Thursday Miscellany

(This was sent as a newsletter last year or thereabouts. Like, most of this stuff is older writing now anyway, except for the Today in Photo. I suppose my newsletter has turned into my blog? But I still archive things here because there are still people who prefer it. So there is that.)



 
I have had a slow week. Last weekend, I had two house parties in a row, this is rare, because who hosts parties anymore? There was a time in Delhi where your weekends would be spent flitting from one house party to another--and I don't just mean sitting around with three people in a living room having civilised conversations. No, these were party-parties, sometimes you'd see the same five people, but in different combinations, sometimes the only person you knew was the person taking you there, not even the host, but it didn't matter, because you carried that bottle of Old Monk tucked under your arm as an offering, just as someone carried it to your house previously. Anyway, it is fun going to parties, especially unexpected ones, and making conversation with unexpected people, but you are required to be on in a way that is taxing, if you're not used to having conversations with other people apart from your partner, your employees (maid and gardener), and now your German teacher. (And with him, your conversation is about German, if not in German just yet, but it's a process.) (I have had only three German classes, scheduling has been hard recently, but the other night I dreamt of two German words--ich nicht--which means "I not" which is not a sentence, but in my dream it kept echoing in my head: ich nicht, ich nicht, ich nicht.) (Probably because they sound sort of the same.)
This week in movies: I did leave the house once though! Went to watch the premiere of Manto in the cinema with my friend Naila. The movie was great--a biopic of an Indian writer, done well and sensitively, and I'd recommend you watch it, but it's much clearer viewing if you've actually read some of Manto's short stories, because they're woven into the narrative. It could be confusing if you've never even heard of the man, but once you have, there's a thrill at watching him loaf around Bombay with Ismat Chugtai, that pre-Partition writer life, you know? I've seen biopics of writers across the world in a specific time period, and this was my first time watching something set in India. It was really very cool.
My only quibble is that it seemed somehow disjointed, like several different scenes as opposed to one long story, and also that he spends a lot of the second half feeling sorry for himself and gazing moodily into a whiskey glass, which okay, I suppose he might have done in real life also, but I would have liked to see more of the effects of drinking rather than the drinking itself. Watching someone get high in the movies or on television is very boring unless it's done really, really well.
Also, my Feminist Voice kept popping up in my head, no matter how many times I said, "Shhh! Just watch the movie!" "If Manto was a woman," said my FV, "Then he'd HAVE to get it together after Partition and keep his family together. He's only being so self-indulgent because he's a man." My FV keeps it real, she is the antidote to my usual Pollyanna-rose-tinted-glasses situation.
This week in make in India, I think?: A couple of weeks ago, I bought myself a large bar of Amul dark chocolate, which was surprisingly so good, that I bought another bar, and now I can't stop eating it. Amul, a gift for someone you love, Amul, the butter guys, were never very good at the chocolate, sort of hard and chalky compared to Cadbury's (which I actually like the Indian version of more than the British one). BUT! This dark chocolate is kind of perfect. And so CHEAP, guys. It's a 100 bucks a bar or something, and this is a big bar I'm talking about, not one of those piddly little ones. 
And while we're on the subject of Amul, please also try their gouda and emmental line of cheese cubes, which are heavily processed, but still tasty. They're not any kind of gouda you will be familiar with, but they still make a nice snack for between meals.
This week in books:  Got sent the new Robert Galbraith Lethal White, and all I will say about it is that it is a) massive, and if you read in bed, you'll have to keep tossing and turning to get your wrists aligned properly and b) SO GOOD that you should probably clear your schedule for as long as it takes for you to finish it. (This Digested Read column about the first book Cuckoo's Calling is snarky and hilarious though.)
I just finished Lark Rise To Candleford, which is this semi-autobiographical life of a young girl in England during the 19th century. I have this other set of books which I love which begin with A London Child of the Seventies (that's 1870s, by the way) and this feels like a country counterpart. Lark Rise is also famous as a BBC show, which I just watched the first episode of, and it is VERY BBC period drama, so obviously I love it already.
Meanwhile, Galbraith put a spanner in my plans to finish reading Sapiens for my book club yesterday, but I mostly enjoyed that too. It's quite dense, but so many insights into what makes us human beings--how we work, how we think, how we operate. Plus written lightly, so it's very readable. Give it a whirl, except don't try to speed-read in three days like I did because then the only whirl will be inside your own head.
And last night, I began reading Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London at midnight, and by the time I finally was like, "Enough! Go to bed!" it was 2 am, so yeah.

Newsletter: Staycation Edition

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I made this joke on my Instagram story and v pleased with it

For the last two months, I was burning the candle at both ends. As an idiom, it makes so much sense to me right now: imagining my life as wax drippy, long wicks, placed horizontally, and there I was lighting the end that said "work" and when that bit burnt down, lighting the other side which said "social" and letting all my rest, my everything else, be reduced to just wax drippings on the floor.

But this past week, I have felt like doing nothing except sit indoors, and think and read, and watch movies, my great movie watching plan is going very well, and I have done that as well. So, I don't have that much to report, except that I'm enjoying my staycation. I sleep about ten hours every night, and wake up refreshed. It's nice, no I'm not bored, or getting cabin fever just yet. I think I needed this.

My week watching movies: K just discovered an app for my desktop (rhymes with Schmopcorn Mime). I had tried this same app ages ago on my best beloved long lamented Macbook (RIP) (stupid cats), but it didn't work on it, so I gave it up, but turns out, it's rather excellent on Windows. K also--and I must give him all credit here, because I moaned and cried about all the door handles he was removing, more on that in a moment--fixed up the perfect movie watching AREA in his study, which is the only room in the house which you can successfully darken even in the middle of the afternoon, and as a result, it is the best television room I have ever had in my entire life.

So basically, we have a projector--it's a pretty cheap one, but it works--and he set it up so that it projects against the white wall to wall cupboards he has in that room. In order to do that, he had to move the handles so that they wouldn't be in the way, so now the handles are a little lower, but it means that I can lie on the sofa, fully stretched out, as is my preferred position, and watch movies while he works at his desk (and occasionally chimes in with some commentary.) Thanks to the app I just mentioned, things have gotten really easy to watch and bookmark, so I'm regularly watching two movies a day. The funny thing about watching films as opposed to TV, you never feel that brain numbing OMG HOW MUCH HAVE I WATCHED feeling at the end of it. Instead, you feel slightly... triumphant even. Dare I say watching a good movie is like reading a good book? How my attitude has changed from last week when I was all like, "Ugh movies will never be as good as reading."

This is what I watched this week (a mix of what's available and what's on You Know Where). I realised that I sort of followed a theme, even if I wasn't aware of it at the moment.

The Little Mermaid day:

Wonder Woman: nice but FULL of anachronisms, at one point, the Scottish guy goes, "guys." Now, "guys" as a way of saying "everyone" wasn't a popular manner of speech till much later, and would not have been in England during WWI at any rate. I feel like if you're going to spend so much money on a movie with sets and costumes and what not, why not get an accurate historian to go through dialogue while you're at it?

Moana: Which was faaaaaar better than Frozen, I don't know why people like that movie so much. Still Disney, so a little animal sidekick, and lots of songs, but I loved Maui, the demigod who helps Moana because he was such a very realistic douchebag. Nice to see.

The why am I different day:

Wonder: the book, oh my god, the book. I loved it so much. I was fully prepared to be manipulated into tearjerker-y heartwarmingness of the film, and STILL my tears were jerked, my heart was warmed. Very sweet movie, I thought, and THENNN *ominous music* I read this article about how whitewashed the disability was. Sigh.

