Crosswords are totally romantic

26 across: moves aimlessly

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

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

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

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

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

Newsletter: Bad dates, dive bars

I'm assuming you've all seen the Aziz Ansari story yesterday about what a shitty date he is. I've been rewatching Parks And Recreation on Amazon Prime recently, and he comes up a lot--almost every single episode, and it's hard to watch scenes with him now without thinking back on his behaviour. Worse still was the set of episodes also guest starring Louis CK, because then you look at all these men who are known for being great actors and comics, and winning awards and what not, AND Parks And Recreation is also Amy Poehler's baby, and she's always seemed like an amazing woman to me, so how do you separate in your head the art someone creates with the way they are in real life? I find myself to be a lot more unforgiving of the men, even Aziz, who is this little brown guy winning awards and generally being charming, someone you WANT to root for, and when you learn about him being basically like everyone else, it's a little bit of a betrayal. Whereas with Margaret Atwood--a way more articulate person than Aziz or Louis--her saying that #MeToo was:

The #MeToo moment is a symptom of a broken legal system. All too frequently, women and other sexual-abuse complainants couldn't get a fair hearing through institutions – including corporate structures – so they used a new tool: the internet. Stars fell from the skies. This has been very effective, and has been seen as a massive wake-up call. But what next? The legal system can be fixed, or our society could dispose of it. Institutions, corporations and workplaces can houseclean, or they can expect more stars to fall, and also a lot of asteroids.

Which is kind of true, in one way: #MeToo would not exist if the legal system was perfect. But to dismiss it is unfair, because it is exactly what was needed. Maybe the legal system needs to change and embrace the way we can--each of us--go to the internet and say something each time something or someone has wronged us. I know from personal opinion that when you tweet at a company, they are more likely to fix something than when you just call them and sit for hours with a customer service representative. I've tried both. And the way women are taking down powerful men using their words goes to show that if you hold someone accountable in a public forum, they are far more likely to offer apologies for their actions, rather than just lame explanations. And hopefully, some man somewhere is reading all the testimonies and thinking, "Oh hmm, maybe it's a bad idea to put my hand inside my intern's shirt as she bends over." I think that's a win, anyway.

As for the people turning this into a "humiliation" thing, I'm not sure what their reasoning is, despite reading loads of tweets around the same argument, and this one long Atlantic piece I've linked to above. Is it just because the idea of a "bad date" doesn't gel with the idea of a sexual harasser? I have been on bad dates, and I have been on dates where a person doesn't listen to your body language (OR YOUR WORDS), and I can tell you that despite that, I still said goodbye to them with a semblance of a smile. Teeth gritted, face in an "I want to get out of here" expression, but still a smile, because politeness is drilled into us way more than saying no in a hard situation. So there's that.

This week in further meditations: I am still in Goa--leaving today for Hyderabad for a family wedding and then back to Delhi--and I have fallen into a comfortable routine. I write during the day, stopping for lunch and then a brief rest before writing again, and then go out to join friends. Which means my favourite part about Goa, its dive bars. Yes, you can keep your beach shacks and your fancy restaurants, for me, nothing says Goa more than rolling up to Siolim crossing and jumping into one red-walled bar where a man called Rock knows my drink order and always keeps the same table for us.

If there's one thing Delhi lacks, it is the character filled dive bar. I think it's also because of Delhi's attitude to women, most dive bars there have a faint attitude of seed. Like if you sat there alone too long you would inevitably become newspaper headlines on page three the next day. There are a few that I loved in Delhi but then 4S became too popular (the idea is you can dress how you like to go to a dive bar), Saki bar in Connaught Place is too far (Hotel Alka, I wonder if it's still a thing) and while I like Road Romeo, it doesn't really begin to compare to Rock or Paulo's in Goa in terms of sheer atmosphere.

A true dive has all of the following: a) cheap drinks, b) small, too-close-to-each-other tables, c) a regular clientele so you always run into the same people, d) something to distinguish it from all the other dive bars next to it, so you're justified in picking your favourite. In the case of Rock, I actually like the food, and I like how friendly the owner is, and I like almost sitting in the street as I drink. In the case of Paulo's, it's full of leathery old hippies who sit there, one imagines, from morning to night, and who are almost as much a part of the decor as the old prints of famous musicians on the wall. Paulo's has gotten a little trendy now though, they even gave me a laptop decal the last time I was there, and one Iranian lady will come around selling sandwiches off the back of her scooter. That's Goa for you. I return to Delhi drawing rooms soon enough.

This week in endorsements: Lots of love for Before, And Then After on the interwebs this week, and here is a screenshot from one reader on Twitter who loved it.



Then, to my complete surprise, I see Confessions of a Listmaniac/The Life And Times of Layla the Ordinary is on this list of the 121 best Indian books in English OF ALL TIME. So that's very flattering and nice, especially for one of my young adult books which I always feel get a little lost in the shuffle. Just the sort of motivation I need to finish up my next book. (Here's a link to buy my books in case you're curious now.)

