The Fibroid Surgery Expert Edition

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 Last year, around this time, I had a bunch of fibroids taken out of my uterus. I was reminded of this because this photo popped up.

That’s me, your humble narrator, sitting up in the hospital bed, eating hospital food. I had just been told I could go home, so I changed into regular clothes, but they were taking so long with all the paperwork that I thought I may as well watch a quick episode of the BBC Pride and Prejudice miniseries. I was in hospital for about three days, including the day of my surgery and then I stayed home for about a week after that, but I was able to climb all the way up to our third-and-a-half floor walk up apartment.

Anyway, I remember right before I was going in, I kept looking for information on the internet and there was surprisingly little available. Fibroid surgery is super common now, one friend of mine had already gone through it the year before and she told me what she had gone through, and there was an endometriosis forum on Reddit, but none of it was exactly what I was going to go through. So I thought, one year down, this very specific newsletter should address it, in case you or someone you know might have fibroid surgery in the future?

Firstly, about one in five women have fibroids—is that a lot? I just totally pulled that figure out of my ass—okay, let me try again: out of my vast and varied friend collection, two people are going to have to have their fibroids removed and two already have. This is not counting all the random people I have met who also had the surgery. They’re little non-cancerous tumours that cluster in and around your uterus. No one knows how they grow, she says grandly, and also probably inaccurately, but they seem to have gotten quite common.

I had a lot, but the biggest ones were all five centimetres long and sitting in a cluster, so my uterus looked like I was five months pregnant or something. (I was very interested to see if my stomach would flatten after the surgery because it stuck way out, and because that was obviously one of my main concerns, since I am a combination of extremely lazy and also extremely vain.) (It did! Not a lot—still need exercise and diet sadly—but I am much flatter around the stomachular area than I used to be, which is excellent.)

There are still a bunch of little fibroids left after all that, so eventually the gynae says I’ll need a hysterectomy, but surgery is no fun, I really did not enjoy being at a hospital, and I have greater sympathy for those that have to go in on a regular basis, so I’m letting that be Future Meenakshi’s problem. They got them out with laproscopy, which is apparently the best way to go about it, but some people will also recommend a C-section. What they didn’t tell me was that my stomach was going to be covered with all these scars, I have like five of them, and they’re quite prominent, even if they’re small, so no bikini modelling for me in the future, although I feel sort of bad-ass with my scars as well. It’s like having a set of (really ugly) tattoos.

Anyway. What can you expect? You’re best of having some sort of health insurance because this is an expensive surgery. I mean, I don’t know what a cheap surgery is, actually, but this was quite pricey as far as these things go. I think it was the whole laproscopicness of it. You’ll be purging for the entire day before, thanks to some pre-surgery powder they make you have, so prepare to be close to a loo, but they’ll tell you that. There’s a whole enema thing, which is also yucky. The nurses can be very nice or they can be bullies, so remember to stand your ground (if you can) about stuff you want or don’t. I was trying to be a good patient, then I thought fuck it, who am I trying to impress, so I complained a lot, and it was okay, because I was the one fresh out of surgery dammit! I wasn’t planning on winning any bravery awards then.

I wrote that paragraph and then I thought about the conversation we’re having about doctors and nurses now, in the middle of the pandemic. Every now and then I forget where we are and what we’re doing here. Um. Yeah. Be nice to doctors and nurses but not at the cost of your own health, okay? Don’t be afraid to say, “Ow” and “That hurts!” and “Do we have to do that?” Because you are the patient and they will listen! That’s the amazing thing. I hated the intravenous antibiotics, they made my whole arm burn and sting like fire ants were eating me from the inside and I got them to switch to oral antibiotics as soon as they could, because otherwise they would’ve kept me on the damn needle forever. That’s why it’s also nice to have supportive people next to you, people who will take your side, instead of trying to please the doctor. I had my mum and K, and they advocated for me when I couldn’t.

Prepare to be tired for a few weeks. It takes a while for the body to heal and that means you won’t be able to stand up for ages at a party (I went to a party as soon as I could, but I spent the whole time sitting down) (PARTIES! This may no longer be a problem also. Dammit, this is a very forgetful sort of day.) Just when you think you’ll never have energy again, you surprise yourself by how much energy you have. A month after my surgery, I was walking eleven-twelve kilometres a day in Italy. I was fine. I was great, in fact. (HOLIDAYS.)

Some stuff hurt like a bitch. Waking up after the surgery, they’d pumped me full of carbon dioxide so my belly would swell, and that uncomfortable bloated feeling lasted a while. (I won’t be delicate: it feels like you have to fart and you can’t.) They are obsessed with your poop, by the way, because if you can poop, it means nothing went wrong in that general area. I am a nervous pooper and find it hard to go in strange places, so finally, I was begging for a laxative so they’d let me go home. There’s a drainage tube poking out of your side, and that hurts when they pull it out and the pain is unreal. (Here’s more about the actual surgery & aftermath in an older newsletter.)

Meanwhile, I was at this really nice, really fancy maternity hospital and people kept having babies and I was feeling bad for the nurses who had to cover my room because they didn’t get to look at babies, which I imagine would be one of the perks of their job?

Oh, I completely forgot one cool thing that’s happened post-surgery. One of the drawbacks of my fibroids was that they were pressing on my bladder so I had to pee, like, constantly. (If unattended, they can make you incontinent.) And now! I can go hours just like a normal person! This is particularly great when I travel. I still have a tiny bladder, but now I can plan my tiny bladder stops and not be caught unawares.

Feel free to write to me if you’re going in for this surgery some time post lockdown, post COVID, post whatever and you have questions. I am happy to be your Resident Fibroid Surgery expert.

Newsletter: Five Nights In Delhi Edition

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NB: this was going to be six nights in Delhi, but I had an unexpected cancellation and so I spent my weekend gloriously watching Project Runway and Strike and since I was watching Strike anyway, I decided to reread the last of the Comoran Strike books which I have no recollection of, having read it in a tearing hurry when it first came out. There's a new one out soon! I'd read JK Rowling's grocery lists to be honest.

Anyway, by some trick of fate, I had plans for every single weeknight this past week. This hasn't happened to me in a while--old age, darlings, old age, your friends' changing priorities, your OWN changing priorities, life, work, it'll happen to you too, unless you're one of those labrador retriever extroverts who cannot handle a night in, in which case, my advice to you is make younger friends. I thought I'd document this, a very social week in my life just so we can examine it a little closer.

Monday

"Who wants to meet a millionaire?" I said, giddy with my own wit, but K wasn't having it. He looked at me deadpan, he enjoys doing that and said, "EVERYONE is a millionaire, they're very common, what you mean is a billionaire." Well, who wants to meet a billionaire is not as fun and alliterative, I guess I could have said, "Who wants to bang a billionaire?" but most of them aren't that good looking. Much like Scarlett O'Hara, people seldom notice this about billionaires because they are taken in by their charms. In this case charm = money. Money gives you polish, an air of confidence, even if you're sweaty and your clothes aren't that great, you could buy better clothes, but like Steve Jobs, you like to stick to what you know.