Get Out: was actually dark dark DARK comedy, and no spoilers, promise, but the end was quite something. I think I love oh look how pretty suburbia is but WAIT there is a SECRET lurking behind the gorgeous woods.

The let's save the day day:

Paddington 2: OKAY, but, a) Michael Bond is the same author who wrote Olga da Polga, who I named our CAT after, so you see, I love him and b) Paddington is one of my favourite bears--Winnie is a bit twee, Rupert is too good to be true, I did a whole article on bears and Michael Bond when he died, here's a link.  Paddington 2 is delightful, but not as delightful as the books. There, that's that.

The Incredibles: a rewatch, but SUCH an underrated Pixar classic. Part two is coming out soon, so I had a sudden URGE to watch the original.

The teen movie day:
The Edge of Seventeen was a REVELATION. Really good in that teen movie way I haven't seen happen since the early noughties. Very real angst as well, and though you feel like shaking some sense into the main character, you're also nodding along like yup, yup, I would have reacted in exactly the same way at that age, because sometimes you forget you weren't born extremely evolved and enlightened.

This week in stuff I wrote: My book recommendation column got lots of views last weekend mainly because of the first book, almost fan fiction about a certain dimple faced popular writer in India and the publishing industry.

Excerpt: Besides people-spotting behind the pseudonyms, there’s also fun to be had by finding real-life names (Hi, Nilanjana Roy and Janice Pariat!) as well as a whole description of partying at the Udaipur Literature Festival.

And this week in stuff other people wrote which I liked:

A ghostwriter might be talking to you on Tinder

Excerpt: “There’s no question about it,” reads one chapter, “women want to date the alpha male. They are naturally drawn to the ‘leader of the pack.’” Valdez elaborates later in the manual: “The alpha male is the selector, he chooses… he is not chosen.” But how do you present yourself as an Alpha? “Never compliment her without a qualification,” he writes. “Let her know what you want in a woman and make her explain why she fits those criteria.”

Since I'm watching some superhero movies, this one about the Avengers in general and the idea of an American hero in particular was interesting.

Excerpt: Yet even as the films restore a sense of heroism to a war that has become bureaucratic, they also betray profound anxiety about that war. This emerges through a peculiar feature of the Marvel movies. The heroes confront threats of all sorts, but time and again, they fight their doppelgängers. Iron Man takes on other scientists in metal suits. Ant-Man’s enemy is Yellowjacket, who is, like him, a shrinking technological insectoid. Captain America battles serum-enhanced supersoldiers (“What kind of monster would let a German scientist experiment on him to protect his country?” he asks, winking). Often, the heroes simply face their relatives, as when Black Panther fights his cousin, Thor fights his siblings, or Peter Quill, the leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy, fights his father (while another Guardian, Gamora, fights her sister). The Hulk’s antagonist is the Abomination, a similarly sized creature made with the Hulk’s own blood. And SHIELD, the shadowy governmental organization that runs the Avengers, must face HYDRA, another shadowy governmental organization that has infiltrated it.

Hey did you know Aatish Taseer once dated a royal? Did you? Did you?

Excerpt: My own enduring memory of the Windsors was of constant cutbacks and reduced circumstances. To fly with royalty was to fly EasyJet. On the flight back from Sardinia, a velvet rope cordoned off the first row alone, behind which Their Royal Highnesses—Prince and Princess Michael—sat with Ella and me. A moment of silence ensued, then there was a dull roar on the Jetway, and a planeload of lobster-red British tourists poured onto the flight, muttering, “Wot’s this, wot’s this?,” as they rushed past the grandson of George V, Emperor of India.

Cape Town is fucked. But there's the very merest glimmer of hope because society.

 

Excerpt: Wealthy South Africans, traditionally, have had fastidious cleanliness standards, a way of distinguishing themselves and of tapping the vast labor reserve of cheap maids. Now, being able to show a visitor day-old urine ripening in your toilet bowl, proving you do not flush, is a proud moment. Body odor is less taboo. Many women have radically adjusted their haircare routines: embracing natural curls to diminish the need to wash and style, shampooing only once a week or, as one woman told me in a discussion on a community-run drought Facebook page, “experimenting with spraying my hair lightly” with a plant mister. Others chopped hip-length hair off into bobs or Sinéad O’Connor shaves. A queer friend of mine complained she didn’t know who to hit on because “there are queer haircuts everywhere.”

How to have a conversation with a grieving friend (or a friend in trouble, even.)

Excerpt:  Sociologist Charles Derber describes this tendency to insert oneself into a conversation as “conversational narcissism.” It’s the desire to take over a conversation, to do most of the talking and to turn the focus of the exchange to yourself.

A conversation with the woman who was raped by Mahmood Farooqi

 

Excerpt: The decision to press charges against a person is never a onetime event. For me, it was a decision that I had to make repeatedly day after day as pressure to drop the charges surrounded me – some of it even coming from well-meaning people attempting to protect me from further pain. It was a decision that I questioned daily because I was never quite sure if I would have the strength to survive the process. Reliving your trauma time and again to strangers, a necessary requirement of partaking in the judicial system, is – in a way – beyond explanation. It is hard and it is heartbreaking. But in the way of which it breaks you apart, the act of being heard, of having a voice also made me grateful. It allowed me to have hope that I could put myself back together again. It reminded me that I am still alive and able to fight for myself. Of course, I hadn’t anticipated being socially ostracised by groups of people I had considered friends, both in India and America, that was perhaps the most difficult.

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: My endless wordcount days

Grooving to that Saturday beat

This week in domesticated companion animals: Bruno has taken to yowling outside the bedroom door (which all three cats are on the other side of because they like to party all night and we do not). He times these yowls just when I'm in the middle of a dream, so I haven't even finished my full REM circle, and when I wake up mid-dream I wind up just dozing for the rest of the night, until I am properly awake. Plus I have to pee. And when I get up to go to the loo, I may as well stay up because there's no way I'm getting back to sleep.

All that to explain why at 7.30 this morning, I lay in bed watching the early morning light at the edges of our blinds. Stupid cat.

When I wake up in the morning, I pad along into the living room and pull up the blinds there--I don't know how many more days THAT'S going to last, friends, we had the fan on all night for the first time yesterday, and I'm craving gin and tonics instead of red wine, my usual summer switch. Anyway, next door has a pet rooster called Lodhi, I feel like I've told you about him already, but recently they have added a puppy to their household. (I suspect this puppy is part of a litter we've been seeing on the road recently, very cute things in that fluffy confident way all puppies are, except with a certain insouciance of expression that only Indian street dogs have. One puppy had his paw run over, poor little thing, but seems to have either made a full recovery or vanished and this is another black puppy I've been admiring all the while.) Anyway, in a totally non-creepy way, I see next door's young daughter with her pets on the terrace when I open the blinds. Some days she just cradles the rooster and walks him around while the puppy follows at her feet, but usually it's just her sitting on the stairs with her mobile and the puppy curled up and asleep just under her legs. Today I saw someone else on the terrace, but the puppy was in his usual spot anyway. I'm still not even circling the idea of having children, but I do want a dog one day again. But only when we stop travelling and can stay still for a moment.

