Today in Photo

I wrote some verse for the climate change deniers/whatabouters amongst us. #poetry #climatechange

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The One Where I Realise I Was Always A Phoebe

How many times do you think you've watched Friends? For me, I don't even think I have a number. Friends wasn't so much watched as it was absorbed by osmosis. It was a late night TV thing, back when I still had cable TV. Somewhere in the world, there's always a Friends re-run on, and somewhere in the world, someone is watching it. I dressed to Friends, letting the actors be my background noise, letting the jokes roll over me as I read a book on the sofa. Sometimes I'd pause what else I was doing, look up and truly laugh--laugh again at the same bit that I might have not found funny the last time I saw it, but this time, the humour landed perfectly. I think that's the nice thing about a show you watch over and over again, you keep finding new things to delight in. It's why I re-read so much. Apart from being comforted that the words are exactly the same no matter what my life looks like at the moment, it's also discovery again and again. A sentence that may not have held your interest the last time, emerges now as the thing that the whole chapter rests on. Similarly with Friends, each time I watch it, I have a different reaction.

In Super Woke Twenty Nineteen, there are a lot of things that Friends gets wrong. The gay jokes. The trans jokes. I mean, the first time Chandler Bing takes Monica to see his father in the cabaret, and he's like, "Theeeeere's Daddy!" I laughed. The third time, I waited for the joke, still enjoying it. The final time, two years ago, I cringed as the laugh track exploded. Monica's fat phase was funny too, until it wasn't. Obviously she has internalised her lack of control over food and now it shows in her obsessive cleaning, her need to stay on top of everything. Remember when she decides to train Chandler and goes running every day with him? How is Monica a good chef who still eats absolutely nothing? As the show goes on, Monica gets thinner and shriller, by the end of it, Courtney Cox's face is all eyes, she's baking Phoebe's grandmother's cookie recipe and she is the only one in her kitchen who is not affected by the smell. She makes jam and hands it out. She is always cooking for her friends, always feeding them, and never eating anything herself. Ross makes jokes about how much she used to eat, and Monica shrivels away from that version of herself.
Now before you tell me none of the female Friends ate anything, that's not true. Rachel is frequently seen eating: remember the time her and Chandler find the cheesecake that's been mistakenly delivered to their door? She eats a sandwich with Joey (and gets yelled at for wasting food), she describes Emma's birthday cake with love, like someone who's actually eaten it. (Sidebar: Monica too talks about this birthday cake, how she used to hitchhike in school to get to their frosting. What happened to you, Monica? Did you lose your joy along with your appetite?) Phoebe frequently went on about being vegetarian, so I assume she ate something--remember when she was pregnant and wanted to eat meat and kept making herself massive sandwiches? So Phoebe ate. And Rachel ate. And Monica cooked, and presided over her kitchen, never stopping to feed herself at all. (You can tell me if I'm wrong, which I'm sure you will!)

ROSS. Now Ross is both the worst of the Friends and also, sometimes, the only Friend that makes any sense. You see Chandler (my personal favourite, everyone's personal favourite) the Jim Halpert of Friends, the one who mocks them along with us. If Friends was a break-the-fourth-wall sort of show, Chandler would be turning to the camera all the time and making faces at us like Fleabag. But Ross is a cipher. He's friends with everyone because of his sister, and his college roommate. The Friends, we understand, have no other friends. (Except for Phoebe, and in a world where PHOEBE is the Friend most like your regular friends, you know times have changed.) But Ross doesn't seem to like his gang so much. He has a science-y job he loves and wants to talk about and they're always shutting him down. He tries to take risks in his personal life, they shut him down. At the same time, he is an A1 Doucheface. Being extra possessive with Rachel? The whole thing with his male nanny? Being upset that his son was playing with a Barbie? EMILY? Come on, Ross. Why do we like you again?
Joey, however, was the anti-Ross. Reassuringly stupid, and SO stupid that you wondered how his friends made conversation with him, let alone how he got all the smart and sexy women to want to be with him. Joey starts out skeezy, but the writers of the show course-corrected and soon he was just a human Cookie Monster. All Joey talks about is food and sex, and after watching him with jam all over his face or spouting nonsense words in lieu of French, you wonder how anyone could find him sexy at all. He became sexless, even when that ill-advised Rachel hook-up storyline happened, you thought, not oh my god but kinda ew. Like kissing your much younger brother. However, Joey was not afraid to be himself, unlike Ross. He embraced his stuffed penguin and his jam face and his sheer dumbness which makes him much more appealing to watch than Ross, fucking it up over and over again.

