The Internet Personified: Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there'll be sun

I don't know why I'm taking this Trump election so personally. I've asked a number of my friends why they think I am. After all, he's not MY president, it's not MY country, and while we, all the way here in India, might feel some of the repercussions, we're not actually affected. The three reasons that came back to me were 1) after Brexit, after Trump, after Modi, the world is telling us we don't count. 2) The world hates women, and we might as well get used to it and 3) drink your drink and don't worry about it so much. I used to be an apolitical person, but in the past few years, I've had to get interested, get involved, because otherwise the other side wins.

And the other big event that happened this week, when our money suddenly became just pieces of paper. I'm trying to see how long I can go by just using my digital wallet. So far, so good. I need no small-cash supplies, and I haven't been to an ATM since the day it was announced. Even our maid asked for a cheque this month instead of cash, so we're good. I have 300 rupees in my wallet, and so far, except paying 10 bucks for parking, I haven't had to use any of it. It amazes me though, when on my Facebook people are posting about the long lines at the banks, about poor people standing for hours to exchange their precious savings, how some of the responses are so blind, people going, "OH YEAH? BUT MODI IS AWESOME. HOW DARE YOU SUGGEST OTHERWISE?" Ugh. I'm not even sure this whole Bring Back The Black is going to work, since I assume people with large amounts of cash to shift around have many ways to turn the black into white.

Anyway, those are my musings on the major events of the week. Onward to more cheerful things. (All my .gifs are of cute things this week because we need them, so enable images to enjoy.)

This week in food and drink: My lovely friends Sam and Mansha (hi!) took me out for a very early birthday lunch yesterday. (I will be spending my actual birthday next month in Goa.) We were supposed to go to En, a Japanese place in Mehrauli, but right next door to En, is a restaurant called Lavash by Saby, which I had heard very good things about. There was even a great Mint article about behind-the-scenes at Lavash, which you can read about here. It totally lived up to the hype, the decor, first off, is GORGEOUS, and they had the same plates as Niyati (*waves*) had given us as a housewarming present, so it felt like home already. Then the cocktails, oh my god, you guys, the cocktails are totally ON POINT: I had some spicy vodka thing (because obvs) and then a mahua-gin thing served in a small brass pail. And we ate everything on the menu. Totally recommend. Especially because they have a lovely little balcony, which, I know, you're not supposed to be sitting outdoors in this weather, but the afternoon is slightly safer than the nighttime, so go in the day time like we did and have a leisurely lunch.

This week in Doing Things: Stopped by at the Youth Ki Awaaz conference Converge Now yesterday. As you know, I've been writing my Aunty Feminist column for them for some time, so they were like, "Come, say hi!" and I did. It was a very Youth-y conference, at Zorba on MG Road, the open air amphitheatre filled with college kids. Everyone who registered got a free meal, and nice meals they were too--kebabs and dosas and chaat and all sorts of exciting looking things. (I was going off to my birthday lunch after, so I just looked.) It was also super inclusive--there were two sign language interpreters translating everything that was said on stage, and just when I was wondering if there were any deaf people there at all even to take advantage of this, I saw a bunch of them, up close next to the interpreters. The best seats--sofas at the back--were empty and when I sat in one, someone told me they were reserved for senior citizens, or people with disabilities, so I moved to a grassy spot. (Later, however, the sofas too were occupied by people who did not belong to either category, but I liked that they were reserved anyway. A lot of inclusive conferences/lit fests could learn a lot from this.) The talks--the ones I managed to catch anyway--were good too. I saw Twitter star Sabbah Haji talking about her school in Himalayas which looks amazing, and a reporter talked about the need for more toilets, and Monica Khangebam talked about racism towards people in the North East, drawing from her airport experience that went viral recently. All in, great experience. Oh plus, we all got goodie bags with this really nice notebook in it that I've turned into my new bullet journal.

This week in stuff I wrote: A Zen fable-esque relationship column on my garden and how it represents the various kinds of friendships. ** As Aunty Feminist on how I used a "code" to help me feel like a girl and how that relates to chivalry and patriarchy. **

This week in binge-TV: Very much enjoyed The Crown, streaming on Netflix. Huge, gorgeous drama around the life of the current Queen of England. My only complaint is that at times they tried to be too accurate and that made the story slow down a lot. However, it was all very pretty and very British royalty, which I'm a sucker for. Up next on my queue: Victoria!

Reading list: (Both v depressing, so skip if you like.) DD on demonitisation. ** Twitter collection of racist actions one day after Trump was elected. **

Have a better week than last one!
xx
m