The Internet Personified: Going to the chapel
WELL, you have not heard from me in a BIT and it was going to be longer, but then I realised with a start that I hadn't sent you a dispatch last week and it was looking like this week was also going to continue in madness. Lots of things-well, one major thing--happening this weekend, and it's not like a SECRET or anything, I just can't bring myself to put it down in writing and send it across to you. I don't know why: superstition? Maybe I want the joy of telling you after the fact? But a certain amount of you are my friends, and you already know what's going to happen so you're looking a little puzzled: why is she shilly-shallying about saying that sentence when she has said so many others?
So fine, here I go: I--we--are getting married on Monday. Monday is the 16th of October, which also happens to be six years to the day that K and I met at Jodhpur RIFF, making it the best first date in the history of first dates. All sorts of festivities are planned around the weekend and then on Monday morning we go to court, we sign our names on something: I'm imagining a dusty big ledger, and according to the Special Marriages Act of 1954, we are legally wed. Neither of us believes in god or all those trappings, so no temples or churches or mosques for us. Neither of us (conveniently!) believes in big weddings, so we're celebrating with a small dinner party at a restaurant, which is ideal. I have the perfect outfit(s) and a bachelorette party being planned JUST FOR ME, so I am very pleased. I'll tell you all about it next week, when we will be in Goa for our very extended Get-Out-Of-Delhi-For-Diwali Honeymoon. (I think I'm just going to call all the holidays we take for the next year our honeymoon, because it sounds more fun than just a plain old holiday.)
Anyhow, now you all know :) Wish us luck! (In celebration, the gif theme for this edition is all love. Enable images to enjoy!)
Last week in travel: Went with my mother to the Khushwant Singh Literature Festival in Kasauli last weekend. Khushwant and my mother were friends for many years, but he used to call and not even say hello, just "haan, Ma" which aggravated me at 17, so I snubbed him back, a fact which I now regret, but woulda shoulda coulda, right? Later, in my twenties, I'd sometimes go over there to pick up my mother on my way back from work, I remember it as winter, but it must have been summer sometimes. I liked his house because it was so full of books, and he'd say, "Take anything you like off the shelves" so I did and he'd write in the book for me and hand it over. I don't remember much about the other people who were there, there were always people, but I was quite happy to sit in a chair, drink my drink and read till 8 pm when everyone was politely but firmly ushered out.
Anyway, the lit fest was nice enough, even though the average age was about 70. Times of India was supposed to sponsor it but they pulled out at the last minute, no one really knows why. Some people speculated that it was because Arun Shourie had been asked to speak, and TOI didn't want to put their name up there with his BJP-bashing ways. Perhaps the best part of the whole lit fest for me was the home stay they put us up in, a place called 7 Pines, which was gorgeous, with excellent food and lots of handy sofas and chairs for one to fall into with one's book, which I did a lot of. You must check it out next time you're in the area. Only, it's about a 30-40 minute drive from the Kasauli club and the upper and lower mall and all that because the road in front of it is a bit fucked, so go if you'd like to stay a little far away from the town proper but would still like to have access to it.
Last week in Accomplishments: Guys, I have finally conquered the sari. After many years of refusing to wear one because I'd have to get someone to come home and drape it for me, I finally decided enough was enough at my friend's wedding weekend before last, especially since all my lehengas were either too loose or too tight. So, with K holding on to the pleats and me saying, "No that's too high! Too low!" and him going, "Turn now! Turn!" we finally got that baby draped and also the next day, so we're like pros now, guys. Next step: managing to put one on with no help whatsoever. Sigh. Stupid piece of fabric.
This week in stuff I wrote: A piece in Mint about the changing face of children's literature.
Thursday link list:
The couple takes me into a small room completely dedicated to “Pitaji”. It was once used for Anita’s dressmaking business. Now it holds at least 30 pictures of Singh. “We might as well shift all the pictures to this temple,” Mukesh says. “Police have been raiding the houses. They just booked two of our neighbours on charges of rioting and sedition. The poor men kept pleading, saying they did not even visit Panchkula that day, leave alone rioting. But who would listen to us? The rogue elements are out on the streets and they are booking people like us.”
- On the followers of Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh
The complaints of well-educated, middle- and upper-middle class women are easy to dismiss as temporary, or not really a crisis, or #FirstWorldProblems. America, in the grand scheme of things, is still a rich, relatively safe country. (Syrian refugees do not have the luxury of waking up in the middle of the night worried about credit card bills.) Although many women are trying to make it on minimum-wage, split-shift jobs (and arguably don't have so much a midlife crisis as an ongoing crisis), women overall are closing the wage gap. Men do more at home. We deal with less sexism than our mothers and grandmothers, and have far more opportunities. Insert your Reason Why We Don't Deserve to Feel Lousy here.
- Why are so many Gen X women having mid-life crises?
Biryani by Kilo analysed this issue before entering the market, believing that biryani could be the ‘fast food’ for the Indian palate, but didn’t necessarily have to come with the same disinterested delivery model. The primary focus then became quality and an emphasis on freshness—when you unstick the cover of the earthernware handi that holds the biryani, steam rises from it, assuring you that it has been taken straight off the fire and brought to your home. It happens every time. The packaging is high-quality—they even send candles. It’s meant to be a ‘dining-in’ experience, not a TV dinner.
- And they home deliver across Delhi! (How biryani is the new fast food.)
The reason might be to do with her mainstream success. Kaur is the most popular, and arguably the most marketable, of her cohort. She is pretty, stylish, unapologetically feminine, and earns a lot of money for writing that appeals to young women. The last of those qualities perhaps makes her ripe for ridicule: like many pop musicians before her, she commits the sin of engaging with a demographic whose taste is often seen as a byword for bad quality. Push criticism of her actual writing aside and Kaur is a victim of a toxic mix of snobbery and misogyny.
- Why do so many people hate Rupi Kaur?
Of course I had a favorite. (It was Kevin.) He was 27 when I was 12. Now, I’m 31 and he’s 46, and here we all are at Wrigley Field in Chicago. I was unaware, at the height of my own devotion, how deviant it must have appeared for children, not teenagers, but children, to pine so ardently for grown men. It’s an age difference that wouldn’t be remarkable (or illegal) now, but in hindsight I take pause over how ravenously I lusted for the oldest one. The widespread pageantry of longing for any chosen Backstreet Boy is inextricable to me from whatever moment a service bell rang in my head letting me know my sexuality was ready.
- On the Backstreet Boys as Backstreet Men. (My favourite was Nick with his perfect '90s middle parting.)
It was obvious that the box was in the way, that it needed to be put back. It would have been easy for him to just reach up and put it away, but instead he had stepped around it, willfully ignoring it for two days. It was up to me to tell him that he should put away something he got out in the first place.
- You've probably already read this, but if you haven't: on the emotional labour that women do.
Have a great week! I know I will :)
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 six books (suppport me by buying a book!) and general city-potter-er.
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