The Internet Personified: Exotic is as exotic does
Dear friend,
I'm sorry for neglecting you these past few weeks. I'm not sure you even noticed, but I was taking a bit of a break from writing (except a deadline, except a few tweets). I reached the climax of my book, the very end, and then I suddenly couldn't go on anymore. I was depressed, beaten back, unable to go on, and I concluded that I had basically burned out. Burn out is not as sexy as I thought it was going to be. In the past, it conjured up images of, oh I don't know, lots of partying, maybe a pile of cocaine on top of a table neon lit, me in a slutty red dress, manic. In reality, I wore pajamas. In reality, all it was was a feeling of not being able to Make Words Happen. I lay low; depressed and anti-social. I watched some TV, tried to read, met a few friends when I could. I couldn't sleep very well, but when I fell asleep, I slept for hours on end. I smoked more than I have been in the past few months. It was not very fun, but thankfully, it only lasted a little while, and I emerged to a birthday and a wedding, and I had my holiday to look forward to, and here I am, on said holiday, and finally, I am feeling the need to put fingers to keyboard once more, so hurrah, she says, tentatively.
ugh, sometimes writing for a living feels like so much WORK.
***
One of the other reasons I was stressing out more than uzh, is the stupid visa process. Now, I am married to a German, so you'd think life would get easier, but it has not. Life is still the same old here are my hundred kilos of documents so you'll let me into your country, thank you SO much, sorry to be a bother and a brown person from an undesirable country! I mean, surely every Indian knows that nagging feeling at the back of your head, "Maybe this time they'll reject my visa" because even though we've got a visa to the same country before, maybe this time the visa official is feeling contrary/one of your papers isn't up to code, because you haven't told them the names you've chosen for your future children/maybe you're older/weaker/more of a liability. Imagine me spinning around, singing this next line like the older woman in a Broadway musical: Maybe this time, they'll say they hate me, maybe this time, it's a noooooo.
Anyhow, long story short, sat about at VFS two and a half weeks before. Two days before, still no visa, utter panic, looking up the flight to see if we could cancel it. K wrote to the embassy, who replied very politely and promptly, and I finally got the visa by the skin of my teeth. I had asked for a longer one this time, supplemented by a letter from my father-in-law inviting me to come and stay, and normally, my visa is for exactly the ticket dates, one month total, so I was hopeful I'd get a multiple entry one for five years since I had explained the situation so nicely, and given them all my paperwork. But, once again, the visa gods at the German consulate decided to give me from ticket start to well, two weeks after my return ticket. So, at least it's something, I suppose.
The other night, we had a party at home and a bunch of us were sitting in the balcony talking about the rudest countries when you get to the immigration lines, and the one white person sitting with us just looked completely shocked, like jesus, can't believe this happens, and we all laughed wryly, "Heathrow is nothing compared to California!" "California? You want to try New York for a whole new level of rude." "The random spot checking in Paris though, that's just racist" etc etc.
I mean, I acknowledge my privilege to be able to travel for pleasure and so on, but the dance of Please Like Me, Please See I'm The Sort of Person Who Won't Overstay Her Welcome each time is hard to do.
***
I am two days into my holiday. We're starting out in a small village outside Frankfurt, where K's dad stays. The house is a renovated abbey, where each wing has been turned into large apartments. There are woods outside, with actual deer. K's dad says the deer are destroying some of his trees, stripping the bark off and killing the young saplings. He's put up wire around some trees, but the deer are still getting to them. He has a special device in the lawn which lets out a sound if you approach it from underground, to keep the moles away. There are no willows, or I'd make a Wind In The Willows joke. There are some hares, young ones, and a grove of elder trees, whose berries and flowers--elderflowers--I only know from this one fancy cocktail you get at PCO. There's an apple tree, and plum trees, and raspberry bushes groaning with fruit. I've only ever eaten raspberries in fancy tarts, and I don't like tarts, so I associate it with one of those pastries, and tentatively eat one, but it is sweet and surprisingly mild, very like a mulberry in texture and taste.