The particular billionaire we were going to "meet" was a cryptocurrency blockchain abracadabra morewordshere guy who was coming to India to launch his company. I wouldn't have thought this was the kind of event I would be invited to, what do I know about wingardium leviosa? But the person throwing the party was a friend, and he said, "Come! There'll be drinks and stand-up comedy" and I am always curious about the rich and famous.

So the billionaire stood up and said things about his company, which sounded very interesting but also like they were in Latin, especially after three glasses of wine, and we settled in to watch Abish Mathew's set. He's "the other guy" from AIB, by the way. Like, you'd say, "that guy, that guy, that guy, oh and that other guy." If I'm not very much mistaken, he often plays the straight man to his friend's punchline, like not a literally STRAIGHT MAN although that too, but the person who asks, "And then what happened?" to make a joke go forward. Anyway, maybe I just don't get stand up but I have found very few people very funny. And in this post-Nanette world (PLEASE WATCH IT ON NETFLIX) it's a little dated to say, "The only privilege men have is to be able to go to the bathroom whenever they like." OH MY GOD MAN IT IS 2018 IT IS TIME TO RETIRE THAT BATHROOM JOKE.

We were at the Taj Mansingh, which is a grubbier and yet posher Taj than the others. It has not changed its decor since the 1980s I don't think. The last time I was at that particular rooftop was when you could still smoke everywhere, and Vikram Seth was launching one of his books, and there were LITERAL OYSTERS coming around on trays. OYSTERS. At a book launch! I had three, my first time eating an oyster too. (These were also the glory days of excess where a fashion designer's new store greeted me with about a KILO of caviar on ice which no one was touching because "fish eggs ew." I ate as much as I could spin out of that story.) Now however, we had to trudge down to Rick's, favourite haunt of Rahul Gandhi, which has a smoking room attached, I assume for the use of this sort of guest, but which I smoked in merrily.

 

Tuesday

 

 

 

Samit and I have been friends for so long, I don't even very clearly remember a time before we were friends. Okay, I sort of do, because when I first met him, I was 23, a young reporter with a chip on my shoulder about writing my book, time was passing and there I was with NO BOOK, and he was 25, a young writer whose first book had just come out to great fanfare. I was so spittingly jealous, I might have asked him questions which all had an ulterior motive, along the lines of: SOOOO HOW DID YOU DOOOO IT? Hmm? HMMM? Anyway, much water and many books have gone under that bridge since then, and now he is a support system and a co-moaner about this ridiculous writer's life we both seem to have chosen with no regards for the practicalities of it all.

He had a party, and I was lounging about on his sofa, drinking the sangria, talking about all those things you talk about at parties, everyone there was a good friend, so I let my thoughts stack up like a little pile of coins on the table. We got to talking about what it would be like to meet our younger selves at a party such as this one. My own twentysomething self would have rejected any words of wisdom I had to offer her with a pert "that will never happen to me!" and as Samit said we'd both have loud words, not like each other much and then go home and think about it for the next year or whatever. Ahhh but I'd like to think I'd like myself at 26, still so shiny eyed and optimistic, just as I think my 46 year old self would like me now and my 86 year old self would like all the other mes. No, actually, my 86-year-old self will be DONE with everyone's bullshit and will probably tell everyone to fuck off. (I aim to be an old lady in this regard very soon.)
 

Wednesday 

 

Summer House still endures as one of the trendiest places in Delhi. Partly, I think it's habit. We love to go to a place over and over again, till we know our exact order and the waitstaff and the table we prefer. But mostly, it's because it fits into that perfect triangle: location (Aurobindo Market is close enough to HKV to be cool but far enough away that it's not actually HKV which all the trendies have ceded to the rest of the city who wander around the village sadly looking for trendy people), pricing (not the worst + some sort of shitty happy hour + who cares, we're on daddy's credit card people come here the most anyway) and music (OUNCE OUNCE OUNCY-OUNCE OUNCE OUNCE OUNCE).

But the service is shitty, the food isn't that good, and really, you're just paying for the privilege of being in one of Delhi's more cool places. I liked to think as I watched all the waiters ignore us, even as they spotted us wave and cry, that this star too would fall. It's been more than two years though, and Summer House is going nowhere. AND, irony of ironies, when my out-of-town friend said, "Please suggest somewhere nice we can meet for drinks" it jumped into my mind precisely because of that triangle.

Thursday

 Standing and smoking outside PDA (Diva's new cocktail bar, which is on Zomato Gold, which I have been using practically EVERYWHERE #notanad) this group of Particularly Delhi Girls walked up. Now, my friend Shrayana, who I was out with that evening, and I are both Delhi girls as well, but long years of apologising or trying to make up for our city has made us a little more--shall we say--circumspect in public. Neither of us would walk into the bar talking at the top of our voices. It's not us, it says "LOOK AT ME YE MIGHTY AND DESPAIR." Now this lot, had no problem with us listening to every word they said, in fact, I think they relished it, like a stage show they were putting on. I know it, because for a brief time in college, I tried to be that sort of Top of My Voice As I Enter A Restaurant Person. Look at how much fun we're having, my conversation would say, and when other patrons turned to look at us, I thought it was envy in their eyes. (Now I know having been on the other side, that it's just plain old loathing. Do shut up.) "Get me nicotine patches," yelled Girl One to Girl Two who was standing right next to her, and Girl Two yelled back, "What happened to your vape?" and Girl One declares, "My Juul BROKE, ya!" And at this point, I exchanged looks with Shrayana, feeling about a hundred years old, and needed my martini desperately. (Note: PDA has such good drinks, we should all go.)

There has to be a word for this collective of Delhi girls, who say "bro" like they mean it, and who talk a certain way, like Valley Girls or the Sloanes, but Delhi-ish you know? Can any of you think of a name for their collective?

Friday

You know when you're with good friends and you finally manage to spit out what's been bothering you about something, and you finally articulate it in this golden sentence, and suddenly your brain clicks into place like you've had a really good massage and that night you dream about that problem so when you wake up in the morning and think about it, it's no longer aching? That was Friday night (and happy birthday to Niyati who hosted and listened!)

This week in stuff I wrote

Remember all the Deep Dark Hints I've been tossing around about You Are Here? WELL, the mystery is over because it is the TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY this year, and Penguin is rejacketing it and isn't it beautiful? It'll be out in August, and this version has a foreword by me, so please buy it for everyone and yourself. No events, but if you're in Delhi, let me know and I'll sign it for you at our mutual convenience.

 

In my book recommendation column this month on Mughal women and prize winning novels. (Plus I think the best book I've read all year.)

And in my Mythology for the Millennial column, are sages ancient India's Harvey Weinsteins?

Newsletter: Two Year Anniversary Edition

(Missed a week, but do you want to never miss a week again? Sign up here!)

Can you believe it has been TWO years of this email in your inbox every week, give or take? CUR-AZEEE! That is 104 emails, which doesn't sound like a lot now that I look at it, but still, you know me one hundred times more than you normally would. Um. I'm hoping that's a bonus.