Monday morning link list:

When Nathalia brought two new poems to her father a few days after her mother’s faux pas, he was very impressed, as he told it, but wanted a more expert view. He suggested she send them to an editor at the Brooklyn Daily Times whom he knew vaguely from his short stints at various copy desks before reenlisting when the United States entered the First World War. There was a flurry of attention at the Times, and Nelda started sending out more of Nathalia’s work, some of which was apparently published without further fuss. So a year later, when Edmund Leamy, the poetry editor of the New York Sun, accepted a poem that Nathalia was said to have sent on her own, he had never heard of her. He assumed the author was an adult. After all, in his experience, no “child would ever submit any work from his or her pen without adding the words ‘Aged __ years.’” And “The History of Honey,” rhythmical and ingeniously rhymed, bore no obvious literary mark of immaturity. Nor was there girlish handwriting to supply a clue. When Leamy invited this new contributor named Nathalia Crane to drop by to confer about another poem and have lunch, he mistook her mother for the poet. Flustered to learn that “Miss” Crane was the “little, long-legged, bright-eyed child,” he forgot about the promised meal, as Nathalia noted years later.

- This story about a child-poet genius (including her rather excellent poetry) is a fun and sad read.

 

But online, we inhabit an unrelenting present, where artificially spatialized time appears severed and successive. The present is announced by the externalized whims — notifications, replies, mentions — we swipe at, scroll past, click through to. On Twitter, for example, each tweet’s timestamp — 17 min, 42 min, 3 hr — announces time since. Time, rather than passing, continuously refreshes. The latest is, of course, predicated by news, or by whatever resembles news. The unrelenting present is continuously under threat of assault from the caprice of one man’s sleepless whims. A new sense of dread accompanies checking one’s phone in the morning. It can feel like waking up and tuning in to the apocalypse.

 

- The more I stay off the internet, the more sense life makes to me.
 

Also, remember if something is making you miserable, you do have the power to change it - in work or love or whatever it may be. Have the guts to change. You don’t know how much time you’ve got on this earth so don’t waste it being miserable. I know that is said all the time but it couldn’t be more true.

- Before she died, Holly Butcher wrote a letter to the world.
 

A Happy (Feminist) Marriage to You

(This appeared as a version of my Aunty Feminist column in Youth Ki Awaaz in October 2016) 

T asks: I am 27, and am planning to have an arranged marriage. Tinder, OKC, Aisle etc, failed to find a match for me so I have never been in a relationship. Could you point out the sexist things men do in a relationship and how to resolve it? Also, what can I do to empower my future spouse?

Dear T,

These are both excellent questions, and I congratulate you on wanting to be more informed before you make these hugely important decisions. So many people don't. It's basically the equivalent of reading the user manual before you begin.

I think this is a good first step to answer the second part of your question. What can I do to empower my future spouse—you do what you've just done. You ask. You make it known that you are going through life as her partner and companion, not her boss or her jailer. If she's feeling like she hasn't got what she needs from you, in terms of support, you need to foster an environment in your home where she's okay asking. And you're okay asking too! This is not a one-way street: marriage is about two people (and only two people, not four or five or twenty, like Indian extended families seem to believe!) having each other's backs. Those are the best relationships I've seen.

You also need to live by that millennial phrase (which the New York Times called “narcissistic” but still good advice) “you do you.” Let your wife be herself. Allow for a relationship with no judgements, and safe spaces to talk about yourselves. It is possible to have a relationship with no judgements at all, and that will happen once you are both secure enough to speak your minds freely.

As for the first part of your question, it got me thinking. Women object to sexist remarks primarily when they can be avoided. Like, for example, I'm having a fight with a male colleague and I tell him his work is not up to standard and he really let me down by missing this deadline. And instead of responding with either a justification or a critique of my work (“well, your deadlines haven't been that great either!”) he says, “Why are you being so emotional?” That derails the whole conversation because it brings it from a conversation about work to a conversation about how I'm feeling and how I'm reacting, which is really not the point in question here. That automatically puts the woman on the back foot. Similarly in a relationship, when you're having a fight with your male partner and he puts your entire fight down to the fact that you might be on your period. A) Women can get mad without hormones being involved. B) Someone being on their period is not a Get Out Of Jail Free card for the other person. 

 

When you are with someone—whether man or woman—you need to think of them as a whole person and not just a supporting character in a play you're the star of. This may seem pretty obvious, but you'd be surprised how easy it is to forget. That person you're bringing down has a whole play going on that's just about her, and so on and so forth. So when you say something guaranteed to slice at her sense of self, her ego, little paper cuts guaranteed to bring her down, take a moment to remember that you, a supporting character in her play, have just turned her plot into one about how a man was determined to believe that all her flaws were because she was female.

Another thing to bear in mind before you embark upon marriage is the very essential and often overlooked conversation about gender roles. Who does what? What do you expect and what does she? Honestly, if you're both arguing about cooking, either take turns or hire someone to help out. Or put aside a large chunk of your monthly budget on home delivery. If you think the laundry should be done once a week and the beds made every day, do these things yourself or offer to take turns. Similarly with the stuff that's important to her. This may seem like a small step, but it's leading up to bigger ones: dividing child care and elder care fairly and responsibly.

But you know what, dear T? I think even though you've never been in a relationship before, that you'll do great. Because you're not afraid to ask difficult questions, and I hope, you're not afraid to hear the answers as well. And that's really most of what it takes.