And now to Phoebe, who I think should have gotten her own spinoff, not Joey ffs. Phoebe with the evil twin and the exciting back-story and the random skills she just pulled out of her pocket. Phoebe who was essentially the most feminist Friend. She did not give a shit about societal rules. Want to have a baby for your brother? Go right ahead. Want to sing your songs for a whole coffee shop even though your voice isn't conventionally pretty? YAS QUEEN. Phoebe was a "you do you" before "you do you" was a thing. (Sidebar: please watch the amazing Lisa Kudrow in the amazing HBO show The Comeback if you haven't already.) When Friends was first popular in India, not 25 years ago, but closer to 15, when it became a byword because of all the re-runs and so on, obviously my friends and I would try and divide up the female Friends. Everyone was mostly a Monica. Rachel was harder to categorize, though now in retrospect, I see that we were definitely more Rachel-skewed than Monica, though no one wanted to admit it. And I? I was always a Phoebe "because you're so vague sometimes." I used to be a little insulted. Monica and Rachel were more my idea of what women should be, so beautiful, so perfect, so conventional. But now I wear my Phoebe badge with pride.
  

Today in Photo

Happy Diwali! I'm off to lunch in my old Anokhi dress. But even though this dress is old, it does denote new beginnings for me. I bought it just before I was "let quit" from a job I had, it seemed like we were both playing a game of chicken to see who would break up with whom first. The dress was on sale at Anokhi and fit me nicely: a sign! I stepped into the rest of my life neatly and with a swish of my skirts. As Edith Piaf warbled last night on our stereo, "Non, je ne regrette rien." this is a good enough time as any to remind you to embrace your life too, mistakes and all. #whatiworetoday

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Today in Photo

Felt very enterprising taking the metro yesterday to a Diwali party in Gurgaon. The weather was pleasant enough for us to walk to and from the metro station. (with pollution masks on sadly) you can't see my whole dress but it's made from a sari pallu and some red raw silk that falls just below my knees in a full skirt. It may not be cold enough for silk though, I was quite warm in my outfit. But I'm pleased with how the dress looks, had it made last year and only ever wore it once. #delhidiary #metro #whatiworetoday

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Today in Photo

Card parties for Diwali are so passé darling. The real cool kids are playing board games. Or so we tell ourselves. Pictured here on @artofusman's lovely barsaati balcony with Code Names and also somewhere in the house there were two teeny tiny kittens. Perfect party. #delhidiary #thattimeofyear

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BRB feeling sentimental. #poetry #friendships

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Today in Photo

Rearranged some furniture (one of my favourite hobbies) and Squishy decided to accessorise the slanting sunlight and the green palm and the red sofa (scratched to bits but you can't tell unless you look closely) so i had to take a picture of it. Almost winter so gorgeous soft sunshine coming in through that window. #homedecor #catsagram #squishytheblackcat

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Today in Photo

Friend @ashwati.parameshwar requested a peacock and since she's an opera singer, I thought this fact would resonate. On the back it says "aren't you glad you're not a peacock?" birds are definitely easier for me to draw than mammals, more sharp angles. #sketch #peacock #naturestudies