You, waiting for a new newsletter from me

Now, if I was an organised sort of person, I'd have tied up with some brands, gotten you some discounts, but alas, I am me, and I have nothing for you, except my Zomato Gold referral code? You get 20% off the total, I get an extra month, SO, win win for everyone, if you want Zomato Gold that is. I was resistant, but then I went with two friends to Arriba last night, and because two of us had Zomato Gold, we got four free drinks (2+2 on alcohol) which is pretty good. I calculated that for 800 rupees (which is how much it cost for a 3 month membership) I would be getting MORE value for money than if I just paid normally. The referral code is MEEN6056 anyway if you want to use it. (I was not paid by Zomato for this product placement, I promise.) (I wish!)

Arriba was really good though, they must have hired a new chef or improved upon the original, because while I remember the food being nice, it was never "oh my god let me put it all into my mouth immediately" which is what happened yesterday. Plus their margaritas! I regret them today as I am snoozy at 7 pm, but so worth it.

But happy anniversary to us, my darlings! Here is a link to last year's first anniversary edition and the very first newsletter I sent out. How we've evolved since then.

This week in self indulgences: I know, I know, cold brew coffee is a bit of a scam, especially when they sell it to you at fancy coffee shops and charge you like 250 bucks for it, and we fall for it every time! Because it just sounds so nice: coldddd brewwww. Decadent. Like something rich and caramel-y to roll around your mouth, and god, now I just want an Alpenliebe. (Huh. Just figured out why they called it an Alpenliebe as well. Love for the mountains! Because those weird caramel sweets were supposed to be from the Alps? Fun fact: the same company also makes Chupa Chups and Mentos. Fun fact two: The Mentos company also owns Babol gum.) What was I saying? Oh yes, cold brew. Now the science to cold brew is easy but time consuming: you put about five tablespoons of coffee in 750 ml of water and let it soak overnight, the next morning you strain into a bottle, pop into the fridge, and ta-dah, cold brew. I love it personally, but the measuring the coffee was just one extra thing I did not want to do, so I went ahead and bought cold brew bags, which are basically tea bags with coffee in them from Devan's. Devan's is fantastic for coffee by the way, and they home deliver.  I could, I could in theory just make my own cold brew WITHOUT a tea bag, but it's so much NICER the way Devan's has done it so yes, it's not cheap, but it's cheaper than a coffee shop.

I also bought myself a bulletin board for my study. I don't know what I was imagining: lists of words and invitations to parties and postcards from friends and other exciting things? But I have no paper things any more! And one can't very well pin a Whatsapp message to one's board, so I am left with: two cards from our wedding, both very beautiful, one postcard from the Reina Sofia (Picasso's The Three Dancers resonated with me more deeply than the Guernica, picture below) and an invitation to the book launch of You Are Here, August 22nd, 2008 back in the day when a book party was a Brand New Thing. (More on You Are Here in a future edition of this newsletter.)

This week in Delhi is essentially the beating heart of me: A friend is moving to a new house and we went out for lunch nearby and then sat in the empty apartment for a bit, the way you do before furniture moves in and it becomes a proper house again. That empty apartment feeling: even though we're all in our thirties and have done this for a decade or more, it still feels like you're getting away with something, you know? Like you have a clubhouse, away from the grown ups. It's a house before it becomes your home, but you're already feeling a little possessive about it, you're thinking, "This is where I'll put my coffee table and that's what colour the curtains will be" but everything is like a new page. I remember sitting in our current house just before it was broken down and renovated, just to check it out one last time, and we sat on the floor and planned what walls would come down, and talked about the neighbourhood, soon to be ours, but then still so alien. As much as I love coming home to a space that has fit so comfortably around us, I also like that new jeans feeling of a new house, particularly the first morning you wake up, the smell of new paint still in your nose, wondering where you are for a second before you realise, "Oh, I'm home."

And then driving home, I told my friend that I probably had memories littered all over Delhi. It's true, I could probably give you an association with most places. Here's where we drank test tube shots that one night and this guy came up to us and said hi, and would you believe he is still in our life almost twenty years later? Here's where we adopted Bruno and Olga, here's where I learned how to drive properly, here's where my car broke down that one time in the middle of traffic and this cop helped me push it to the side of the road and then waited with me till the mechanic came. Oh Delhi, you polluted, sentimental, tree lined BEAST.

This week in AND THEN THERE ARE THE DELHIITES: ARGH WHY ARE PEOPLE LIKE THIS ABOUT THEIR PARKING SPOTS? Is the world going to end, my good chap, if another car is in your spot for five minutes? Okay, I admit, I have drunk the Kool Aid, I too am all beating my chest and Hulk-like about protecting my parking space, but my reasons are more laziness than protectiveness beCAUSE if someone is in my spot and then I park in someone else's space then I will have to climb up and down four flights of stairs AGAIN to repark once whoever it is has gone. But if there's someone in our spot and then there's also a space next to it, I just go into that space. IT IS THAT SIMPLE, DELHI! Okay, all this because this friend came over to play Catan (expansion pack! Great fun and I also won which means it was even more great fun. The greatest) and he parked in the neighbour's spot and so the neighbours, instead of moving one down, as is a normal human reaction, decided to park in front of his car, so when this guy had to leave, he couldn't, so he had to call a cab and come back the next day and it was all very pointless.

New favourite gif

At least we are only passive aggressive in this area. Other parts of Delhi are worse, here are recent examples: 1) a WHOLE METRO LINE was held up because two people got into a fight over parking. 2) One brother refuses to move his Audi, everyone stabbed.

Let's just agree everyone is crazy especially about where they put their cars and move on.



This week in stuff I loved on the internet (only two links because slow news week):

Rag dolls are adorable cats, but SO INBRED. Adopt don't shop etc.

Excerpt: What makes the Ragdoll cat different from other cats is a matter of temperament. Stripped of a desire for hunting, the Ragdoll has a languid, friendly personality. It is large and less agile than other cats, and has a regal feline elegance: its fur is silky, and long; it has piercing, ocean-blue eyes; and its personality could be called dog-like. This is a cat that greets you at the door and follows you from room to room, providing something like unconditional love.

The best con story you'll read this year. I had linked to another story about Anna Delvey before, how she took this journalist for a ride, and here is a deep dive into the woman. Basically, if you distract people with enough hard cash, they won't look too closely at how you're paying for stuff.

Excerpt: Soon, Anna was everywhere too. “She managed to be in all the sort of right places,” recalled one acquaintance who met Anna in 2015 at a party thrown by a start-up mogul in Berlin. “She was wearing really fancy clothing” — Balenciaga, or maybe Alaïa — “and someone mentioned that she flew in on a private jet.” It was unclear where exactly Anna came from — she told people she was from Cologne, but her German wasn’t very good — or what the source of her wealth was. But that wasn’t unusual. “There are so many trust-fund kids running around,” said Saleh. “Everyone is your best friend, and you don’t know a thing about anyone.”