Love,

Aunty Feminist

Gymkhana, Gympeena

In Delhi in the summer, the young man's fancy turns to thoughts of... club membership. Now, I am not a member of the several elite clubs that Delhi has—the Gymkhana, the Golf Club, all those Ye Olde Establishment places which smack of generations of privilege able to isolate themselves effectively from the world outside and pretend like they're back during the times of the Raj or whatever era they prefer, ignoring that in the times of the Raj, they wouldn't have been allowed into the Gymkhana club in the first place.

Do I sound jealous? Perhaps I am, a little bit. Membership-only clubs are usually great value—you get the whole experience for a yearly subscription free; cheap alcohol, decent food, vast libraries, swimming pools, tennis courts, the works. Staff that's worked there for years and years so they say hello to you when they see you and you can feel just as if you're at home. Some clubs are even generational, so membership passes on to your kids as soon as they're old enough, effectively shutting out any new members who might want to apply. (There's a lottery for new members, but this is so rare and elusive, it's usually all done by the time you hear about it.)

However, having grown up in this city, I have been invited as a guest to partake in Delhi's clubs Open Nights, as it were. The Gymkhana Club particularly has a famous Thursday Bar Night, to which everyone who is anyone comes. You'll rub shoulders with top politicians (kids) and top industrialists (kids) and you swig expensive alcohol for half the price it would cost you at a bar, and all around you there are women dressed in shiny, sequinned clothes sweating gently in the summer heat. It's a bit overwhelming if you're not used to it, all of Delhi's rich people in one place?

Many years ago, I dated men who had the Golden Ticket, as it were. I swung up to the club on their arm, tried not to blink in astonishment at all I saw around me, in my gaucheness, even spilled a vodka-orange juice that I was too young to be drinking all over my date's sister. I must have apologised a million times, it was my first time there on a Thursday night, although kind friends had taken me swimming there several years earlier.

I was dressed in what I thought were pretty cool clothes—a Weekender (remember Weekender?) halter top and skinny jeans. The halter top had a shrug to match, my hair was twisted on the top of my head and secured in a bun. I was nineteen, and there was orange juice all over my new clothes as well. When I went off to wash my hands and collect myself, the sister leaned over to my date and said, “She's adorable,” a fact which he later conveyed to me. I felt only relief back then that my drink spilling hadn't ruined everything, but now in retrospect, I'm imagining her saying it, in her not-trying-too-hard clothes, one eyebrow raised. “She's adorable.” There there. Pat pat.


A few years later, Thursday nights were something I was used to. “How nice the Gymkhana club is,” I said once, “I wish I was also a member.” The lady I was talking to, smiled, the hidden “she's adorable” in her voice. “All you have to do is marry a member.”

Maybe that's something that should go in the matrimonial ads of today. Earns such-and-such, height so-and-so, is a member of one of the prestigious clubs. I'm not sure if women can pass on their membership on marriage as well, but somehow, recalling a conversation I once had about a fancy Hyderabad club, I suspect not.


As for me, I pour myself gin and tonics and sit on my couch. The cats may not talk, but they do rub up against me, and so I am recognised. The clubs, I justify to myself, are a really long drive from where I am. My private club has a membership of two, and it's the most exclusive one there is.

(Want more eM + Gymkhana club? Here's a post from the past!)

(A version of this appeared as a column on Newsable)

Will you still need me when I'm 64?

You've seen him at parties, I'm sure. There's always this one guy, salt and pepper hair, with the aura of wisdom and been-there-done-that-ness that is standing with a woman over ten years younger than himself. They seem happy and contented, for the most part. She buzzes about the party, he usually stays in one spot and talks to few people there for the entire evening. It's a May-December romance, the Older Man-Younger Woman romance, a tale as old as time and as cliche as those phrases are.

The first time I encountered it, I was in my early twenties, hanging with a crew also in their early twenties. We were recent graduates, some of us in our first jobs, some of us doing further degrees. We chugged our cheap drinks out of plastic cups and played music very loudly in someone's backyard, occasionally singing along. Into all this, came one of the girls bringing along with her this grey haired man, fathoms older than her, who she introduced as the man she was seeing. I was so taken by this, I even put it in my first novel (written not long after this encounter). Little did I know that evening, that person, that change that came over the gathering would be one of many, many, many meetings I'd have over the years. (I blogged about that night here.) (And no, there's no use asking me who this was or when this was, it's ancient history, bro.)

Now, of course, as we're all in our thirties, dating someone older is not so far-fetched. I like to think of maturity as a water level. It's rising through your teens and twenties, and in your thirties it reaches a plateau where things are stable and you're about as grown up as you're likely to be for the next few decades. Things like parenthood and living on your own and dealing with parents who are getting older all add to your pool of life experience. That, plus the fact that most women mature a lot faster than men leads to an almost ideal relationship when you're in your thirties and the man you're dating is older by a decade. It works.


They say that you choose partners based on your experiences with your opposite sex parent. Boys with mummy issues will choose someone who will remind them—even subconsciously—of their mothers. The same with girls with daddy issues. However, as time goes by, I'm finding this too simplistic an explanation. Perhaps this is a better one: we seek partners who repair a certain imbalance that we have within ourselves. If you are quick to fly off the handle and get stressed easily, you're drawn to the cool, calm energies of another. If you need stability and a routine, you like someone who also craves all those things. Most relationships don't work out only when those complementing energies are off.