This week in the movies: It's the Oscars today, and while I've long given up the pretense that movies even have a fighting chance in my entertainment schedule  (books, TV, meeting people with the last two often sacrificed for travel) we did go to watch Black Panther on Holi, after all the festivities had died down and the roads were as empty as a hill station after a long weekend. The movie was great, not least because of the 3D glasses and the big bucket of popcorn, and all the other people instead of just being in our house. I could have lived without the girl next to me who was one of those people who insist on reading aloud stuff that isn't said by the characters. You know the type, the two characters are in front of a store and she's saying the name of the store out loud, the dialogue hasn't caught up with the subtitles so she repeats the last word and laughs. SO ANNOYING.

Anyway, a lot of people will be recommending Black Panther at you, so you shouldn't just take my word for it. It is a superhero movie, but also an utopian one, which I realise I haven't actually seen before, my world being peopled mostly by DYStopia.

This week in the writing life: I am working very hard and should be done with the first draft of The One Who Had Two Lives (the story of Amba and Shikhandini) by April if all goes well, and even taking into account the two days I will be travelling (going to Cochin tomorrow for the Krithi Lit Fest, but because I'm so ensconced in the book right now, for the first time ever I am not extending my trip longer than the one day I have a session so I should be able to get work done both before and after.)

Speaking of lit fests, here are my thoughts on the Gateway lit fest in Mumbai where I was last week.

And my book recommendation column is up for this month which also includes a meditation on bookstores in general.


This week in favours: This newsletter is only 15 (!!!) subscribers away from 400. It would be wonderful if you forwarded people this email or sent them a link to this sign up page. I like round numbers.  THANK YOU.

The mostly-bookish Monday link list!
 

(A reader wrote to me last week asking if I could change the formatting of the link list so that the excerpts came AFTER the link. It made sense, so I'm trying it. Let me know how you feel about it, if you have strong feelings at all, that is.)

* While we're talking about Black Panther, let's also gaze in wonderment at everyone's new boyfriend Michael with-a-B Jordan*

Excerpt: It goes without saying that Michael B. Jordan is hot. And he’s jacked. And he has a super-cute smile, I suppose, as well as maybe the cutest nose in the world. But there’s something more than all of that going on. What’s the science behind his rebranding as the shiny internet-at-large’s newest boyfriend? What has made this conventionally hot, anime-loving, lives-with-his-parents-in-New-Jersey movie star truly ascend into the pantheon of thirst?

Dammit Jojo Moyes, is there anything you write that won't make people cry? This story of her rescue mountain dog is not the exception.
 

Excerpt: It’s not without its challenges. The carpet shampooer is in frequent use — her weak bladder means she needs walking every three hours. She disapproves fiercely of cyclists, scooters, and, once (to our utter mortification), a motorized wheelchair. She fosters irrational dislikes and has to be shut away to stop her “herding” of the odd guest. She has nearly dislocated my shoulder and requires regular specialist grooming and glucosamine for her joints, and if she sits on your lap, you have twenty minutes before your legs go numb and start falling off.
 

This was a great reading week for me. I finished two books I'm recommending to everyone: Dreamers by Snigdha Poonam and Lullaby by Leila Slimani, a French writer who got so popular, they're asking her to go into government.

Excerpt: There is not a lot of great contemporary literature about motherhood. It is as bad as sex. We have myths, we have Bible stories, we have fairy tales, we have Peppa Pig, but it is not often that you open a novel and encounter people buying socks, picking glitter out of floorboards, putting away toys in plastic bins. Like Jenny Offill, Slimani can write ravishingly of female bodies, even postpartum ones (“her belly of folds and waves, where they built their house, where so many worries and joys flowered”), but “Chanson Douce” is not so much about motherhood as it is about what the cultural theorist Angela McRobbie has called the “neoliberal intensification of mothering.” An activity, not a state, mothering—along with its gender-neutral version, parenting—is competitive and outsourceable. Slimani tries to put a price on the anxieties, hypocrisies, and inequalities that arise from the commodification of our most intimate relationships.

 

I am Diane from Anne of Green Gables and I am fucking drunk (because there will never be an Anne thing I do not link to.)

Excerpt: Whoaaaaaaaaaaaaa! You gotta do it, go real low then stand up. Try it! Seriously! Oh my god, it’s like… WHOA, you know? Ugh, where is all the DICK! I’m so horny I’d fuck Fred — what’s his name? The pink-faced one? He’s like, ugly hot, you know? Like, you hate yourself but that’s part of it. Omigod, shut up Anne you’re gonna marry Gilbert Fuckin’ Blythe but the rest of us gotta eat, too. Is Ruby Gillis’s brother around? Still? Because I would. You know I would.

In which Supriya goes for a book swap blind date and hilarity and insights ensue.

Excerpt: I was bewitched, although I could not have felt flirty or romantic about the whole exchange any less had they been my own children. In any case, the atmosphere was not one of flirtation. The “dating” in this speed dating event was a gentle irony. Singles in the greater Bandra area are so self-conscious and narcissistic that, like the Zumba instructor I once had, we’re all at our best blowing kisses to ourselves in the mirror.

Movie rights are not always amazing, just ask these twenty authors who hated the film adaptations of their books. At least this is what I tell myself to feel better.

 

Excerpt: I went to the theater bought my ticket and popcorn, and found a seat. Then onto the screen came an insane fisherman carrying an ice hook. He wasn’t in my book. I thought, You know, this is a big complex; maybe I’ve walked into the wrong theater. So I was preparing to leave and then, no, up from below rolled the words “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” and I thought, That is my book, but who is that man and what is he going to do with that ice hook? Well, I soon found out. He was going to decapitate my characters. Their heads were flying off, and their blood was spurting, and everybody was screaming, and I was screaming. I was so horrified I couldn’t even open my popcorn.
 

I closed open DMs on my Twitter because all I got was young men saying "Hi." It's a global epidemic. 

Excerpt: t’s unclear who coined the term, or for that matter, how it’s actually spelled. Some go with numerous As (e.g., “fraaaandship”), while others disregard the D entirely (e.g., “fraanship”). Either way, fraandships refer to the kind of guys who randomly add people living in the West on Facebook with an accompanying message begging you to accept their request. They slide into your DMs on Twitter or add you to a giant group chat (usually featuring celebrities, brands and/or other verified people). They send adoring emails to your work account and tag you in all of their posts, regardless of their content.

This family was so tired of paying rent AND EMIs they moved into their Noida housing society and now they're the only ones there.

Excerpt: The towers are serviced by three lifts. At tower D, where Charu stays, all the three lifts are functional. She has organised a cab for her kids for their commute to school and back. The only activity one hears at the Sports Wood is the noise from other flats where construction is still on — finishing work on floors, windows and doors is still in progress in many apartments.

eM's Massive Travel Diary: Part One, Berlin, Germany

Since I was away for a whole MONTH, something you may have seen on the today in photo posts, I sent out four newsletters during my trip. Putting them up here in case you missed them, but you can subscribe here if you'd like up-to-date musings. 

Darlings, I am writing to you from the sunny back room of a flat in West Berlin. Across the window, I can see a park which usually has children in it, but since the monsoon seems to have followed me to Europe, it is a grey, wet day, which I sort of like, because it feels so much more European. Sunny days are for beach holidays, in Germany, we turn up the collars of our coats and eat warm, bracing things. That's just the way it is.