Newsletter: Wake me up when April ends (hey!)

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This week in accomplishments: This newsletter is coming to you one day later, because I finished writing my book--okay, I finished writing the first draft, anyway. I read this author interview somewhere, where the author was like, "There aren't that many rewards in the writing life--it's often lonely and isolating and thankless--so you need to take your joys where you find them, so take a moment to celebrate when you finish writing a manuscript." I have taken a moment. There's this one glorious golden bit, where your book only belongs to you, not to readers, not to editors, not to the whims of the publicity department, just to you, and it's yours, for whatever it is. And that is the moment I took, just to pat myself on the back and think, "Okay! Look at you! You did this!" I haven't done this for previous books, so I never remember the very day that they were done and how I felt (good, I assume) before self-doubt started creeping in so with The One Who Had Two Lives, I'm marking it.


After this weekend (when I am taking a nice break from anything work related), I will read the manuscript again, make some edits and send it off to the publishers, and then will begin the long back-and-forth editing process, until the book is ready to see the world in its final form. I don't much enjoy edits, but they are extremely necessary--both your own, and the outside eye--to make a book into something other people will enjoy reading, which is why we're doing this, right?

This week in leisure: I was having a conversation with K the other day, and I realised I could not call to mind any favourite movies. Isn't that strange? It's been a regret of mine for some time that I'm just not into films, they don't interest me like books, they don't move me like music, they don't hold my attention like TV shows. But then, films are more accessible now than they ever have been, so many choices, so many streaming services, and it's sort of weird to be a creative, thinking person with such a gap in my cultural knowledge. So I decided that I would watch movies when I normally would turn on some show or the other to binge watch, and I made a list after going through all the streaming services I subscribe to (Netflix, Hotstar and Prime) as well as a few more that I acquired elsewhere. It goes (just legal streaming):

Netflix:

Still Alice (86% Rotten Tomatoes. Loved the book.)
Steel Magnolias (69% Rotten Tomatoes, women bonding in a small town salon PLUS Julia Roberts.)
Breakfast At Tiffany's (88% RT, can you believe I haven't watched this yet?)
To Kill A Mockingbird (91% RT, ditto)
Sense And Sensibility (98% RT, watched this last night, see thoughts below)
The Meyerowitz Stories (92% RT, Netflix Original that I am curious about.)

Amazon Prime:

The Edge of Seventeen (95% RT, new young coming-of-age movie)
20th Century Women (88% RT, not quite sure about this, but the premise looks fun.)
Wonder Woman (92% RT, because everyone went on and on about this one so much.)

Hotstar:

Deadpool (83% RT, because I like snarky smart superhero movies, not the ones that are super earnie)
Moana (96% RT, I will watch a Disney movie over another movie any day.)
Hidden Figures (93% um, hello, the first black women to work at NASA? How could I NOT?)

Other movies that are not streaming anywhere but I am still looking out for:

Election (93% RT, on a recommendation by Mansha, watched yesterday, see thoughts below.)
Pan's Labyrinth (95% RT, seems to suit my Mahabharata frame of mind.)
Remains of the Day (97% RT, very much enjoyed the book.)
Blade Runner (90% RT, because I am feeling open minded about cinema in general.)
The Post (87% RT, STREEP AND HANKS IN A NEWSPAPER STORY)
I, Tonya (90%, because of a vague interest I have in Olympic figure skating.)

LOVED Election--so funny, so sharp, so based on a book by an author I love (Tom Perrotta!) I think if I had watched it a decade ago, I would have disliked Reese Witherspoon's character a lot more, and sympathised with Matthew Broderick a lot more as well, but in this age of #MeToo, even the nuances of this comedy stick with you. I'm not saying any more because spoilers, but yes, very good.

Sense And Sensibility is, would you believe, an Austen I haven't read (that and Persuasion) and the movie was so good I immediately went to Gutenberg and got my free Kindle file to read. Excellent. I was enthralled till the end. Critics online call it the best Austen adaptation ever made.

Anyway, that is my list. Please send recommendations if you have any. I do not like violence, too much bloodshed and gun or drug stories, plus movies that spend a lot of time in dark, not well lit rooms. I like twisty personalities, sharp dialogue, and movies that make you pause them and go, "WAIT A MINUTE...."

This week in all play and no work: I am actively looking for freelance work, by the way, if you are or know someone looking. I can turn my hand to most kinds of writing and editing. Erm, I feel like I should have one more line here so: yes! I am good! Hire me!

This week in stuff I wrote: Vice India has just launched and I did a fun piece on the most interesting girls of the Mahabharata and their place in the modern day world.

Excerpt: But even if you take Hidimbi at face value: she’s a cannibal sent to lure the five brothers back to her brother, Hidimba, for his evening meal, but can’t go through with it because she falls so madly in love with one of them. Raised as a rakshasi in a forest, perhaps only knowing her brother (I haven’t read about a whole tribe of them being there), there’s a certain Flowers In The Attic appeal to Hidimbi’s story. Two siblings, outcasts from “civilisation”, existing in their own little world. I imagine Hidimba would have been a loving, kind brother, but I also imagine he would have wanted to preserve their world because it was the only one he knew.

This week in where I'm spending my money: I had heard of Bookchor before but only in an abstract sense, and then I read about them in an article last week, so I checked out the website, and it was pretty cool. Second hand books, good prices, pretty good selection, I ordered a bunch of books, and was so pleased, I will be using them again, even though my shelves are now literally groaning. Not very responsive on social media or to email though, so you'll just have to wait for your order to arrive and not, like, ask any questions.

Also, I went out for lunch with my mum yesterday and we got me an I-Finished-My-Book treat, which was a nice new pair of blue jeans from Levi's. Haven't been to Levi's in SO LONG, turns out they only have two styles for women these days: straight and skinny. I bought straight fit, which are actually a little skinny? But I only have one pair of comfortable jeans and those are jeggings, the others are all too small, too tight, too thick, too something. If you travel, you need jeans. It's just the way of the world. Don't ask me, I didn't make the rules.
 

Friday link list!

Two con stories for you this week:

1) The woman who pretended to be a fancy New York socialite and took all the reporter's money (tsk):

Excerpt: The vacation was Anna’s idea. She again needed to leave the States in order to reset her ESTA visa, she said. Instead of returning home to Germany, she suggested we take a trip somewhere warm. It had been a long time since my last vacation. I happily agreed that we should explore options, thinking we’d find off-season fares to the Dominican Republic or Turks and Caicos. Anna suggested Marrakech; she’d always wanted to go. She picked La Mamounia, a five-star luxury resort ranked among the best in the world, and knowing that her selection was cost-prohibitive for my budget, she nonchalantly offered to cover my flights, the hotel, and expenses. She reserved a $7,000/night private riad, a traditional Moroccan villa with an interior courtyard, three bedrooms, and a pool, and forwarded me the confirmation e-mail. Due to a seemingly minor snafu, I’d put the plane tickets on my American Express card, with Anna promising to reimburse me promptly. Since I did this all the time for work, I didn’t give it a second thought.