Briefly, I went out with an older man myself. I enjoyed playing the “when you were so-and-so age, I was such-and-such” but of course, you can't build a whole relationship on that. I was sad when it ended, but somewhere in the back of my head, I knew it wasn't going to be a forever thing anyway. Not because he was older, but just that we weren't compatible. Maybe I always needed someone who was growing at the same rate I was, so we could have our life experiences together, rather than me relying on him to tell me what it was like.


The interesting thing comes when you begin to analyse your relationships. Do you have a type? And what draws you to these people? It's quite fascinating in the end.

(A version of this appeared as my relationship column on Asianet Newsable.)

The many layers of dating in the same city you grew up in

(This appeared as the new column I'm doing on relationships for Asianet's Newsable.)

(If you'd like to see what I'm reading + writing + doing every week, I now have an email newsletter I'm very excited about! Please subscribe here--there's also a sample newsletter there so you can see what it'll look like.)

Think of your relationship history like an onion. It begins at the tender centre of it and grows outward. Some relationships flake off easily—dry and trashed almost immediately, they have no impact on you. Some are harder to get to and make you cry once you unearth them.  All gather around you in a multi-layered bulb making you the person you are, complete with little roots that go down, deeper into the place you call home.

Now, the problem with living in the same city you grew up in is that you're constantly running into old loves. It's not just the man you dated for a brief and passionate few weeks in your twenties, it's also the boy you once had a crush on, it's also the person you completely alienated, it's also the person who broke your heart once, it's also someone you were once very rude to. It's like watching your history (or herstory) flash by you even when you're doing something as innocent as going out for a coffee. In Delhi, we are the Maya Angelou poem, Reverses, which spoke so much to me that at one point I had it pinned to the bulletin board above my desk.

How often must we
butt to head
Mind to ass
flank to nuts
cock to elbow
hip to toe
soul to shoulder
confront ourselves
in our pasts.

“Hello,” says someone to you, totally innocuously at a party, and you're wondering if they remember what you remember when you see them—considering the last time you saw them you were both standing much closer to each other than you are now. There's always the initial awkwardness, one or both of you are with your new partners, and while you might have a total honest, healthy relationship with the man you're with, the Old Flame may not, and so he's guiding you down the potentially landmine filled path of getting through this conversation without revealing to the woman he's with that he's also (once upon a time) been with you.

For some women, it's a bit harder to date within a city you've always dated. Delhi—like many other big cities in India—is essentially a village when it comes to people you know and people they know. Date one person and check out his “mutual friends” list on Facebook and you uncover a whole other layer of your acquaintances who he's once slept with. Now it's not only the tricky dance of keeping a current partner away from an old one, it's also about being tactful (and subduing feelings of jealousy) when you meet your friend again. Did he do this with her? Did she make him laugh like I do? And when you're the acquaintance and she's the new love, you sometimes see them across the room and a very small, selfish part of your brain says, “I wonder if they're happy.”

Others still try to hide their old lovers from their new ones. Which means every party is a minefield, every casual acquaintance is signalled to with lots of raised eyebrows and mouth movements. “Shut up,” you think frantically, “Don't say that the last time I saw you was at a wedding with the other guy I was with.”

Until eventually—like me—you begin to grow into your onion. There are no longer that many people who elicit a reaction, stories of your earlier more hectic dating life only make you laugh or feel sorry for that younger version of you. You can even smile brightly and offer real blessings to an old flame-turned-friend.



Being unhappy is a habit—like smoking—but so is being happy. And that looks so much better on you.

There are a few things I want to say to young people having sex

Which is not don't have it, because duh. Sex, when done well, is everything they say it is.

Which is how you know it isn't done well: pro tip, btdubs.

Which is there is a point in your life when you feel like all everyone talks about, all everyone is doing, all everyone EVER seems to give one good goddamn about is sex.

Which is true.

But then, you need to have all that sex so you can move past it and be in your thirties and occasionally talk about other things.

Because the people who only talk about sex and getting laid and how many and for how long are probably the people who didn't get it out of their systems when they were in that phase where everyone else was.

Which is--OMG SO IMPORTANT--ladies, pee before and after, if you can. Otherwise you will know the wrath of the angry vagina.

(Which is seriously the most painful thing ever, unless, I assume you have given birth, which you probably have not if you need this advice, but at LEAST at the end of labour you get to go home with a baby and with a UTI all you want to do is sit on the pot and try to pee even though there's nothing left in you to pee out.)

Which is you might think it's easier to have unprotected sex, just because you're DRUNK and HORNY and the person you want to bang is right THERE, and even though you don't have a condom you might go for it anyway, but DON'T.

Which is, waiting for test results is a pretty nerve wracking experience.

Which is, there's a point when all your partners start asking you if you've been tested and you have to tell them something.

Which is, you should start asking your partners the same thing.

Which is try everything once, because that's the way you'll figure out what you want.

And--eh, if you're feeling squeamish about something, you can skip it, but don't skip it on your partner's account because you think they'll think it's weird.

(They might think it's weird.)

(But that's okay.)


Which is blue balls are not a real thing.

So say "stop" whenever you like, ladies.

Gentlemen, please stop.

Which is talk about this shit with your friends.

Which is porn is not real sex.