Life has taken on a dreamy quality, but this could also be because we're jetlagged, another ailment that sounds more glamorous than it actually is. In reality, last night I went to sleep at 10.30 pm German time (1.45 in Delhi) and woke up this morning at 6.15 am though I tried and tried to go back to sleep. It is 10.31, and I have already checked my email and showered and breakfasted and am ready, in fact, for a mid-morning snack of some sort, not surprising because it is 2 pm in Delhi and my body knows when it wants things and will not be fooled by the mild morning sunshine or the time on the clock. (Also why this newsletter is less rambling than normal, I'm also ready for a nap.)
***
Yesterday we drove around all day, first to a little medieval village and then for some office work where K and his dad disappeared inside and I sat in the waiting room, reading my book, waiting to be turfed out, because this woman kept going back and forth from the reception to the outside, and shooting me looks and I was dreading it but also it was a GREAT RELIEF when she finally asked me (in German, but I got the gist) whether I was waiting for someone and I said (sign language + English) that I was waiting for the people in that office over there, and she said, "AH, TOGEZZER?" and I nodded and we were both very pleased that the ordeal was over, and she didn't come back out into the waiting room again before K and his dad returned, and that was my first non-supervised conversation with a stranger, because all I have been doing till now is smiling maniacally at waiters while K orders for both of us. (Two days, though, and thanks to a few German lessons I did plus watching a German TV show, plus general osmosis, I think I am following more of the language than before, it's just my crippling shyness that stops me from saying anything, so I have decided to PRETEND like I am this super confident woman called, oh, Nadia or something, and Nadia would never be embarrassed by knowing that someone wanted to know what she was doing in the waiting room of an office, Nadia would think it was her RIGHT, just as she did in India, never mind the language. Nadia is not a very nice person, actually, but at least when I channel Nadia, I feel a little more confident in my endeavours.)
As always you can follow my travels on Instagram by clicking here or by following me: @decemberschild.
Stuff I wrote that's not my book and that's been published since:
A Mythology for the Millennial column about a Gujarati folk tale I kinda loved. The folk tale ones don't get the trolls that the other Hindu myths do, so please read it and give it some love ANYWAY. (My favourite recent angry tweet: "How can you call the vedas mythology? They are pure science!")
“I'm Prince Wait,” he says, because of course that's his name, and I feel like this name should be a clue about how long you'll be hanging out fully dressed in the living room while your husband takes ten thousand years just to get out of the shower, but the princess — unlike me — is super delighted. As I suppose is natural, seeing as she's been living alone and godly-ly all these years.
Three essential links!
Loved this excerpt from a new book on the life of murdered Pakistani model/social media influencer Qandeel Baloch.
She is being noticed. Now, when she is invited on to the morning shows, she is singing less and talking more about the videos she puts up. The English-language newspapers have also taken note. “Who is Qandeel Baloch and what is she doing on my timeline?” asks an article on the website of the newspaper Dawn. “Facebook has a new bug and its name is Qandeel Baloch.” There is curiosity. Who is this girl? Is she really this cartoonish in real life?
Roxane Gay on "clapping back" ie replying to your critics online. I'm of the Ignore Them school of thought myself, but now I'm wondering if I should just do this instead. (No excerpt because it's on Medium and has gone behind a paywall which usually vanishes once I open in a private window but isn't doing that either, so yes, good story, read if you can.)
Are we at peak personal newsletter, she asks in her personal newsletter. I love newsletters. I wish India had more, it feels like when I used to visit all these blogs and we had a whole community but ufff, some mornings I spend HOURS just reading all of them and maybe I've signed up to too many. (PS: my favourite Indian news newsletter is Broadsheet, which you should also subscribe to.)
Here was a writer I admired finally coming up for air after slamming her heart repeatedly against a wall, just as I was. And here she was telling me about it in what felt like a one-on-one format, a diary entry with her as the pen and me as the page.
And the rest
The mysterious death of a scientist in Antarctica.
The ferocious heat in Delhi.
Sikh truckers in America.
The New York Times got a bunch of YA writers to do little stories based on vintage photographs.
Don't get married.
The power wars of a playschool in Brooklyn.
Plant parenthood is also a thing you should be responsible about.
Have a great week! I'll write again sooner than you think.
xx
m
Where am I? The Internet Personified! A mostly weekly collection of things I did/thought/read/saw that week.
Who are you? Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, writer of internet words (and other things) author of seven books (support me by buying a book!) and general city-potter-er.
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