2) The man who pretended he wanted to marry a lot of women in India and took their money (tsk TSK):

Excerpt: His strategy with the women was similar: He posed as an IRS officer who worked undercover. This helped him explain away tricky situations like why an office wouldn’t acknowledge his employment, why he needed to keep his identity secret, why he carried an identity card in another name, or why he couldn’t make money transfers from his bank account.

 

Tell me again why you killed all your girl babies? THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS

Excerpt: India, a country that has a deeply held preference for sons and male heirs, has an excess of 37 million males, according to its most recent census. The number of newborn female babies compared with males has continued to plummet, even as the country grows more developed and prosperous. The imbalance creates a surplus of bachelors and exacerbates human trafficking, both for brides and, possibly, prostitution. Officials attribute this to the advent of sex-selective technology in the last 30 years, which is now banned but still in widespread practice.

 

How does my voice assistant know what I'm saying?

Excerpt:  Voice recognition and responding to voice commands are really hard problems computationally. And we’ve made amazing strides forward but there’s still a fair way to go. Accents, for example, are still really hard for these kinds of systems, and complex commands are really hard for these systems.

Don't be this guy.

Excerpt: That’s probably all that needs to be said, but in case you’re reading this out loud at a bar or restaurant and your companions missed it because it’s so loud in there, here it is again: IT ONLY TAKES ONE PERSON TO RAISE THE VOLUME IN A RESTAURANT.

Newsletter: Year end recap edition

December 31st, and tomorrow is both a Monday and the beginning of a new year. It seems a bit silly to set so much store by a calendar date, but I'm sort of swept up in the global excitement. It seems like a new year is like a blank page in a brand new notebook: anything could happen. Anything could also happen on the first of September for example, but you know what I mean. It's also the day when you look back on the year that passed and do a report card for yourself. Ends of years are useful for taking stock, especially on a cold morning like this one, when the sun is weakly pushing through the fog, and your hot water bottle is warm against your belly.

I had a pretty good year. Some self-doubt crept in re: my writing, but I hope to conquer the little critical voices in my head and move on in 2018. After all, as a writer of fiction, you should exist only to please yourself and not the sales figures or literary festivals or what have you. Maybe there will always be self doubt, because there's always someone you compare yourself to, and we all, ultimately, want to be JK Rowling or Neil Gaiman, or failing that, Margaret Atwood. I'm grateful to my readers though, and everyone who has sent me a message or an email saying that they liked my books and what I do, it's very heartening, especially when you think you're going it alone. A few things will be recalibrated for me in 2018, but they are all baby, nascent ideas, and I'll tell you all about them when they are actually in practice. I will be finishing the next book of my Girls Of The Mahabharata series early next year and I have an essay out in a Penguin anthology which will be released in February, so I'm still writing, and writing makes me happy. (It's only post publishing that all the doubts start to creep in.)

Anyway, that's the bitterness of the pill, here's the sweet!

This year in life events: We got married! We were never very marriage-y people, but we came to the decision with the same certainity we've approached most things in our relationship: it's the right thing for us to do at this point. The boring reason: we wanted it to be easier to live and work in each other's countries. The romantic reason: love and all those other things. Our wedding was almost exactly how I wanted it to be (the only thing I would change was not being so tired after three days of partying--despite the fact that we had a "low key" wedding, we wound up having three parties anyway. Small intimate parties, but parties nonetheless.) Life has... not changed a bit. Most often, we forget we're married, except when we're using wedding presents around the house.


This year in bucket lists: I loved my month in Europe, even though now, five months later, it's taken on the dreamy quality in my memory of someone else's life. We went from Germany to Spain, from Spain to France, from France to Luxembourg, from Luxembourg to the Netherlands (via Belgium.) I got to see Europe by road, by train and by plane. I got to have expensive meals (at the beginning of my trip) and two euro steak and wine (at the end) and I loved all of it, even being broke, a little bit. Through my entire trip, I had this vague feeling of standing outside my body watching myself: pinch me, this is real, this is happening.

This year in writing: Many MANY freelance assignments. A few of my favourites: fancy book launches in Mint, how The Handmaid's Tale is relevant in modern India for Scroll, re-examining Marilla Cuthbert for Indian Express, on children's literature for Mint again, on reading the childhood memoirs of your favourite authors for Open, on why myth-lit is so popular for Deccan Chronicle. This plus several columns made my year one of heavy reading.

I also had a new book (The One Who Swam With The Fishes) out last summer, and read a lot more about the Mahabharata than I ever expected I would, and now I can rattle off back stories and sub-plots and literary analyses like a pro.

This year in little luxuries: My favourite money spend this year was hiring someone to do our garden for us. It was a bit expensive setting up, all the pots and soil and what not, but Ram Lal is a genius and I love that we barely ever buy veg anymore, since we have a steady crop of things to eat around the year. It has really changed the way I live my life, just the simple fact that we're growing FOOD. I now know the colours of the aubergine flower (purple, like the fruit), how pretty the lauki flower is in the hot sunshine, and how everything tastes so much better when you can just reach out and pluck it.

This year in habits: Getting K a compost bin for his birthday was changing the way we process trash in this house. We still put out a lot of paper and plastic (I blame Amazon and their easy next-day deliveries), but no wet waste at all, it all goes into our bin. He liked it so much, he bought a second one, and while I still find it somewhat icky, it doesn't smell, and the gardener uses it in our plants so it's all very circle of life.

This year in life lessons: A project that seemed super definite and like it was going to be a Thing, did not, finally wind up happening the way I expected it to, so I have learned to, um, curb my enthusiasm, so to speak. This is the year my optimism started to fade, just a little bit, and become tempered with realism. I think I'll always be a rose tinted glasses kind of person, but every now and then you have to take your glasses off and really look at the world.

And that's my report card! Let me know how the year worked out for you in the comments at the bottom of this. Happy New Year, and I'll see you all on the other side.

Newsletter: Making a spectacle of myself

(Almost a month old, but I realised I hadn't cross-posted newsletters here in a while! Sign up here for a more updated me in your inbox every weekend.)

This week in new accessories: The biggest news I have for you this week is that I got glasses. No, not drinking glasses (although we did realise that we didn't have any tall glasses left, so I ordered a set online--with cut glass bottoms, which one of us calls "Addams Family" and the other thinks are really fancy. I'll let you guess which is which.) No, I mean spectacles, which make me think of Benjamin Franklin, inventor of--among other things--the bifocals. (Have you seen that great animated movie about Benjamin and the mouse that lives in his house? It's called Ben and Me, and is a 1953 Disney short film. Watch here.)

 Anyway, back to the glasses. K and I did "mall day" as our anniversary celebration, which is very exciting for two people who never leave the house, and we decided to make a quick stop at the mall optician for an eye test. Long story short: I need glasses, but not like in a I'll-be-super-blind-if-I-take-them-off way, but just to make my vision sharper. Also, they add great value to my "look." Which is basically Zooey Deschanel meets Monica when she comes back from the Bahamas.