Which is touch yourself often.

Which is it doesn't matter who you're attracted to.

Which is be all of you and the sex will be five hundred times as good.

Which is a promise.

Mingling Singles: Attending A World Alike Party

A few weekends ago, I went to a singles mixer.

Not because I'm single--I am eternally grateful in the words of When Harry Met Sally to "never be out there again" but because it was run by a friend, and because I was curious and they were like, "Hey, can you come and write about it?" I live for new experiences.

A World Alike is an upmarket event company a "curated network of well-educated singles" that puts together like-minded singles across Delhi (and coming soon to Bombay!) in fun situations. The event I attended was at Pan Asian, and they had a psychic tarot reader and drinks and music.

Pretty Pan Asian party room

To be honest, given my allergy to a certain kind of Delhi person, I wasn't sure how much I'd enjoy it. {You know the kind of Dallyite I mean. They're entitled, they live off Daddy's bucks, in Daddy's house and they don't seem to have any ambition beyond their next good time. People like that make me seriously itchy.} But, thanks to the vetting system they had in place here, I actually met a bunch of really interesting people. (My friend does intense interviews to make sure each member is a proper fit.) 

"The point is not to meet the love of your life," my friend and co-runner, Devina Badhwar assured me, but I did a very unscientific poll, where I spoke to some of the people standing next to me and asked if they were hoping to meet their person. "YES" said the ladies, "NO" said the gentlemen. So there's that. (Later my data got a bit mixed when the ladies said no and the gents said yes, but hey!) From which I surmised that there are always people looking for their next big date, and there are always people looking for a good time. Neither of which is a bad thing. I like dates. I like good times.

But what struck me most was the atmosphere. It felt like an upgraded house party. People shifted from group to group chatting, and if I were ever alone in a corner (as I get sometimes when I get the Shys) someone would wander over to me and ask me about myself. It was nice. It's definitely something this city needs. Imagine if AWA had existed when I moved back to Delhi four years ago, looking for new friends. It would've been awesome.

WHEE NEW BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE!!

Listen, it's really hard to make new friends--especially in a city like Delhi, especially when you're in your 30s and everyone around you seems to be all about marriage and babies--sometimes you'd just like to kick back with a few people who are in the same place as you, thinking about your career, hoping to meet someone, yes, but not making that the entire focus of your life.

It's a really good thing they're doing--and if I were single myself, I'd join and go to a bunch of their parties. Sometimes you've gotta do things for yourself. That's the biggest lesson I learned when I was single: doing new things opens up the door for others.

As for the tarot reader? She predicted I will never be rich, but I will hit Big Fame by the end of next year, so, um, watch this space?

Terrible photo of me and the lovely Devina

This is how you lose him

(With due apology to Junot Diaz)

First, take a man you’ve known for a while: any sort of man, and add intimacy worn thin from a few months or years or weeks, whatever it takes for all that is shiny to become dull. The dullness should resemble the gold around the edges of your grandmother’s sari — bright when she was a teenage bride — worn to skinny threads from years of disappointment.

This man should be the kind of man you wanted a few months ago (let’s say six) and now no longer do; this man should be the sort of man who is impossible to get rid of, because each time you try, he gazes at you with forlorn eyes, he sends you message upon message, and it’s sad, almost pathetic, because with every attempt he makes to ingratiate himself with you, it’s like he’s putting a noose of neediness around your throat.

Scenario One:

“Be honest,” say your friends, and so you try honesty.

“I’m sorry, this isn’t working out.”

And he bursts into great, noisy tears, or if he’s a macho man, a relic of a time gone by, he’ll call you a bitch or a cunt. Delhi men love to toss around the “b” word liberally; just smile and think of your pet Labrador, a ten-year-old bitch, with the sweetest disposition of any dog you know.

Honesty is really the best policy because it will drive home your point, and sure, you’ll get name-called for a while, but likely, as soon he leaves you, he’ll call his friends and get very drunk and you’ll never hear from him again except in a drunk dial.

Scenario Two:

Perhaps you’re more of the blushing flower type. You hate conflict, any bad blood makes your stomach tie up in twisty little knots harder to get rid of than the airport zip tie on your suitcase.

Ghost it. Vanish quietly from his life, making yourself scarcer and scarcer until he’s not sure whether you ever really existed. He will message you incessantly, he will call till you wonder how many missed calls your phone can even register. He will appear at your work, at your home.

He might be thick-skinned, like the Greater One Horned Rhinoceros, but sadly, unlike that species, his type isn’t extinct. Far from it. You’ll have to ghost till you wonder whether you had a relationship at all, so far have you run from it. 

It is imperative to make sure all versions of you have also vanished: and this includes your social media. That means compulsive tweeters will have to keep their thoughts to themselves, Instagrammers will have to deal with all that food and no one to see it, and Facebookers will have to do that dreaded status update: “Taking a break from Facebook for a while!”

Scenario Three:

You haven’t had any fun in a while (you poor thing.) Maybe there’s a way to make this enjoyable for you. Take inspiration from two of history’s greatest divas: Scarlett O’Hara and Lindsay Lohan. You’ll teeter totter between the two like you’re wearing seventeen-inch heels on a slippery ramp, with tape stuck over your nipples.