Yes, my European holiday has begun! It really began late on Sunday night, when--having packed up Elvira The Backpack--I stood in line for an awfully long time waiting to get on a plane. Late night flights are the worst, they're always so crowded. When I'm rich, I'm only going to fly in the middle of the day. And also business class, since I'll be rich anyway. The good news is that they've done away with filling up those ridiculous little immigration cards which always caused a bottleneck right before you went to security check. Now I guess everyone has a new fangled passport, because they just swipe them on a little machine and send you on your way. It also means the immigration officer doesn't know I'm a writer, which is GREAT, because otherwise EVERY.SINGLE.TIME there would be this whole "what do you write? who do you write for?" and while I'm as happy to talk about myself as the next person, entertaining a bored immigrations officer is not my idea of fun. (They knew I was a writer because you had to fill in "occupation" in those forms.)

However, I can't get myself to go to sleep on flights. No matter how hard I tried, changing positions, putting on an eye mask, just lying there and closing my eyes, it wasn't happening. As a result, I just stayed awake. There were some movies to watch, I saw three back-to-back, read my book, ate the snack, considered my existence as the whole plane slumbered gently.

***

This week in plane movies: I watched Wilson, where Woody Harrelson plays this weird guy who has no concept of personal space etc, who looks up his ex-wife who is a waitress and then they hook up and he's all like, "I wonder what would happen if you had kept the baby" and she's like, "Oh, I did, and I gave it up for adoption" and then they trace their daughter who is now sixteen and they hang out, and you're like okay, sweet, but then the movie suddenly turns into a completely different one because Wilson gets arrested for kidnapping and putting a child in danger (the daughter has lied to her parents to hang out with them), and there are a lot of prison scenes and then redemption on the other side. Weird movie. (46% on Rotten Tomatoes, but I had to watch all these films WITHOUT checking the reviews first, which made me feel a little crippled.)

I'm surprised the next film I watched--The Boss Baby-- had a higher rating than Wilson (but only just at 52%)--because it was pretty schlocky. There's a kid who is the apple of his parents eyes, the centre of his heart and they have a second kid, and suddenly kid one is treated to the kind of isolation previously only experienced by overweight ageing labradors in a house with a new baby. But it turns out this isn't just any baby, it's a special management one, climbing the ranks to Super Boss Baby, and the two join forces and blah di blah, sibling rivalry turns into love. And I KNOW, it's an animated movie, but I love animated movies, they're usually not so pounding you over the head with the point. And this one was by the creators of Shrek so I was surprised.

Finally I saw Table 19,  where a rag tag group of misfits is seated at the worst table at a wedding and they all become friends and because I love the rag tag genre as a whole, I quite liked this one. (Alas, the one I liked the most got the WORST rating: 23% so my mind is a little shaken right now. Should I... NOT be reading reviews?)

***

Just went out and ate some soup. There's a place quite close to where we stay in Berlin which has a rotating list of daily special soups. They even have a punch card so your eleventh soup is free. I don't think we can eat ELEVEN, but K's dad only has three to go on his card, so we've just taken that. Today's lunch: potato and carrot stew with beef. Yum.

***

K's trying to get me to talk to people more. I can't, I'm too embarrassed of my less than schoolgirl German, I know my face is screwing up in odd ways to get the "sh" noises right, and I could switch to English (and I do!) but I'd like to be that person who converses freely with the locals everywhere she goes. So then I feel bad even as I'm speaking in English, and basically, it's just way easier for me to not say anything at all.

***

A lovely wine bar yesterday and meeting a friend I haven't seen in five years. The last time we met, I lived in Bombay and he lived in Singapore, but since then our paths diverged wildly. Berlin suits you, I told him, and it does! He looks happy and fulfilled. On another recommendation, we went to a wine bar in a rapidly gentrifying yummy mummy area. The wine bar was still delightfully dim and smoky and overcrowded, so no Invasion Of The Prams yet, thank goodness. What I liked is that you could get a glass for 4.50 euros or a whole bottle (the waitress gave us a cheap one for 15 euros, but prices went up to 450 on the chalkboard menu behind us), but if you couldn't finish your bottle, you could return it and pay for what you'd drank. Plus free antipasti just to get into the mood.

***

And now in book-related news, there's FINALLY a Kindle edition, for those of you who live abroad and/or prefer ebooks and an interview I did with the Hindustan Times is getting quite a lot of interest!

This week in non-book-related things I wrote: For my friend Nayantara's journal (attached to her amazing label Taramay's website) a list of my favourite female detectives in fiction. ** My Tsundoku books column in Hindu Blink is out again with three books I think you should be reading. ** And rebooting Aunty Feminist to be more "listcle-y" here is a myth-busting column on the single modern Indian woman. **

This week in links which might be kinda old since I haven't spent much (any) time browsing the internet:  I met a Freegan once. It was an interesting evening. ** Why "how to be gorgeous like a French girl" means nothing. ** Margaret Atwood talks to Junot Diaz. Yes please to this interview. ** Finally Shrayana takes all those conversations we've had and turns them into this compelling, cutting article on dating the posh gentry. ** She's baa-aaack. The Urban Poor is now a book. **

Have a great week!
xx
m

The best places to watch movies for free in Delhi

* I discovered Iron Curtain, HKV, a few months ago, when friends who do this sort of thing more than I do and are forever an inspiration, asked if I wanted to go along and watch Woody Allen's Manhattan. Lovely comfy seats, AC at just the right temperature and armrests wide enough to balance your drink--because yes, you can drink inside. I took the Good Thing again on his birthday, we watched an Argentine movie, and each time I go, I wonder why I don't more often. (Then I remember, "Oh yes, there's Hauz Khas Village outside.") The hitch is that their DVD or whatever they're using often skips, leading to a lot of "TCHAH" noises from the audience. But! Free!  

And I grew strong, I learned how to get along

So, I just got back from seeing Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows and unlike any of the other Potter films, I actually really enjoyed this one. Of course, there were a few areas where I had to nit pick, but either I’m getting more tolerant of beloved books being adapted for the screen or they’re getting better at making them. SO GOOD. I can’t wait for part 2!

 

Big achievement was actually getting there without losing my way at all. At which point you’re going to be all, “But you used to live here!” and I am once again going to point out that I am map challenged. One. Map. At. A. Time. I might be able to multitask, but geography? Very hard to do. And then I even made it back home, except the back way to my house was locked and so I had to u-turn and go all the way back and retrace my steps, and I did all this without getting lost once, and aren’t you proud of me? Except my parking spot’s a bitch, between a pole and a motorcycle and the area I live in is notorious for bad parking, still, at least they left me a spot, and after spending half an hour reversing and going forward multiple times, I managed to squeeze it in, a little lopsided, hopped out and found my gate was locked. And I banged on it and yelled, and called friends to commiserate while I banged and yelled, until I thought, “Hang on. That’s odd that they’d lock it and the guard would be away” so experimentally, I began to yank the gate a bit and it gave, and then I realised I had either a) not realised it was open this entire while or b) broken the lock with my superhuman-wanting-to-go-to-my-warm-bed strength. Erm. Yes. Let’s say, for the sake of my already faltering ego that it’s option b. Why already faltering? Well, because today my passenger side window wasn’t rolling up properly, so I thought I’d hop out and push it up while I pressed the button not realising that turning the car on (so I could operate the aforementioned button) would automatically lock the doors. Safety feature. So there I was. Locked out of my car, which was on. Surrounded by the amused faces of all the help in the locality. Luckily, the passenger window’s a bit screwed, so it was down an inch (yes, the same passenger window I got out to fix, I get the irony here) and the driver next door stood on a chair, used two sticks like chopsticks and managed to pull the lock open. ALSO. Now everyone knows how to steal my car. Brilliant. Good day’s work, I’d say.