This week in food and drink: At aforementioned mall day, we had lunch at Yauatcha, which I've been meaning to try. They had a great set lunch deal, Rs 1074 ++ including a glass of sparkling and with three sets of dim sums each, two mains and two noodles/rice, we were stuffed. Recommend!

Also in Asian food, went to the Asian Hawker's Market, one of Delhi's new "food festivals" which is basically a bunch of restaurants getting together and selling food at the same restaurant prices in an open area. Kinda pointless, if you ask me. I'd like, for example, one of these Grub Palate what have yous to also have individual portions, so you can graze, maybe an assortment box with best of, maybe more food trucks and home caterers so it's not always the same five people, you know? However, I did eat a lot of sushi wandering about Select City Walk's outdoor courtyard yesterday, which was nice. Everything nice was sold out or closed by the time we got there (.9.30 pm) so if you're planning to go tomorrow, go a little early. But it's also the mall on Sunday, so order in from Noshi instead, one of the new places we tried, Yum Yum Tree's sushi delivery service which also has ramen etc on the menu. 

Then, against my better judgement, also went to HKV on Friday night, but I think either a) Friday is not a popular night or b) HKV is done, because the traffic was not terrible and the crowds were not so crowdy. In fact, shouters at various bars kept urging me to come in ("free drinks for ladies!") so next time I plan to take them ALL up on it, and just get drunk for free, barhopping in HKV. I went to Roost for a live band, which was nice, but whose name I never learned, so there's that.

Earlier in the week, made the trek to Gurgaon, where the Uber driver did not trust his own navigation system and RIGHTLY SO because bloody Google maps sent us on some u-turn mission. FINALLY, after ducking into a side lane in Vasant Kunj to rejoin the highway, we wound up on the WORST road I have ever been on, and right in the middle of the city too. So strange. Anyway, was in Gurgaon to watch Radhika Vaz (more on her below!) at Manhattan Exchange, one of those bars where you watch the prices of the drinks rise and fall and then order accordingly, which seems gimmick-y but which I also had great fun with. However, Gurgaon.

This week in live events: Radhika Vaz's new show Older, Angrier, Hairier, which I very much enjoyed in a "it's funny because it's true" way and also because she talked a lot about pooping and vaginas. The show could have done with a few edits though, some "bits" went on a it, but all in all, would recommend! It was more performance art/spoken word and less stand up, but still worth a watch. I also liked her warm-upper, a young woman named Sonal? Sonali? Jeez, I am terrible with names, but she was very good too.

This week in stuff I wrote: My fortnightly feminism column on dating manuals from the 1990s is quite true and funny too, I think.

This week in great stuff I bought: One is endlessly grateful to Ameya (hi!) for introducing me to the Body Shop line of hair care for curly hair. I've been using the shampoo and conditioner for a while, but recently splurged also on the Brazil Nut curl define serum, which is OMG YOU GUYS SO GREAT. Everyone's all, "I love your hair!" But also it is what passes for fall in Delhi, which is basically the season in which I look my best (very small window, which is why I socialise so much this time of the year.)

Oh also, I bought this little wheely plastic box to take my laundry to and from the washing machine, which may not seem very exciting, but listen, if you had three cats hell bent on OUT? OUT! WHEE! each time you open the front door, you too would appreciate having a wheely crate so at least you're not juggling an armful of clothes and cats besides. (Oh, but you might not have your washing machine outside your front door, I forget that this is not normal.  We had nowhere else to put it, so it lives in a nice cupboard on the landing.)

Reading list: Hot chaiwalla ** Why the internet's love for the hot chai walla is unethical and classist. ** Letters to Michelle Obama. ** Why you should have never come to Goa in the first place, guys. ** Why Marmee from Little Women is evil and other thoughts on the text. ** Prayaag on how he moved to Mumbai for his then-girlfriend and now wife and what it taught him about his own ideas of masculinity. ** Jokes for feminists. ** Wiki time suck: people who disappeared mysteriously. **


Have a great week!
xx
m

Newsletter: eM's Quick Guide To The Goa Life (part two)

(Part one here.)

(Sent out as my newsletter last month, subscribe here.)

Week two of my Month In Goa life, and I think, I really do think, I can see myself living here. Probably not full time, but for a few months of the year, definitely. And to that end, we've been looking at places we can rent at affordable prices so as to always have a house we can run away to. It's a different sort of tourism--house hunting--and it's been fun looking at all these homes and trying to picture them as Home. Well, Another Home, anyway. I've been imagining something wildly different from our Delhi house, which is, of course, the place of my heart (if only I could collapse it and carry it around with me like a snail), so that each home is distinct from the other. I've been itching for some kind of CHANGE in my life this last year, something new and different, and moving towards becoming the global citizens we want to be (few months in Delhi, few months in Goa, few months abroad, maybe?) feels like the coming together of something that's been simmering at the back of my head for a while. However, all this is purely hypothetical at the moment, so more updates as and when I have them. (We're probably going to share with a friend who lives in Goa full time, so as to halve the rent and also have someone always living in the house, which is important because even a few weeks of neglect makes the old Portuguese houses return to the wild.) (UPDATE: Reader, we rented it.) 

This week in SKILLZ: Have been trying to master the art of riding a scooter. That's how everyone here gets around from old grannies to young college girls, and so I was all, "How hard can it be, really?" It's not, but it's still a little scary. I realise that the fear bit in my brain (the amygdala, an "almond shaped structure in the limbic system") works a little harder than most people's, which is why I'm usually risk averse. However, K is a good teacher, and often sits right behind me so he can take over control if I begin to lose it, and maybe soon, I'll be able to ride that sucker by myself.

This week in food and drink: Mainly drink. A kind Delhi friend (hi Niyati!) introduced me to Black Jewel gin at hers, a while ago, as an Indian gin you could only get in Goa, but which was pretty good. (Not Bombay Sapphire or Tanqueray good, but one step up from Gordon's. Beefeater, perhaps?) It's distilled in Italy, but sold here at a ridiculously low price for good gin (Rs 520!) and after re-drinking it at my friends, who had a little bit left in a bottle, we went in quest for it at several different liquor stores until we finally found it. That's my evening unwind now, local gin with local tonic and another friend taught me to slice a green chilli down the middle to add a little extra sparkle to it. I've ensured everyone I know here has tried it, and so there'll probably be a huge demand for Black Jewel pretty soon. (Delhi friends, I'm bringing back a few bottles in my suitcase for you all to try!)

Also, OMG OMG, it's avocado season! And it's best to eat it now, says the cook, because during season, which is fast descending on us, the prices are ridiculously high for all the foreigners who demand avocado on everything. We always have fresh guac in the fridge. Guacamole and gin and tonic. Mmmmm.