As Scarlett, you bat your eyelashes at everybody and nobody goes free, not even your best friend’s husband. You laugh a lot, and toss your hair, and stomp all over his feelings. Perhaps in the same seventeen-inch heels. “Why didn’t you call me back yesterday?” he might ask, and you say, “Did you call me yesterday? Oh, silly me, I must have forgot.” Perhaps as Scarlett, you’ll even want to keep him around for a bit, another adoring lapdog for your brood.

As Lindsay Lohan, there are no lines for you to cross: unless it’s a line of cocaine. You dance on table tops at fancy bars, every night, there’s a Uber cab calling you for directions and you “simply don’t have any time, darling, maybe we can meet next week.”  He might leave you for a more domestic model, a Maruti to your Mini Cooper, but he might also be so excited by your new wild self that he’ll never leave. And you’ll wonder as you carry your heels in one hand climbing up the stairs: how long can I keep this up?

A caveat: don’t get arrested, don’t drive drunk, and try and not do any drugs. 

(Wrote this originally for POPxo, a while ago.)

The Top Seven Dudes I'd Most Like To Bang In Literary History

HAWT FOR DISABILITY AND LOOKING AFTER DUDES BUT REALLY HAVE YOU READ JANE EYRE IT IS A FEMINIST MANI-FUCKING-FESTO OF THIS ORPHAN GIRL WHO BASICALLY CONQUERS THE WHOLE DAMN PLANET AND HARRY POTTER AT LEAST HAD A WAND TO DO IT WITH, JANE HAD NOTHING, NOT EVEN A BEAUTIFUL FACE AND SUCK IT, WORLD.

  
   Mr Rochester, Jane Eyre: Mr Rochester had everything going for him to keep a reader hooked from beginning to end. From his mad wife in the attic (spoiler!) to his love for plain Jane, to the tragic way he goes blind at the end, I’d love to walk about the moors with him—in more ways than one.

Favourite line: I offer you my hand, my heart. Jane, I ask you to pass through life at my side. You are my equal and my likeness. Will you marry me? 

       HELLO FORMER DOUCHEBAG TURNED GOOD BASICALLY THIS IS A DELHI MAN. FITZWILLIAM DARCY IS ALL SORTS OF INFURIATING BUT YOU LIKE TO THINK THEY MADE A GOOD MARRIAGE AND SETTLED DOWN AND SHE DIDN'T TAKE MUCH SHIT FROM HIM

Mr Darcy, Pride And Prejudice: Mr Darcy, Mr Darcy. Whether it’s Colin Firth playing him as the moody, sullen man who comes around because of TRUE LOVE, or just your imagination filling in the blanks, who could deny this love story about a rich but proud man and a poor but smart woman and everything that happened in between? 

Favourite line: "In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." 

I'M JUST A TEENAGE DIRTBAG BABY. BUT ALSO IF YOU WERE THE KIND OF GIRL WHO LOVED HOLDEN GROWING UP YOU'D BE A CERTAIN KIND OF ADULT NOW WHICH MEANS YOU AND I COULD BE FRIENDS AND EVERYONE IS A PHONY 

Holden Caulfield, The Catcher In The Rye: Holden was more of a teenage romance, the boy you gazed at in class, the boy who you wanted to comfort and reassure that the world wasn’t terrible. He tries to run away with a girl he knows, but she rejects him. You wouldn’t, would you?

Favourite line: “I was half in love with her by the time we sat down.  That's the thing about girls.  Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are.  Girls.  Jesus Christ.  They can drive you crazy.  They really can.”

    EVERY GIRL NEEDS A MAN WHO TELLS HER WHAT TO DO IN AN AUTHORITATIVE FASHION AND CLAIMS TO LOVE HER FOR WHO SHE IS ONLY TO INSIST SHE CHANGE EVERYTHING ABOUT HERSELF WHEN SHE MARRIES HIM

    Rhett Butler, Gone With The Wind: This swoony Southern novel has everything you need for a good, old fashioned drama. Not least of all, the tale of Rhett Butler, who loved Scarlett O’Hara, who was foolish enough to spend her life pining for a wimpy man married to her best friend. Sounds like a high school romance? Most of this book is, except set during the Civil War times.

 Favourite line: “No, I don’t think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That’s what’s wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how.”

OMG THE BOY NEXT DOOR AND AMY MARCH IS A BOYFRIEND-STEALING HARLOT 

Laurie, Little Women: Is there anyone on this great, big planet who wasn’t disappointed when Jo March went for an old German professor as opposed to Laurie,  her lively best friend from next door? And then Laurie went and married Jo’s sister, Amy, which was complete and utter betrayal. Regardless, some of Laurie and Amy’s romancing was quite sweet, even if she did steal her sister’s boyfriend. (I never liked Amy.)

Favourite line: “ Someday you’ll find a man, a good man, and you’ll love him, and marry him, and live and die for him. And I’ll be hanged if I stand by and watch.”

 
AND OF COURSE YOU'VE GOTTA MARRY YOUR BFF, JO MARCH. LOOK HOW NICELY ANNE DID IT. EVEN THOUGH JESUS H CHRIST, GILBERT, SLAP ON A CONDOM ONCE IN A WHILE, YOU ARE A DOCTOR AND SEVEN CHILDREN IS QUITE A LOT


Gilbert Blythe, Anne of The Island: Gilbert Blythe doesn’t get the best introduction, as he meets our heroine by calling her names for her red hair. But over the years—and the books—he redeems himself, even when she claims to be in love with someone else. The two truly have a happy ever after, with lots of children and grandchildren. 