 

If they ask about the yelling I’ll just look very confused and say it must’ve been someone else. I’m really good at looking very confused.

 

So, all my stuff’s here from Bombay, which is awesome, because except for a gas connection, I basically have a fully functioning kitchen and I can actually begin to believe I live here now. For the moment. I hate saying “for good” because you might as well sign up for a retirement fund then. “For good” is like saying, “I plan to have no other adventures” and I hope my life is full of adventures. At the moment, I am in an adventurous mood, so I hope something fun (Himalayan trek? Scuba diving in the Andamans? Wedding in Lahore?) comes up  and I get to do it. I’ll even settle for a nice, exciting fling, leaving both parties completely satiated and with the sense that it was a job well done. But man wise, it’s been rather slow. I know, I know, I am so brand new at being single that I should take it easy. Be all wise and see what happens. But you gu-huys, it’s such romantic weather! And I always smell nice, ALL THE TIME, during the winter! And I have such nice new clothes and my hair is behaving and my flat is all ready and the terrace is really romantic coz it might get a little nippy and then you have an excuse to be really close to a person and drink lots of wine. I’m not quite ready for another relationship, in fact, I want to take it easy in that department for a little while, but to rephrase Janis Joplin, “Oh lord, won’t you send me someone nice to flirt with? Someone really cute who I won’t get hurt with?”

 

What else is nice is that my planner’s all filling up. God, I love this time of the year. And I got my first two bits of mail today—an invite and a book (for my column). It feels proper when you get mail.

 

I also really liked my outfit today, so I’m going to write about that too. Just for my own personal satisfaction, and this is the last paragraph so you can totally skip it. I wore grey riding breeches (Sarojini Nagar, with suede on the inner thighs and the bum, and they make me look very nice and skinny), a jersey polo neck thing, that I usually wear as an inner, but in this in between weather serves as a top, a vintage Chinese vest that I stole from my mother’s cupboard (she hadn’t used it in ages, it’s green silk with huge flowers embroidered on and those little cloth buttons that clasp) and new purple suede ballet flats (which pinched my toes, but I’m sure they’ll open up soon).  Okay, it sounds a bit odd written down, but I assure you it was a lovely  ensemble.

 

And if you’ve read this far, I feel like I should say something very erudite and intellectual to make up for the complete flakiness of that last paragraph, but I can’t think of anything beyond comparing The Deathly Hallows to Hitler’s Germany in the way that it was stylised and shot, very Holocaust and I’m probably very late to that realisation but it just hit me today, so I thought I’d mention it. Especially the bits when they’re in the Ministry of Magic and everyone’s being interrogated for being mudblood or half blood. Brilliant.

In which we are domestic (somewhat)

This week has been fairly uneventful, as you can see from lack of photos. The Indian food turned out to be recognisable, which is nice, but not exactly what I was craving. THEN, I went to Small's house in London, and she introduced me to instant sambhar mix (I know, I know, it existed beforehand, but I hadn't actually tried it before). A couple of days later, whilst grocery shopping at Tesco's, I found the same brand, along with rice and pickle and made myself a meal. And THAT was good. So, all in all, yay me.

Right. The  new book. Doing something for teenagers this time, with Scholastic, and I'm very excited about it. It should be out later this year and writing for the young adult segment is something I've always wanted to do, ever since my very first Judy Blume (Superfudge!) back in the day. I hope though, that I've done the life of a sixteen year old girl (in Delhi, yes, yes, it continues to be the only city I can write about with some authority) full justice and that readers will be able to identify with the narrator. The only sixteen year old I have ever known in close contact is, well, me, so I'm drawing a lot on my own experiences and the way I used to feel. Luckily, I still have all my old journals from way back then (I knew they would come in useful someday!) and so quite a mine of information. Plus italics and oh-the-drama-and-the-angst. Sixteen was an interesting year. I'm trying very hard to wrap it up ASAP, so that is also why I've had a quiet week.

Oh, and I bought a bright red trenchcoat from the Monsoon sale (as in the brand, not the season. English rain is very calm compared to the roaring storms of Bombay). So much for saving my money, eh? But it's SO awesome and I love it more than I have ever loved a coat before. Besides my black coat is nice and warm and dressy on occasion, but it's almost ten years old, and I think it's time I got a new one. Luckily, I still have more than a month of my English trip left, so I will have lots of opportunities to wear it.

And, either I've acclimatised, or it's gotten much warmer here. Recently, I have been wearing only one sweater to go out, sometimes, I don't even need a scarf. Okay, so I have a bit of a cold today, but that's just because I was JUST out in the garden smoking a cigarette and it's WINDY out there.

Also, the other day was discussing movies with JC's brother's fiancee (who really needs a name of her own on this blog, so how about, erm, Sylvia? That's a pretty name, and I've been wanting to use it for a while.) Anyhoo, so Sylvia and I besides both being about to get married (eeee!) to members of the same family, also have very similar taste in the cinema. I have a bunch of her chick flicks, that she loaned me (which sit like a devil on my shoulder each time I have work to do) and I was talking about how I really really wanted to see the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice  (made famous by Bridget Jones and Colin Firth in the fountain) and then, the next evening, when I came home from Small's, I found an Amazon package waiting for me. Inside which... the movie! Yay! I was both thrilled and touched. It's things like that that make my day. My week, even.

Soooo, that's what I've been up to. Slow-ish week, but sometimes the best part about a long trip is just the settling in and feeling comfortable, right?

Stuff I've been doin'

Sore throat, ergo bullet points.

* Pause is the new Zenzi. In my life, anyway. I started going, "Zenzi? Not so much." about a couple of months ago, and really, the less often I go there, the less I actually want to stay there once I do visit. It helps that I'm poor and therefore unable to spend my salary on Zenzi rent. It also helps, in an odd kind of way, that I'm no longer single. See, back in the day, when I went to Zenzi, I went because there would in all likelihood be someone there to flutter my stomach and fill me with a sense of possibility. P'raps after Zenzi, we'd all hang out into the wee hours of the morning and perhaps we would kiss and perhaps he'd send me flirty texts and so on. Many hearts have been broken at Zenzi. But now that I am comfortable (and, sigh, yes, slightly boring to read about) I don't need to do that anymore! Isn't it awesome? JC used to be a Zenzi type too, before you ask, in fact our very first date was at Zenzi which was annoying because people never leave you alone there, so our "date" turned into about six people and Vie and then Rock Bottom. And then back to JC's house where he played his guitar for me and I looked longingly at him--so pretty! Such a hot British accent!

In case you haven't guessed already, he isn't Indian, he's a firangi through and through, one of those reverse coconut types though, brown on the inside. It's interesting dating a firangi, it's also kinda dangerous because they very seldom want to settle down in India, usually they're just "passing through" and you have the risk of just being the "Bombay girlfriend" as there was a "Thai girlfriend" and an "Egyptian girlfriend", you know, something else to add to your Exotic Country Experience.

Although JC isn't the first firangi I've dated. Bombay is a multicultural city--and not just dipbrats either--and my dating list at the end of almost two years reads like the United Nations. Okay, not that bad either, but there have been quite a few internationals. JC wants to stay here though, in Injah, which is awesome and totally works for me.