This week in clothing experiments: So I thought I'd be very practical in Goa and live off only seven dresses, rotating them every week. HOWEVER, that was a TERRIBLE idea, and I am now thoroughly bored of all my clothes and never want to see them again. I'm all like, "WHY DID I PICK THESE ONES?" and thinking longingly of my lovely dresses hanging in my cupboard at home and half of the ones I brought don't even FIT properly and basically I'm going to have to buy some tourist tat or die of Closet Boredom. Is that a thing? It should be. I have never felt so unfashionable.

This week in stuff I wrote: On Aunty Feminist, talking about why progressive parents can also be protective * In my relationship column I talk about ghosts of social media and the "so-and-so is now typing" ellipse **

Saturday link list: Home births are on the rise among India's middle class. ** Dalit food and the history of it ** Roald Dahl's granddaughter on "Mold" her beloved grandpa. **

WHY IS IT SO HARDDDDDDD (that's what she said)

Reader, I'm moving.

No, no, not from this space. I'm moving house next week, and as usual, I'm in a torpedo of stress from decision making (or things moving too slow) to really enjoy it for what it is—the end of one chapter and the start of a new one.

Arguing with the Good Thing about what to keep

While being in a new house is great, what is not so great is the actual getting stuff from one apartment to another. I hate moving. I don't know how many times you've done it, but I've lived away from my parents since I was 21. Fourteen years and eight homes later, I've been a rolling stone all right, but one that has gathered plenty of moss. I used to be happy with just a mattress on the floor—the mattress became a single bed, which became a queen sized bed, and finally now, a four poster which reminds me of being on a ship, so wide and vast and heavy is it. And it has to go down three flights of stairs and up another four.

Beds aren't the only thing. Our bookshelves were deconstructed to make wall fittings, but our books lie in piles on the floor, so many of them that we could make them into independent furniture units of their own. Everywhere I look, there's a book! I don't even remember buying them all, and each time I wade through them, I find another five I haven't read and don't have any recollection of owning. It's like magic.

Navigating piles like a boss

When the Good Thing and I married our households, we didn't get as much extra stuff as you would think—I am a hoarder and he is just the opposite, but what we did get was kitchen things. Now we have two of everything in the kitchen—sometimes five, and most of them in not great shape. Only one of our four non-stick frying pans is actually non-stick, only one of the pressure cookers is big enough to cook for two.

And now to my biggest dilemma: getting rid of stuff. There are several ways to do it in this internet age, and I've tried most of them. Number one is all the classified websites, your OLX and Quikr and whatnot. These are useless, and I've had no luck the two times I've tried them both. No one reads the ads carefully, so you're subject to a lot of calls and messages asking questions to things that are listed right there, and people bargaining with ridiculous numbers, asking you to slash your asking price by about 90 per cent. 

This is the face of my internal monologue

The second way is to post the items for sale on your social media: I have the best luck with Facebook. I cross-posted all my things on both my personal page as well as groups known to people who are looking to buy second hand things. There are a lot of time-wasters on these as well, so really your best bet is do the transaction with people you know. The third, and most traditional option, is to sell to your local second-hand furniture guy. Delhi has a thriving market for secondhand goods, where you can both buy and sell used furniture. The only problem with this, as I can see, is that you won't get the price you want, and you'll have to settle for selling it at peanuts. Which, by this point, you're inclined to do anyway, because you're so desperate to get rid of your things.

I don't know why classified websites like Craigslist or Gumtree don't work so well in India. In fact, I know that most people still go down to the second hand furniture market to buy whatever they need, instead of online. Maybe it's a paucity of people who share your taste? Maybe because you feel more confident bargaining with the men at Amar Colony, more than you would with an expat leaving the city and selling all their things. Or maybe it's just because you think second hand means there's something wrong with it, or why would you be selling your things just to move from one house to another?

I even found a website that sells used furniture online and allows you to post pictures of your things so they can come by and give you a quote for it. Sadly, they never replied to me, so I was forced to slash prices on my Facebook, and wait for someone to gather their own moss while I roll on.


(A version of this appeared as my column on mydigitalfc.com)

2016, here I come!

I thought about making this column a list of resolutions for 2016—since this is my last one of the year, but then I thought, “Nah. Let's make it about me instead.” (This is where I'd insert a smiley-face emoticon if that was regular practice in columns.) But no, the point is to put out there some of the things I hope to do in 2016 (let's face it though: most resolutions are broken as early as January) and maybe you'll be inspired to do your own list too. I find that after 34 years of New Years, you run somewhat short on ideas on new things to do, so here are some I'm throwing in there.

1) Read more non-fiction: I read a lot, so reading is never on a list of Things To Do, but I invariably steer towards fictions—usually novels, and usually about relationships. Not just romantic ones either, I'm interested in the human condition, but non-fiction has never been something I do for leisure. Which is a shame because there are so many good books out there and so many that I would probably love. 2016 is the year I'm going to wade through my vast list: one non-fiction to every two novels and hopefully by the end of the year I'll have a lot more knowledge under my belt. I stopped my education after my bachelor's degree, and I've realised that most of what I've learned—while my friends went on to MAs or MBAs—has been “in real life” so to speak. When you stop learning things, you stagnate, and I don't want that to happen to me.

2) Edit down on “stuff”: Every year I go through my cupboards in the hope of finding some order in them, but usually in a week or so they go back to being a mess. No longer. I will discard things that either no longer fit or are unflattering no matter how much I like them or how much they cost. (Pass them on to a grateful friend, perhaps?) I will stop keeping every item that comes my way. In this world of instant shopping it's very easy to wind up with a bunch of stuff you don't really need, and I'm going to be ruthless in throwing things away—or recycling them—for a clutter-free happy life. This is the year I'll be moving to a new home, so it would be nice to start afresh.

3) Make an effort: I'm not a bad friend, in fact usually I'm a pretty good one, but I am beset by laziness. So for someone's birthday, wedding or special occasion I always think I'll get them a present eventually and never get around to it. I mean to meet a friend only in town for a week and don't push our schedules together. Things like that I mean to change. Life is short and having friends is wonderful. I'm going to work harder on my relationships, make meaningful gestures and I'm sure my life will be enriched for it.

4) Work harder at craft: After a while, writing, like everything else, becomes something you do automatically. Less so for the fiction I write, but when fingers hit keyboard, sometimes words come out of you without you thinking too much about it. I'm going to contemplate my sentences this year, spend less time when I'm thinking going back and forth to Facebook or Twitter, where I scroll down the pages like they're worry beads, and more time staring out of the window. I placed my desk next to a window for a purpose, and that was to have something to look at while I was thinking. This may not apply to you in every way, but think about the job you're doing and whether you're doing it the best way you can, and whether this is what you want to do for the rest of your life. If so, how can you make it so you're challenging yourself every day? That's the trick to an exciting life.

Happy New Year, all! May the end of the year be sparkly and celebrated exactly the way you'd like and when we talk again, it'll be in the new beginnings the future holds.  

(A version of this appeared as my column on mydigitalfc.com)

Appearances! Bombay!

I realize having a book marketed to you is tedious, but you know how to make it stop right? Just buy it so much I won't have to keep talking about it. I'll just be all, "Oh yeah, I have two books out, whatevs." 