 

Favourite line: “I have a dream,” he said slowly. “I persist in dreaming it, although it has often seemed to me that it could never come true. I dream of a home with a hearth-fire in it, a cat and dog, the footsteps of friends – and you!”

EVERYONE HAS DADDY ISSUES. ALSO I'M IN MY THIRTIES NOW. I'M ATTICUS'S AGE. THAT MAKES ME FEEL PRETTY DAMN ANCIENT BUT ALSO LESS CREEPY FOR THINKING THAT HE SOUNDS QUITE HOT.  ALSO HI GREGORY PECK YOU HANDSOME DEVIL YOU.

Atticus Finch, To Kill A Mockingbird: Atticus Finch had no great romance in this classic book about America’s South, but didn’t he just seem like the best person ever? Sure, you’d have to put up with his two kids, but they seemed nice, and he was just so awesome with his progressive thinking and his amazing lawyering.  Move over, Harvey Whatsyourname.

Favourite line: "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

(A version of this appeared in Popxo.com)

eM’s Spring Wedding Lessons for the Wedding Attendee

Tis the season to get married,

Fa la la la la la la,

All around me brides are harried,

Fa la la la la la la,

Punjabi music fills the air

Fa la la la la la la,

Five drinks down, and I no longer care,

FA LA LA LA LA LA LAAAAAAAAA.

So, January, February, March. Three months, four almost back-to-back weddings. This was an unusual year for me, I think I've last done so many weddings in a row at the end of my twenties, when everyone was looking around themselves frantically and thinking, "You'll do!" Then there was a breather, with one to no invites, and then suddenly, the second wave.

The second wave hits when you think your days of wedding revelry are behind you. Second Wavers tend to have met in their 30s, and have fixed ideas about the kind of wedding they want. The Second Wave couples tend to be relaxed about most of the nitty gritty, not exhausting themselves with too much tamasha, an eye for the littler details, no doubt picked up from years of attending weddings themselves. Marriages of the Second Wave are usually attended by the Perpetually Single, the About To Get Married Soons and the New Parents. Some of the Second Wave have very fixed ideas about how they want to do the ceremony, the others are more go with the flow about it.

I also attended the wedding of another wave that's going to be rolling in soon enough: Your Friend's Younger Sibling. Yes, the child that followed you and your friend around, the teen you passed on life lessons to, the closest thing you had to your own younger siblings are now (sniff) all grown up.

Lessons I have learned from weddings:

1) Find your people: An average Indian wedding lasts about three days. You need to identify your "group," because you will be seeing these people a LOT. Spend the whole first Young People's Gathering or whatever making friends, so you're not awkwardly standing around bobbing your head to the music all alone.
 

2) Find your drink: Cold = rum, whiskey. Hot = beer, cocktail. I mixed wine and lived to regret it. Big mistake, since weddings tend to run evening-morning-evening, so you need to be bright eyed and bushy tailed the next day.

3) Phone battery is crucial: Also, ask the bride and groom for their Instagram hashtag. What do you mean they don't have an Instagram hashtag? They need one to collect all the photos.

4) OH MY GOD COMFORTABLE SHOES AND A WARM THING BECAUSE IF YOU AREN'T WARM AND NON-SHOE-BITEY THEN THE WORLD IS A CRUEL PLACE ESPECIALLY IN CHHATTARPUR.

5) Fuck the fancy clothes: Listen, have fun with your fashion choices. If you like your long dress, wear the goddamn long dress and don't worry that everyone else will be in a sari and dripping with gold. Are you a dripping in gold kinda person? You are not.

6) Identify your wedding LOVAH: Assuming you are single. The Good Thing is a great wedding date, but he also gets a home-free pass from me, because poor thing didn't sign up for Delhi Social Season when he signed up for me, so he gets to stay home for the second thing or the third thing. (He does like the food though.) But from watching single friends, you'll have one boy/girl you'll gravitate towards, and then set it up and be a Flirt Monster, except make sure he's not coming to the next wedding you have to go to, because awkward! By the way, I did this once, several years ago, and THEN, after three days of CAREFUL setting up, the boy turned up with a DATE for the reception. So there's that.

UPDATE WITH SUGGESTIONS FROM FRIENDS

7) Wedding snacks & wedding food: The snacks are usually what will fill you up and keep you. Identify the caterer as soon as you can, are they better for a particular kind of cuisine? Most wedding hosts like to have a variety of snacks on hand to fulfil the needs of all their guests, but as a special snowflake, and one who's read this list, you know to zero in on the best item. Eat that item. Ignore all rest.

8) Plan for downtime: There might be a week to four days between each wedding (I had two weeks off before the last one), and then you're going to want to catch up with all your friends, as well as spend a few days just in your pajamas. Try and do both or by the time the next one comes around, you'll be ex-haus-ted. No one likes a tired bunny, plus you need the same level of enthusiasm for each wedding or else it wouldn't be fair.

Have any more thoughts and suggestions? Leave them in the comments!