* But though Pause on a Saturday night was excellent fun, they played stuff like Macarena and Sexy Eyes! (Which, yes, is painful unless you're in the right mood, which I was.) And then I asked for Mahiya, which still remains my all time favourite Hindi song to dance too and they played it immediately. Sadly though, there was a birthday party on, and the party throwers had brought their own DJ and soooooooooo, this entitled them to make long speeches on the microphone. This pissed me off HUGELY. I mean, sure, you got the DJ, but I'm fucking paying for my drinks and the atmosphere as well, so don't inflict ten hour long punchline-less Santa-Banta jokes on me coupled with Geeeeeeeeeeeeta-you're-awesome-happy-birthday! People are stupid and annoying.

* We now have a Sunday Night DVD Club (with its own Facebook group!). Well, by we, I mean me and Ira, who came up with the idea, and the boys we know watch with us, over bitching and complaining that we don't show "real" movies like Bourne Ultimatum or Fight Club or whatever. Ira and I take suggestions into consideration although we hold the ultimate veto vote (hey, just realised veto and vote are anagrams of each other!) and so far, there have been no complaints about the movies we choose. (Well, okay, perhaps not Becoming Jane, which should have ideally been watched just the two of us). Last night we picked The Hoax starring Richard Gere and I can strongly recommend it to anyone. It's about a fake autobiography of Howard Hughes by a writer who really wants to make some money and how he fools everyone. I love con movies. My favourites: 1) Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrells 2) Catch Me If You Can 3) The Heartbreakers. It's good shit, our DVD club, even though the boys are planning a coup and forming their own club with strippers and popcorn, I can't imagine it'll ever happen and we will rule forever. Amen.

I'm too tired to do anything but bullet point updates these days

* Multitasking, thy name is eM: I am determined I can write, teach, party and date all in the same day. Okay, fine, maybe the same week. But still, I want to continue the way I always have, with a few extras thrown in. Is that so hard? YES, says the universe, rumblingly, and makes the weather hot, hot, hot, pressure cooker steamed sweat as soon as you turn off the AC and by the time a train journey is made during rush hour from the burbs to town, I'm ready to go back to sleep. But still, I need to do this to prove to people everywhere that you can, in fact, do everything. Oh, and somewhere in there I'm going to join a gym. Wish me luck.

* Did we say "dating"? Yes, I think we did: So, in the last week, one has been a busy little creature. One has also started to date someone--JC (you're ALWAYS going to be JC on this blog, it was inevitable, sorry) to be exact, the boy I went out with last Saturday. We've been getting to know each other and stuff and things are going rather well. (touch wood quickly) We haven't got sick of each other yet, which is also excellent and you know, the friends like us, we like us and so us it's going to be. (I love using the word 'boyfriend' though, although it fills me with a mixture of excitement and fear. I haven't used it out loud yet, just a few experimental test runs inside my head.)

* If I were a rich girl: I'd be a lot better off than I am now, that's for sure. Anyone looking to hire a writer? I write everything! And at reasonable rates! But, no, all this dating and socialising and the excitement of being back in Bombay after ages and going to a training convention in town which meant that I had to eat lunch out every day means I'm kinda broke right now. Well, not BROKE broke, but it's time to start counting those rupees.

Oh, it's good to be home, and it's good to be happy on a Sunday and it's good to be alive even if you are tired. I went and saw Prince Caspian today with Ira and JC and it was a very well done movie. I'm a big Narnia fan, I've read all the books--but I hadn't ever read Prince Caspian. The boy playing Peter is a hottie, even if he is very young. We had the third row from the screen though, and that, plus the fact that most of the movie was shot in the dark means that my eyes were like stinging by the end of it. I love battle scenes though with the smaller army winning and all the "THIS IS SPPPPPPPPPARTTTTTAAAAAAA!" of it all.

Tonight, we dine.............. in hell!






*

How do you solve a problem like eM? (Nah, it doesn't have the same ring to it)

Super anti social type mood happening. I don't know why, I guess just too much partying and not enough sleep makes eM socially inadequate. So this last week and a half have been spent (mostly) doing quiet things and even if I do go out, I get home by midnight-ish. I made an exception for KVA's birthday/farewell party (Sniff. I HATE farewell parties) but then I stayed in on Saturday night and watched The Sound Of Music with Yamini, Lali and my mom, who is visiting. Yamini and I sang along loudly, much to Lali's amusement, picking our favourite songs and getting all teary during the mushy bits. I seriously heart that movie.





Why I love The Sound Of Music:





1) High on a hill was a lonely goatherd, lay odeley odelay-ee-oo.





2) Playclothes! With curtains!





3) The bit when he's all getting a crush on her and she looks sort of haughty and stands up to him and then he smiles and man, Christopher Plummer is a HOTTIE. What other movies has he done? Is he dead? Can I have his babies? (the haughty hottie. mmmmmmmm)

4) The totally sexist bits where Liesl and Rolfe are getting it on and he's all like, "I'll take care of you." Can you imagine this song being sung in the 21st century? (Okay, not quite a reason to love the movie but in its old values it's somehow charming)





5) The way the nuns all bitch about Maria, but they do it so musically that you almost wish that they'd call you a moonbeam too.





6) Discovering that as an adult I like different parts from when I was a kid. For instance, none of us (except my mom) very clearly remembered the Nazi bit. After the wedding everything seemed sorta blurry. And I always thought the Nazis wanted to kill Captain Von Trapp not make him join them which confused me later coz if she's coming from a convent, how come he's Jewish?





7) Tea, a drink with jam and bread! And that will bring us back to do-oh-oh.





8) Oh and the Baroness. I totally felt sorry for her. Even though she made Maria leave the first time. She loved Georg! Awww.





9) Christopher Plummer is HOT. Have I already said that? Damn.





10) There's a sad sort of clanging from the clock in the hall and the bells in the steeeeeeeeeeple too! And up in the nursery an absurd little bird is popping out to say (everybody!) CUCKOO!





We wondered last night whether boys had seen the movie too, whether it was as seminal a classic to them as it was to us. I voted yes, but the other two weren't entirely sure.





- eM hates to go and leave this pretty si-ight.

eM is hanging by a moment

* I exist in a vaccuum: Well, not quite. But, almost. I have only sporadic access to the internet these days (hey, it's the end of the month and I have bills to pay.) So I'm writing this between work at Kalyan's house, where I arrived with laptop to throw myself at his mercy. And to play with his brand new kitten. He's a cutie. (The kitten, I mean, but Kalyan isn't so bad either.)

* Public appearances: Shall actually be made this week. I'm speaking at the Kitab festival this year, Friday, 4 pm at the Asiatic Library. I'll be talking about being a Young Writer In India and though it's all very fun, I'm also stricken with fear. This time it's not a comforting panel discussion where I can choose to be quiet if I want to. This time I'm actually going to be talking ALL ON MY LONESOME into, what I suspect, will be an indifferent audience. You should come and watch me, just for the entertainment value.

* New friends and one new word! Akshay and I have been hanging out quite a bit these last few weeks. We both live pretty much in the same suburb, and we both don't have 9 to 5 jobs that take up our time. This in itself, mixed with other common personality traits, is enough of a foundation for a friendship. We have, of course, also been consuming De Booze quite a bit and in one of our drunken moments of wisdom (Bloody Mary, Red Box, Sunday, 5 pm) came up with the word Platonic. Yes, I know it's already a word, but we were using it to define the men and women in our life who we hung out with constantly but with whom we have no romantic entaglement. Now we use the word a lot, as in, "Where's your Platonic tonight?" and "Oh, I saw that with my Platonic." See how it works? And much much more resonant than just, say, close friend or something.