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Slightly (very?) cheesy marking anniversaries on social media especially when the co-anniversary person isn't even on this thing but I'm happy today. Or, I'll rephrase: I'm happy and today is a good day to stop and think about that happiness. I didn't think I'd ever find love (this was a bit defeatist for the grand old age of 28 but in my defence, a lot had happened to me in the decade before), was content to be a social single woman with her cat and her books and look how life turned out. We began, eight years ago, by meeting on what would be the first of our long journeys together and two years ago we made it legal so we could travel easier (and you know love etc) but I also love the time we spend at home. (oh, the mush! I'll stop now! Happy anniversary darling!) (📸 by @flackio in Lecce)

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I guess I'm really an Instagram poet now so I can stop being ironic about it and attempt sincerity? #poetry

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Today in Photo

How to work when I'm so busy being a mattress? PS: the pink washed off so fast my hair's just bleached now. PS2: Can't move, send help but also aren't you totally jealous of my cuddlebum cat? #ifiwereyouidwannabemetoo #catsagram #squishy #armsfallenasleep

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Today in Photo

Dusshera lunch courtesy my mum who came over and brought a feast with her as well. It was tradition in Hyderabad to feast on Dusshera and then nap the rest of the afternoon, but here we've replaced the nap with a movie on Netflix. The food is from top to bottom: potato and water chestnut, mutton "vindaloo" (not really vindaloo but delicious), brown rice, potlakai Pachadi, mamsam fry and onkai koora. Ask me for translations! My belly is as round as a drum. #dusshera #feasting #delhidiary

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Today in Photo

I drew my friend an otter because she was sad. I feel like it captures the essence of the animal if not the exact likeness. Newsflash: otters are adorable and also very hard to draw. #sketch #otter #drawing

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Crosswords are totally romantic

26 across: moves aimlessly

I punch in “drifts”, which fits with “igloo” my answer for 28 down: traditional Arctic abode.

Crosswords have always seemed like a couple activity to me. Blame it on an old sweetheart who waited for me near the gates of my college with the Delhi Times crossword conveniently folded to the right section and a cigarette for me behind his ear. (He couldn't wait for me at the gate because the college was for “women only” and was guarded by a fierce man with a stick who took his job as Protector very seriously.) Some days, it would be just the right kind of winter sunshine, warm and mellow on our faces. Some days, it would be aridly, desperately hot, and I'd have to stop on the way out in a nearby loo to spritz some floral body spray fragrance all over me, in the kind of bottle that was trendy then: small, and blue or pink, with a sickly-sweet bubblegum-meets-jasmine undertone. Sometimes, he would have already done a few of the clues, but he saved most for us to solve together, our heads bent over the page. Since I've always been one for tall men, and I haven't grown since I was sixteen, you have to imagine us, him bending down like a dandelion in the breeze, me lifting myself up on my toes like a pansy straining at the roots.

My current relationship started off in a weird way, with a crossword too. I was bored and on Twitter (which happens a lot) and decided to solve the Guardian quick crossword with my followers. So I was tweeting out a clue every 25 seconds, entering in people's guesses, and generally having a grand old time. Into all this, I got an email from an old acquaintance who had been following me on Twitter, remembered I lived in Delhi and asked if I wanted to meet for a drink some time. Many years later, old acquaintance and I do not sadly, do the crossword together, as I had envisaged, but we do read together on Sunday mornings, sometimes. And raise a family of three cats and several house plants we're trying not to kill.

The crossword always seems like it should be a somewhat solitary activity, and yet, I'm always coming across evidence that it is the next big romantic tool. My friend Umang* (names changed everywhere) introduced me to an app called Shortyz when her and I were on holiday together. Shortyz downloads free crosswords from all over the place, and when you're doing a road trip holiday that involves a lot of sitting and waiting, like we were, it was the perfect thing to keep us occupied. “How did you find this app?” I asked, delighted. “Oh, my boyfriend, and I solve crosswords together all the time!”