The Right To Not Get Married

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a couple who have been dating for over a year must think of marriage.

Every few months, a friend will send me a single line email or Facebook message: “Can I have your mailing address?” And you know that’s shorthand for an announcement of a wedding invitation.

You know that soon enough a gilded envelope will lie at your doorstep, three cards will fall out, and usually, in the movies, this is where there’d be a close-up of your face looking bitterly disappointed, and/or wistful, another one biting the dust, and you still there, still right where they left you.

***

It’s going on two and a half years now since the Good Thing and I first got together. It’s like The Cure song for the most part:

Whenever I am alone with you,

You make me feel like I am home again.

We don’t want to get married. We don’t want to get married right this moment, and we may never feel the need to. We’re happy existing in the sphere we’re in—two happy people in a happy relationship.

But from the outside, I suppose our relationship looks vague and undefined to most people. Technically, we don’t live together. Technically, my flat is here, in Delhi, and his flat is there, in Mumbai. We’re discussing changing this: to make it one flat, but that is less of a commitment thing and more of a “shall we save some money?” thing. Our relationship is driven by practicality.

Why change anything?

***

This past month has been a whirlwind of weddings; I have literally been for two in a row, with overlapping dates, and have a third one coming up tomorrow.

In my experience, weddings are largely when two people who have been in a steady relationship for a while begin to get The Question: So, when are you guys getting married? Sometimes it’s not even a question, it’s more like, “When you guys get married, we’ll do so-and-so.”

At a dinner party on Monday my friend Mohit, freshly back in the city from a round of family weddings, said he’d been asked The Question so often that he’d decided to get married.

Mohit doesn’t have a lady friend, as far as I know, but he said the next nice girl he met, he’d just ask, straight out. 

“Tell me something,” I said, “Have you ever met a married couple who said, ‘Oh my god, you must get married’?”

“I know lots of happy couples,” he said.

“Yes, happy couples, sure, but does anyone advocate getting married?” And he thought about it and said no.

Even some of the coolest people I know, happily married, would balk a bit at offering you this advice. It’s getting easier around married couples to say you don’t want to marry; they accept this as a truth and move on.

It’s the single people who want you to commit, commit, commit, just to add another happy myth to the walls of an institution that is increasingly crumbling.

***

At one of the best weddings I’ve ever been to—a three day drunk fest in Goa—I caught a quiet moment with the bride.

“Don’t get married,” she said, tilting her head back and gazing at the party surrounding us, “Trust me. Just don’t.”

If you ask most couples in India why they decided to legally bind to each other, there’s usually just one main answer: our parents wanted us to.

Your parents, though loving and kind, still belong to a generation before, where marriage equaled security, where a man you might love, and who might love you, could still scamper off without a word of warning unless you married him.

***

I am definitely not inured to the manufactured longing, I realised, after another friend recently announced her engagement leaving me a bit misty eyed.

I do want the pomp and circumstance, picking pretty clothes and people making much of you, I do want the parties where everyone gets together and wishes you well, I do want the big old engagement story.

But do I want a marriage?

I’d like to be able to make up my own mind on that last point. My mother is, for the most part, managing to be quite cool, but she really really wants us to get married.

Why? I don’t know. I guess she thinks it’ll add some security, but marriages aren’t always secure. Some stability? But what would change in our lives if we were to tie the knot? I can’t see anything being any different except for a piece of paper.

Sometimes I feel like one of my characters, Ladli, from my recent novel Cold Feet, who ponders:

One by one, over the years, my friends have been getting married. It started with a trickle and grew to a tide. Now, people call me months in advance to warn me about their weddings in the winter—the most popular time—and usually, I have to juggle between three or four weddings every season. It’s one of the things that make me think I’m getting older, like marriage is part of a checklist I should be crossing off, this is my role as an adult woman. I make my own family, having risen from my parents’ family, and so on and so forth. Sometimes I think there’s something wrong with me for not wanting marriage enough, for not making it a priority. How do I know marriage isn’t my priority? I’ve seen people who’ve made it theirs, and their goals and their focus are so different from mine. I drift and they aim; I am a piece of wood, they are arrows. I am of the school of thought that I’ll get there eventually, refusing to believe in the existence of mortality or ageing. I’ve looked the same age since I was in my early 20s, and this makes me think my womb too is youthful-looking.

I suppose it might be different if you want children, although having a ‘bastard’ out of wedlock is no longer that much of a social stigma.

I want to not get married but I want the freedom to have a child. I want to not get married but live with my chosen partner and grow old together, and have his name on my insurance and my name on his, and now it’s becoming a matter of principle.

I don’t want to get married just to make my life easier—that’s no reason to get hitched (although if it came down to it, it probably would be the only reason.)

And I do feel bad, I truly do, that the right I'm giving up on, have it, have it please, is the same piece of paper that other couples are trying so hard to win despite loving someone of the same gender or of a different belief or caste.

For many, marriage for love is something they feel they will never have and don't want to give away; but for many, I suspect, marriage too has become more a right that we can’t give away.

Meanwhile divorce rates continue rising, brides and grooms are grouchy in the build-up to their weddings, and the couples I know that are really, truly happy in each other’s company are few and far between.

May we live happily ever after—in whatever way we want to be.

Image via Google/Kelly Kincaid