* Entertainment: We went to watch August Rush the other day. I had read a review and I thought it said Katherine Heigl (from Grey's Anatomy) and I thought it was a chick flick, so when we entered the theatre and it began I was convinced that we were in the wrong theatre. But it had the delectable Jonathon Rhys Meyers and that little kid from Finding Neverland and Robin Williams so we stayed and watched it anyway. Sweet movie. All about music and finding music in every day things which reminded me of a guy I met last week who told me he was a sound engineer. Cute guy also. Hmmmm.

* Hate mail! I received this little gem last week:

from: Sreejesh Sreenivasan (suv100@gmail.com)
to: thecompulsiveconfessor@gmail.com

date: 15 Feb 2008 21:19

subject: butt ugly


Haaaaaai
I was really excited after reading ur blog. I told my self.....now here was a real polayadi mol of our generation, very much like kamala das or suraiah or whatever (the old hag keeps changing her name all the time) who gave perverts like me some thoughts to jerk off on.....Well the excitement only lasted till I saw ur damned photo in vanitha mag. The first thing I said to myself was "CRAP". The Cherummi who used to sweep my house when I was a kid... thats u. Honestly I think the cherummi was better looking.

The guy who humped you, was he fucking blind or was he too stoned to give a shit? Anyway it would have been better if u remained anonymus or used a photo of a hot model instead of your own. Just hope nobody scans it on to the net for ur sake.

Wow. Who stole his testicles? I was going to edit his email address, but then I decided not to. For one thing, it's probably fake (I mean, come ON, suv100? Really? Very 1bruce1 of you, Shree, ol' pal) and for another, hey, this guy needs to get some and really fast, so maybe I'm actually doing him a favour by leaving it up there. I'm gaining karma points here.

The Physics Of Further Randomness (Lesson 15: What We Blog About When We're Not Getting Any)

* As you've probably realised, not very much is going on in my life right now. No pocketfuls of lovers, no deep , dark romances and worst of all--absolutely no sex. Sigh. Right now, I'm drinking coffee with honey, having run out of sugar and being too lazy to order any, and it tastes rather strange. Sweaty almost. Unpleasant, but one must have one's coffee. Still, in the future, I would not recommend it. Why is it tea with honey tastes all glorious and rainy-day-ish and coffee with honey tastes likes old socks?

*I have a full house at the moment. There's me and Mouse (who are complete slobs, seriously, having always lived with anally neat people, I'm used to the boundaries of my mess reaching the limits of their clean spaces, and their organisation shaming me into tidying up every now and then. Now, we both live with laundry on the couch, speaker wires entangled on the coffee table, newspapers piling up and so on. Very lived in.) And then this morning, Shark Tooth's friend, let's call him Uday, arrived, to stay with us for a couple of days while he's in Bombay. One more mattress, and we've reached maximum occupancy. But this also means I have to clean up the house.

* The Iggy was passing through town and had a five am flight, so in order to amuse her (read: ply her with alcohol before she left) we took her to China House, which I must say, has lost most of its charm for me. It takes about fortyfive minutes to get a drink, it's much too crowded and you have to do the whole waiting-at-the-entrance thing. Meh. Too much effort. Although it must be mentioned that once we were in, I saw a midget (no, really, she reached my hip) and a giant (I reached his hip) and I was all huh. The midget was holding hands with a not unattractive man, and really, when dwarves can find love (sorry, little people) I see no reason why I can't. Also, at the table across from us was Queenie Dhody, and they ordered an entire bottle of champagne and left the whole thing there. I was tempted to steal it, but no one let me. Seriously, what a waste of good alcohol!

* Diabolique (don't ask, this is the pseudonym she chose) and I went shopping for her yesterday. Well, mainly for her, but I did pick up some t-shirts that fit so well you can see the outline of my belly stud. Anyway, so she had a craving for panipuri and we stopped off at a chaat guy she had been going to since she was a baby, and he handed me the first one and reader, I choked. Not only did I choke, tears formed in my eyes from the spices. Where are my hardy South Indian genes? I eat chillis with EVERYTHING! Clearly, I'm becoming American by osmosis. Both Diabolique and the chaat guy were very amused, he made mine a little less spicy (less spicy! Dear god, I'm the one who puts spice on top of spice) and all went well thereafter.

* In other news, Saturday and Sunday will be spent in the city of my birth. Well, okay, not of my birth birth, but the city I've been in since I was three weeks old. Good enough. Mouse's coming with me, although she plans to do a day trip to Agra, and I've had just about enough of the Taj Mahal for one lifetime, so I will stay in Delhi eating lots of food, drinking lots of drinks and catching up on everyone's lives minus me. If you know me in real life, call for coordinates. A weekend isn't a terribly long time, so everyone's going to have to suck it up and all be in the same place at the same time.

And now, stuff I've seen recently. Or read. Or somethinged.

The Simpsons Movie: I only have one thing to say: Spiderpig, spiderpig, does whatever a spiderpig does, does he swing from a vine? No he doesn't, he's just a pig.

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Le sigh. Finally the ending. The epilogue though was fairly obvious, though I had a hard time keeping all those kids straight. I felt the worst about Hedwig, really.

The Family Stone: (which is not new but Mouse and Diablolique and I watched it together on Friday) I realise how much I like Sarah Jessica Parker. I think of a sundry Goan holiday taken with a sundry exboyfriend. I decide never EVER to go to my boyfriend's large house for Christmas unless I am willing to smother my personality. And I think dating your sister/boyfriend's boyfriend/brother is slightly creepy.

The Blue Umbrella: Nice. Sad but. I saw Irrfan Khan in the audience, bringing my Bollywood sightings up to five now. Or is it four? What can I say--I have no life.

Betty Crocker's Pancake Mix: Fabulous. Mouse and I have been completely ODing. Not for breakfast as one would assume but like a midnight snack around one or two in the morning.

Until next time, this is your friendly radio jockey telling you to drive safe, eat well and drink lots of water.

Healthy, Natural Tasting Biscuits

> So I had like an epiphanic moment Sunday morning. The night before at this girl's BEAUTIFUL flat--I'm talking huge spaces, marvelous view, pink and red walls, oh, most posh, and of course, I spilt my red wine in the first five minutes--we consumed two and a half bottles of wine (naturally, it was not an Old Monk and Coke sort of house) and mouth red I teetered home and the next morning, I get a call from a friend asking whether I wanted to do lunch and blearily I open my eyes and I'm feeling great. No, more than great, I feel FANTASTIC and full of energy and ready to spend a Sunday about town rather than loll around in bed. No hangover. No dehydration. Red wine is now my new drink. I think I will even have a very posh wine and cheese party soon (although the house smells of kitty litter). At twenty five, I have decided to renounce my college cheap days and embrace being a yuppie.

> Although I find it very hard to make my house look all glamourous. It has the potential, sure, it's a good looking house and it doesn't have much furniture, but as soon as I clean up and scatter candles (well, switch on the lamp at any rate) it gets dirty again. There are still cartons of books that we have no space for occupying floor area in my room, which are now serving as general clean laundry dumping area. And our maids are underworked which means they do the laundry EVERY DAY and so no matter how much I fold there's always more things. It's like that dude with the stone, what was his name? Dionysus? I have to now purchase a nice writing table and a swish bookshelf because my books are stacked on my windowsill and are also in danger of toppling over and smothering me in my sleep. Where can I get nice (and yet cheap) furniture in this city? Anyway, I'm resigning myself to being unposh. Some people are born posh, some have poshness thrust upon them and some achieve poshness. I am secret option d: some people will never ever be posh. My room is a mess, the ashtrays haven't been emptied in forever and there are things everywhere. I can't even blame this on the size of places in Bombay, because my room back in Delhi was exactly the same. "Put some things on the balcony," my mother says and I laugh for quite some time on the phone. Sigh. I miss balconies.