Funnily, the word itself, broken down, sounds like it should indicate a fight. Cross words were spoken between the two as they couldn't agree on a clue. And yet, I think it works as a metaphor for modern relationships. Will your 43 down meet his 51 across for a perfect match? Will your words marry each other with an almost audible click as you realise you're perfect for each other? Neither mine or Umang's Crossword Relationship lasted forever, but we had gotten out of it a tendency to watch how we laid out our words—side by side or up and down—so that in the end, everything is spelled out and there are no blank spaces left.

Bombay recommendations (which you probably know) & Delhi ones (which you may not)

 Do you hear that? It's the distant sound of me sniffling and wheezing. To be fair to Delhi though, I think I picked it up in Bombay where I was for a few days this week [EDIT: THIS IS OLD NEWS, BUT EVERYTHING ELSE IS STILL RELEVANT], having meetings and running around in Ubers like a high flying executive. Should have worn heels for maximum effect. On the flight there from Delhi, several people coughed and sneezed right on me without covering their faces, which, like, gross and then on my way BACK to Delhi, I noticed that one of my lymph nodes right under my jaw was quite swollen, and so I've been sniffling and coughing to myself, and laying off the cigarettes, and generally being quite grumpy, but the swelling has mostly gone down now and I'm self-medicating with rosehip tea. Which brings me to the first of this week's recaps!

This week in grocery shopping: An oldie but a goodie, and besides I didn't have this newsletter the first time I visited Roots: The Organic Store, which is literally down the road from my house. Imagine a small general store that carries everything, and everything they carry is GMO free, or organic or something. Even the socks. We went to pick up some environmentally friendly washing powder for the machine (otherwise all that Surf and stuff goes into the drain and eventually mixes up with your ground water, which you eventually drink, so not good all in) (that being said, I do love my fabric conditioner, but I only use very little of that, she says defensively). We also bought similar floor cleaner, and then, errands done, I think we bought half the shop. The rosehip tea I'm drinking now, for instance. Cereal-y things for K. Cheese. Cooking oil. Spirulina spaghetti they threw in as a sample. If you live nearby, it's a great store to use as your local kirana.

This week in motivation: No coincidence that the word "motivation" has "moti" in it. I have gotten on the fitness band bandwagon, and purchased a Mi Band 2 (Xiaomi) in the hopes that this little silicone handcuff will get me up off my ass more. This explains why I walked down to the grocery shops yesterday, when I usually just sit on a couch and get everything sent home to me. My step goal is 8000 and even with pacing about the house, going to the shop and back, walking around the newly refurbished Ansal Plaza (more on THAT shortly), I only managed to do 2.5 kilometres or 5000 steps. At this rate, I'm never going to make it. The Mi Band is a cheaper version of the FitBit, and has all the features of the fanciest FitBit, you've gotta love Chinese ingenuity. I'm also kind of obsessed with it, much like David Sedaris was. Unlike David though, I actually once got a little statue of a man sleeping with the words "World's Laziest Person" on it for a birthday present, and I was PROUD of it, I displayed it for YEARS, so I'm fighting against all that conditioning.

This week in Bombay food, drink and retail:  Between meetings, I was stuck in that Bombay thing: having to sit at a coffee shop in the 'burbs for several hours because you have to meet your friends in Bandra and going back to town where your hotel is just doesn't make any sense. The "cafe" for me was Birdsong, which is great to sit and chill, but the food is not that good, so I'd suggest just sucking it up and going to Starbucks. I like the vibe at Birdsong a lot though--very hipster, very pretty, lots of people, but you do feel compelled to order something every thirty minutes so they don't judge you, whereas at Starbucks, I feel like I could hide from everyone in that one couch with one coffee and no one would care. Something to be said about corporate owned chains.

After Birdsong, I had some time to kill (MORE time) and so I decided to check out this export surplus shop I used to go to a lot when I still lived in Bombay called Cotton On. It's still there, but the prices have gone waaaay up and customer service has gone waaaay down, or else they were just as rude seven or eight years ago and I just didn't notice because I was in my twenties and coated with a layer of self-assurance no one could touch. I did buy a pretty black Banana Republic dress though since I was there and all, but I will not be going back I don't think.

