The Internet Personified: Flick your cigarette and kiss me
Hello humans,

This week I got into a passionate discussion with a friend about how much I hated the epilogue of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows. First: it's very unlikely that you fall in love and marry and pop out three kids with your high school sweetheart, I mean, okay, maybe not UNLIKELY, but definitely a little icky, right? Secondly, none of those couples had anything in common with each other. I'm not a Harry/Hermione shipper, but Harry told everyone more than he told Ginny. Mostly, his adventures were confined to co-adventurers Ron and Hermione, with no room for anyone else, even the girl he supposedly loved. And before that, he turned to a zillion people for advice: Dumbledore, Sirius, Remus, Hagrid, even LUNA, but he never seemed to do that much with Ginny except grab her and passionately make out in corners and rooms and whatnot. Out of this you're telling me that they should get married? Please.
Secondly, even Joanne HERSELF admitted that putting Ron and Hermione together was a mistake. What does whip smart Hermione have in common with an open mouthed, slightly bumbling fool? Ron is great, don't get me wrong, but he's really.. thick, and most of the adventures have Harry and Hermione doing all the work while Ron follows along behind, bleating. Now, I get that Hermione had this huge crush on him, so yeah, kiss him. Have sex with him even. Just don't MARRY him and have his babies.
Thirdly, who calls their child Albus Severus if they don't want their child to be bullied mercilessly?
Fourthly, I refuse to acknowledge the hot mess that is The Cursed Child. So there.
That's my HP Rant, just for you. For those of you who have never "got" Harry Potter, I suggest reading as a sociological experiment. Like, book one is a bit too childish, I agree, but he was eleven. It's a truth universally acknowledged that book three is the best of the books.
(My friend actually has a soft spot for Ron, but then she also supports Mr Bhaer for Jo, so what does she know, really?)
This week in books and reading: I think the theme of the year has been how rich people live. I began with The Nest (a rich family has to figure out how to divide their inheritance), Everybody Rise (a girl joins in with all the one percenters in New York but she's in over her head), Rich And Pretty (two friends, one single one not), The Hopefuls (rich and running for election in DC), The Children (family get together at a lakeside cottage.) Most recently, I read back-to-back, my friend Diksha Basu's brilliant new book The Windfall (Delhi family strikes it rich, moves to Gurgaon), Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians (CRAZY RICH), and a new mystery novel by Plum Sykes Party Girls Die In Pearls. All were extremely enjoyable, and it's very nice reading about rich people problems, so much more soothing than reading about everyone else's.
This week in books and writing: Did a whirlwind bookstore signing sesh this weekend. At Khan Market: Bahri & Sons, Faqirchand's, Full Circle. In Connaught Place: Amrit Book Co, Jain Book Depot, and Oxford bookstores. In GK1: Full Circle. In Saket: Bahri & Sons and Crossword. In Aurobindo Marg: Midlands. All stores said the book was doing decent sales, seven or eight copies sold at each store over the past week, and now that I've signed the copies, they're all by the front, so hopefully it will help. Also two people bought books WHILE I was signing them, so that's always nice.
I also did a Facebook Live the day before the signing, which was also a little baffling. However, the videos are up on my page, should you need a twenty minute diversion of me talking extempore about the Mahabharata.
And an old blogging acquaintance in Bombay tweeted her thoughts as she read the book--she didn't like the ending much, but hey, take that up with the thousand year old epic, right? Regardless, her review is nuanced and thoughtful and pretty much a rave. Read it here.

This week in TV: While K is away, the mice will... live totally schlubby single lives. Which means sprawling myself across the entire bed and binge watching television. I watched Better Things last week, this hilarious almost anti-Gilmore Girls story of a single mother with three bratty daughters. Plus a twisted complicated relationship with her own mother. Short and quick like M&Ms, you can watch a whole season in one night. Streaming on Hotstar.
Hump day link list: Buzzfeed listicle: things you didn't know about these popular movies. ** Lovely excerpt of Roxane Gay's new book Hunger: my body is a cage of my own making. ** More in the Hindustan Times series on education, on maths and the school system. (Brings back bitter memories of all the remedial maths classes I had to do.) ** Nazi re-enactments are a thing. Oh, America. ** Was v sad when Pottermore sorted me into Hufflepuff, but coming to terms with it, especially with articles like this one. **
Have a great week!
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 five books (suppport me by buying a book!) and general city-potter-er.
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