> My love life STINKS. It started out so promisingly and yet now it's all fizzled out. Meh. And you wonder why I don't blog more often. Ooooooh, but Celebrity Date Type Thing (part two: the return) is going to be staged tonight. I wonder what I should wear?

> I went to see Dream Girls yesterday, which was only quite nice. They kept breaking into song, I know it was a musical, but Chicago say or Moulin Rouge had songs I'd like to keep listening to. I even watched Chicago twice. The songs in this were rather boring, and there wasn't much of a plot line except that in the end enemities were resolved and everyone was happy, except for the good guy turned bad. The first half is way better than the second half though. Ooh and it has that American Idol chick, Jennifer Hudson. I love the movies though, and I seldom do it often enough.

> Tourist Season has clearly still not ended. I might as well never have left Delhi at all--only, it's odd, but I spend more time with people when they visit Bombay than I ever did when we both lived in the same city. Now, I've got people visiting over the last two weeks of March, and I just had a friend leave this morning. I'm getting into my stride though, with out of town visitors, the first couple of times I ran myself ragged trying to get optimum use of their time, but now I'm much more chilled about it, going about my life. And also, except for like two people, most of them have other friends in Bombay who they're staying with, so it's much more relaxed for all of us.

The One With The New Skills (and a few new weblogs)

As you can see, the old template is back. By popular demand too. I got so many emails going, "Noooooooo, change it, it doesn't show up in Firefox" that I caved, even though *sniff* I thought it was so purty. (See, this is why everyone should stick to Internet Explorer. This very reason. Internet Explorer shows everything).



I have realised I have quite an aptitude for new things these days. Sunday, played pool for the first time ever with Dee and two of her friends and dude, I so rocked. I'm even going to give myself a pool nickname, like, um, Shady. Yeah, Shady. With oversized sunglasses and a scarf wrapped around my neck and hot pants. Red leather, with a black leather jacket. Anyway, I was taught the game by Dee's biker friend who kept calling me "Kid" for some reason, making me feel more and more like I was in a movie. Biker Chick and I played against each other and I almost won! Yay.


My car was in the workshop for the longest time early this month because for some reason the gears refused to change. And it cost me (okay, fine, my mother) about 10k to fix and everything and I asked the guy in my best I-am-professional-woman-who-drives-so-YOU-can't-even-THINK-of-taking-me-for-a-ride what was wrong with it and he said the clutch had worn out, because I drove with my foot on the clutch. Okay, so I do. But it's like a security blanket, my clutch. I need to have my foot on it at all times. Anyway, I've been training myself not to touch it even, and it's been REALLY hard to break a habit that I've had for the last six years, but I'm happy to say I've succeeded. Re-yay.


And since this is boring type post, let me mention that I saw Rajat Kapoor at TC on Saturday night and then in Barista on Sunday evening after I watched Memoirs Of A Geisha which totally made me realise I didn't capitalise on my virginity when I had a chance. Think of the money I could have made. Hell, since I have been practicing celibacy for a while now, I'm practically re-virginised. I want to be a geisha. Just like after I watched Pretty Woman, I wanted to be a hooker.


And whoever landed up on my blog with the keywords "Forgive Me, For I Have Sinned (repeatedly, and with great gusto…)" let's switch lifes (lives?) please.


Ooh, must also point you to this blog which reads like a gossip column and which most media people I know love because it talks about all the people they know. And this blog, which I discovered today and quite enjoyed.

Hello, hello, hello, how low, hello, hello, how low, here we are now, entertain us! I feel stupid and contagious, here we are now, entertain us!

> Bluffmaster was seen last night at Wave Noida, with friend and friends of friend. I love Wave Noida, the seats are fucking enormous, and often when I'm in them I find myself reaching behind me for a seatbelt. Not only that, if you go for a night show, the hall is usually empty, so you can pick wherever you want to sit. And they are the only people in Delhi who say Butter Popcorn and MEAN IT. You order your popcorn and they reach for this cool gadget with a little press down nozzle filled with a butter-like substance and they pour it all over your popcorn. PVR Saket doesn't do that, they give you plain popcorn that sticks. But they do make a superior hot dog.

The movie was excellent by the way, I fully recommend it. Only one bit jarred, where this doctor dude tells Small B that he should think with his head and he goes (in Hindi, of course) patting his heart and his head, "If this don't work, this doesn't matter." Where's that from you ask? STRAIGHT from Jerry McGuire, the lines of which I have memorised.


But the theme song of this movie was quite good, I have been looking for it online. Is it just me or does it sound a lot like Bittersweet Symphony to other people also? Oh and the item song at the end, "Ek mein, ek tu hain", I was doing full-on head-bops at this point while around me sleepy aunties stretched and exited the hall and my friend watched me bemused.



> Crisis situation has happened. Small and I find ourselves minus a roommate shortly, coz Priya is moving out. So it's either leaving our BEAUTIFUL house, because we can't afford it, just the two of us, or finding a flatmate, for which dear Internet, I turn to you. We want someone cool, boy or girl it doesn't matter, who doesn't mind living near Saket and we can offer our brilliant, beautiful company, one DVD player, two laptops, one Worldspace system and a room with cupboards! Ooh, and we have a bathtub! And we're really very nice people, we seldom fight and we're super-cool. I have witnesses also, who will vouch for this. So if you're interested, email me, okay? Oh, almost forgot, if you're like new in Delhi, this will work out, because Small and I apart from being Visions of Wonder and Delight are also very popular so you will have many new friends. (We're also very modest, as you can no doubt tell. Hell, if you're going to sell something, sell something, right?)



> It's a cold, cold, cold January people. It's been drizzling and my fingers are all frozen, so I'm making a typo with every sentence. I've been discovering some excellent music though, while on my holiday. One is You Had Time by Ani DiFranco. She has the most plaintive voice, and I'm most surprised I hadn't heard her before. Actually, I was re-reading Nick Hornby's 31 Songs and he mentioned this song, also quoted from her lyrics, "You are a china shop, and I am a bull. You are very good food, and I am full." I thought those lines were so brilliant that I immediately downloaded. And I've been listening to it over and over again. Also, not a new discovery, but something recently downloaded and now on repeat on my iPod is White Flag by Dido. I mean, I know the song is a little dumb, what with this chick refusing to move on and everything, but her lyrics just sound like a poem. I mean take the line: "And when we meet, which I'm sure we will, all that was there, will be there still. I'll let it pass and hold my tongue, and you will think, that I've moved on." Come on, how can you not identify with this song? Sentimental songs, while they make up a large chunk of my playlist, isn't everything I've been listening to. I'm on a very big Gwen Stefani thing these days, especially If I Were A Rich Girl. It's a really dumb song, but I love driving and yelling, "See, I'd have all the money in the world, if I was a wealthy girl. No man could test me, impress me, my cash flow would never ever end. Cause I'd have all the money in the world, if I was a wealthy girl!" Only, what's a Harajuku girl? It's the kind of song that makes me all jumpy and toe-tappy and doing bumps and grinds at traffic lights. Everyone should have a song like that.