Post, met a friend at a new Bandra bar called It Happened In New York with PCO-style food and drink, ie expensive! But good. Even if I did have to tell them that I preferred my Bloody Mary salt rimmed. Also went the next day to a lovely place I was taken to the LAST time I was in Bombay for a bit called Eddies Bistro, no apostrophe, which makes me wonder if there are several Eddies, since Eddy-singular traditionally ends with a "y". Eddies Bistro, so everyone who goes there is called Eddy? They only serve Eddy? I spent a long time gazing at the sign and wondering. 


This week in airport sightings: Way in: Kangana Ranaut, wearing a lovely camel coloured coat. She's much taller than I expected, but I didn't gawp properly, because I was doing that thing where you ignore celebrities and expect them to notice how cool and ignore-y you are. (She didn't notice.)

Way out: Two gorgeous golden retrievers called Peppa and Sunshine as part of a new programme bringing therapy dogs to airport for nervous flyers. "Do they help?" I asked the handlers, and they said the maximum amount of people who stopped were people whose flights were delayed and they needed something to do, so bored flyers more than nervous ones, but they DID put me in a very good mood, so there's some therapy to it after all. (At Bombay's international airport on the weekends, three hours in domestic, three hours in international.)

This week in cats: Speaking of animals, our three are great, happy to have us home and everything but SO FAT. I had posted a link to an article on our Whatsapp cat group (Kool Katz, four members) about  how to make your indoor cats more happy and engaged by making them food puzzles--essentially making them work for their food instead of just laying it all out for them. So while I was in Bombay, K set about training them to get their food differently. Quite easy: we had already bought a thing called a Kong Feeder which is essentially this hollow rubber dummy you fill with treats and then your pet has to push it over to get the food out. It's supposed to slow down eating, a problem we were having earlier with Bruno. K replicated the Kong Feeder times three with empty tonic water bottles. Bruno's gotten to be quite a champ at it, pushing the bottle whenever he needs it. Squishy just lies down with his mouth to the mouth of the bottle and sucks on it until the food comes out, and Olga is really not very smart at all and needs one of the boys to upset the food before she can get it. I thought I raised her more feminist than that.

This week in birds: Birdwatching continues! Not as exciting as Goa, but I did get a chance to make three new entries in the Notes section of my Salim Ali. The first two: the common myna and the Alexandrine parakeet. Bo-oring. But the third was the spotted owlet, a whole fam of them, hanging out a tree branch right below our house and chilling in broad daylight. Ol' Salim describes them as chilling by ruins or in trees in groups, but if they think they've been spotted, they very peevishly fly out, making clownish sounds. Quite a zoo.

This week in Delhi food, drink and retail: Went out with the Kool Katz to Delhi's newest Bombay import, Kofuku, which is this AMAZE Japanese restaurant I used to LOVE in Bandra. Like, every time I visited, had to have at least three meals there. The Delhi version is also damn nice, and it's in Ansal Plaza, which is a total blast from the past. I remember sitting at Geoffery's and The Buck Stops Here for ages, watching some kind of World Cup with friends from college and drinking all afternoon. Plus, there was a Reebok store where I bought my first and only pair of floaters that lasted me a good ten years I think, until I lost them. Also Ansal Plaza has a shop called Decathlon, which is a very large shop catering to every different kind of sport, which means they have some really cool products like these "rambling" pants I bought, with pockets, super comfy and easy dry so they're perfect to wear when you're traveling. Or like pollution masks in packs of three. Or excellent fleece jackets. We were there for badminton rackets, having left our set in Goa, but we also got sidetracked with all the other things.

Today in Photo

A happy accident with the at home dye job I did (okay okay, K did, I just provided instruction and my head) turned what I was aiming for (a soft ashy pink) into a flaming sunset across my hair. I feel magical, I love it so much. #haircolour #streaks

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