Heh. 

Soooo, you can totally come and watch me/get a signed copy (which may or may not increase in value over the next 100 years so think of it as an INVESTMENT. For your KIDS.)

Tomorrow I'm at the TOI Lit Fest at Mehboob Studios. In conversation with Anuja Chauhan and Nicola Morgan about teens and dissent within families--whether it's okay and whether teens are being listened to. This is all because I wrote a book about a young woman named Noor Khan Rai (half-Hindu, half-Muslim, all her own self, who is dissenting in her own way because her mum has just upped and left and there's mean girls and a VERY cute boy and a nice dreamy kissing scene PLUS MOAR.) (Here's a link to buy Split) (But if you're coming tomorrow morning buy it there because then I can sign it and say hi.)

11.15 am. Mehboob Studios Bandra. 

THEN I'm doing a reading and signing of Before, And Then After at a very lovely Bandra bookstore called Title Wave (which is the best name for a bookstore!) It'll be short and sweet and a nice way for you to segue into your weekend debauchery. 

5.30 pm, Title Wave Bookstore, Bandra (on Google maps!)

Before And Then After seems to be on a Kindle special deal today for like FIFTY FIVE RUPEES which is NOTHING, so buy it online here or come and meet me and get a hard copy and let me sign it. 

Here's the lovely Naina Redhu doing a reading from the book (which she loved) on her blog. 

Oh, and PS: Noor from Split is on Snapchat now. I'm trying a thing so I'm making her create her own Snapchat story. Are you on Snapchat? Add noorissplit. No spam/marketing, just storytelling. 

Before And Then After

Attention! 

My new book is OUT! 

It's full of stories.  I'd say more but my laptop is still at the shop so I'm writing this on my phone.  Okay, okay, I guess II can say a little more. 

The first story is all about young writing and India's cray literary scene. And sex. 

The second story is about a famous superstar who dies & how his kids deal with the aftermath because he was a recluse. 

My favourite story?  Gosh. So hard to say! For content,  maybe the one about the prostitute's cat because CATS! OR ooh, the last one about a mermaid who was adopted by humans. Or the one about a girl whose dead best friend rings her doorbell one day. 

Actually I kinda love them all. 

Here's where you can buy a copy!

It says pre order but I think the book is already in stores & definitely already on the Kindle so maybe Amazon just needs to update. 

 I hope you love it. 

Life's a beach

We're in Goa, the Good Thing and I, and as always wondering why we don't just move here. The same arguments hold: neither of us has an office, Goa is beautiful and cheap, and we have good friends who have already forged the way.
So why not, we ask ourselves. Can we afford to hang on to our Delhi flat for emergencies? Will our cats adjust to travel and the move? Why not why not why not.
It's in the air. Just putting it out there as our goal for the year. Four to six months in Goa starting October? Why not?
Have any of you given up big city life for a chance at the slow? Have you moved with pets? Tell me all about it. Give me some motivation!

WEEK OF BOOK GIVEAWAYS!

So, my Facebook page is about to hit FORTY THOUSAND LIKES. (I know, right? I have no idea how that happened, seeing as it basically lay fallow for several years till I linked it to my Instagram and noticed a crazy amount of activity.)

To celebrate, I'm doing a week of book giveaways starting as soon as we hit that elusive Four Oh. I've asked my writer friends to participate, and you should totally come and play. I have about three hundred likes to go, which is nothing. NOTHING.

Here's the page! Enjoy! Good luck!

Thoughts I had while reading the news last week which may or may not be FASCINATING

This week has been all literary festivals and the Obamas. In a way, I suppose, the two are somewhat similar: both have huge run-ups to them, both are anticipated hotly by the media in the middle of the January slump of slow news and also, both are fashion extravaganzas. I had Thoughts (as opposed to one long thought, these were mini-thoughts) and so I put them all in my weekly column at Financial Chronicle.

Looking v. smug

* First, can we talk about that jacket? That Jacket of Massive Ego? You’ve got to admit it takes a certain kind of person to trot about wearing pinstripes that are essentially his name over and over again. I like to imagine Modi standing in front of the mirror in his house giving himself a pep talk, “Who are you?” he asks, shaving cream on his face, “You’re Narendra Damodardas Modi! And don’t you forget it!” All through the day, he sneaks little looks at his name on his sleeve and marvels that he is here, sitting and watching the parade he’s seen on television so many times, with the President of the United States sitting right next to him. “Who are you?” he thinks, saluting the armed forces, “You’re Narendra Damodardas Modi!”

*not a real murder

* The Jaipur Literature Festival happened, as always, and as always, all of Delhi left behind a cultural wasteland as they left. I didn’t attend this year, but I did have the hashtag #JLF as one separate column on my Twitter app (Tweetdeck for Mac!) so I could see what was going on in real time,  so to speak. Which was pretty much the same as always. Unless you’re at a literature festival, it’s never that exciting to read about it. The same goes for music festivals. The same goes for people who post exclamation mark heavy status updates about their exotic vacations and what they’ve seen and done while you’re still in your pajamas, surfing the internet at home. Oh yes, Shashi Tharoor attended and was on a panel with some very civilized discussion I believe, while the media was baying for his blood back in Delhi. Which reminds me how the TOI Lit Fest in Mumbai invited Tarun Tejpal for a discussion on power in relationships and didn’t see the irony of it at all, until Twitter pointed it out to them. JLF was slightly more subtle and I don’t think it was a crime fiction panel.

* The Economist was super condescending about Indians AS USUAL  and reading, saying in a

Aziz is awes.

story (bylined only as J.A.): “Most of the festival-revellers, members of the emerging Indian middle-class and drawn from Gurgaon, Delhi and Jaipur itself, had come for the age-old love of being where the action is in a crowded country. They had come for the Hindi dance music that blared from the tea stalls, the prospect of seeing a Bollywood star and, for those who could squeeze into the VIP areas, lots of free booze. The JLF is more a mela—an Asian fair—than a meeting of literary minds.” Well.

* Back to the Obamas and Modi, or Mobama or Obadi or whatever else they’ve been called in the press. They exchanged a friendly hug, true, but Obama also did offer up some words of advice about not splintering India on religious lines, which I hope NaMo will take to heart, given how much he loves being the PM. An article inFirstPost, titled “Reading Obama’s Lips: He’s Telling PM Modi to Shut Down Hindutva Forces” went into this at some length. “The fact that the US President chose to bring up the issue of religious discord in his big signing off speech of what is being hailed as a wildly successful PR exercise for the BJP is enough proof of the fact that the global concerns about the Modi government's commitment to a truly secular democracy have not abated completely yet.” It is truly frightening how so many BJP supporters seem to ignore this one key issue of how they are unapologetically communal. Everyone loves development—even me!—but at what price? Also alarming is how their counter argument is always, “But what about the Congress and 1984?” The Congress has a lot of blood on its hands, yes, but they have at least managed to not be so militantly Hindu that even the very slightly liberal among us quake in our shoes at the fate of our country.