little darting bit of cotton wool. Our other cats have managed to ignore them completely, so peace reigns, mostly. It's nice to have enough space for five cats, but kittens are such delicate darlings, I check in on them every morning just to see they haven't perished in the night.

This week in new books:  After a meeting with the guys at Harper Collins this week (book is looking SO lovely!) I asked them for a copy of Anuja Chauhan's latest, about an Air Force pilot called Baaz. Excellently done, even though Anuja is clearly more into the idea of armies and battles than I am (I am a pacifist, believe that if everyone was, the world would be a lovely place, don't believe in young men being lured on promises to become cannon fodder. This is extremely naive of me, I know, but wouldn't it be nice?) and the book has some very exciting battle scenes as well as the zingy dialogue that makes her books so readable. You should pick it up, you'll love it.

Lunch reading list to ease you into Monday: Loved this piece by Manasi on Jo March (and it inspired me to start re-reading Little Women again). ** Fab obituary on the Hungarian woman who married a Nehru. ** Freelance journalist Aparna Kalra was attacked in a park near her home, but happily she's making a good recovery and even wrote a piece about it. ** Like a Zomato for sex workers. ** Dental care is the new hipster must-buy. (I've been using an electric toothbrush for years and since I switched haven't had a single cavity or gum bleeding). ** Related: the best inventions of 2016. ** Genital cutting in the United States. ** 100 Days of Trump, 100 days of false statements. ** Nevertheless HE persisted. **

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for your feedback! It'll be published once I approve it. Inflammatory/abusive comments will not be posted. Please play nice.