The Internet Personified: I'm so two thousand and late
One of the easiest things to do to feel like an absolute Domestic Goddess is make your own dosa batter. I'm fully South Indian in my tastes, I think that's where the best food in the subcontinent is from, and my breakfast every morning is a dosa, until I run out of the batter and have to eat a grilled cheese toast like a barbarian.
This morning, I realised the wisdom of placing another bowl underneath the high-sided pot you use to ferment the batter in, I forgot to yesterday and as a result, there was batter everywhere, across the switches, the counter, spreading all the way to the sink. I can't tell when it's going to ferment like that, full and foamy, or when it's going to be just the smell of fermentation with the batter at exactly the same level as you left it. But it's a little bit like magic, isn't it? Leaving out two unrelated things mixed together overnight--the urad dal and the rice--and returning in the morning to find an entirely new substance.
I use a recipe I found on the internet, which is easy-peasy, soak half a cup of urad daal (the shopkeeper will ask, "Which urad daal?" and you'll say, "The one you use for dosa" and he'll give you the correct one) and one and a half cups of dosa rice which is the fat short grained one for about four hours, and then grind both separately into very fine pastes and then combine and leave covered overnight or for twelve hours, whichever comes first. The trick to good dosas is also a good dosa pan, I bought mine off Amazon and it is incredible and takes me about ten minutes to flip out hot dosas every morning, plus more for guests whenever they spend the night. I eat my dosas with gunpowder and pickle, but sometimes I buy a coconut and make chutney which is also fun and delicious, and yes, I DO, in fact, own a coconut grinder.
So even if I feel like I'm not connected to the rest of my country in any way--not language, not religion, not cricket, not films--at least we have food holding us together, we, the rootless, who could really belong anywhere at all, but are from HERE in that particular lonely way that no one else understands. Academically, theoretically, I know a lot about India, because I read everything and I'm interested, but it's like I'm viewing everything from the outside, which is an insane privilege I know, but the price I pay is not feeling like I'm a part of anything at all.
Anyway, that was all a very long winded way of telling you that I'm making my own dosa batter now, and you should too, if you're a fan!
Last weekend in parties: I was so busy last weekend, I surprised myself. It was twenty something me all over again. "You're here?" asked a friend from out of town at the book event I was at, "You're never at these things!" I think the secret to popularity is, in fact, in not showing up (in my case, not knowing about all the cool parties) and only emerging once in a while, like an Eid ka chand, and then everyone is all, "oh my god, I forgot what fun we used to have together" and then you get invited to more parties. It's like the Freelance Paradox, which I have just invented: you need more stories in the beginning of your freelance career, but no one knows your stuff, so no one gives you work, and then you slowly get more work, and the more writing you do, the more people want to hire you, but by then your writing schedule is pretty full, so you need to turn down things, and then the work dries up and the circle repeats itself.
Also, speaking of parties, TAILORS are way more unreliable than lawyers, and I don't know why there isn't a whole glut of tailor jokes. By which, you'll gather that neither of my new outfits were ready for my very fancy weekending, but I did get one dress--a Kerala cotton sari turned shirt collar shift dress, which my mother says looks like a kurta, but which I think is very lovely so there--ready this week. Sadly, all I have on is drinks at a dive bar tonight and maybe tea time wine drinking at a friend's house this weekend, neither of which are great occasions to wear white and gold. Never mind, I'm sticking to my "since people have seen me they will invite me to things" hypothesis.
So, of my parties, I discovered a lovely new and very fancy bar at Andaz hotel in Aerocity, which infuses their own gin. Plus great food. I will definitely go back for a special occasion brunch one of these days. Then also, I was told about Bombay Perfumery which takes ittar and makes it into cool scents, and K and I both got samplers to take home in our goodie bags, so we smell great these days. Oh, and not at a hotel, but at a third birthday party, there was a potter and I made my own little earring bowl out of clay on a wheel! Such fun, though I was so resistant, and my friend, whose daughter's birthday party it was (my goddaughter, but we have a few years in which to establish the super close relationship that I'm aiming for. Maybe when she's six and I'm less nervous around children?) was like, "Hey go make a pot" and I tried to be all grown up and hoity toity and said, "Darling no, I can't get all dirty, I have another party to go for!" and she gave me a strange look because she knows me very well and said, "I thought you'd be really into it! Give it a try anyway" and I did and I loved it, so, you see, sometimes you have to listen to your friends. (My next birthday party--and I am several decades away from three--I too am going to get this potter and you'll all be invited. Wear your grubbies.)
Stuff I wrote & stuff being written about me: (which makes me sound very Serena van der Woodsen, but really, I just want to show you this book review in Open which is a dream rave.) Plus, me on the rise of the off-beat book launch, which--spoiler alert!--doesn't really lead to sales.
Oh hey, the Thursday link list!
(I've started adding previews of the stories before the links, but some people like my beloved, tell me they thought I didn't post any links at all, so I feel like I should tell you guys that the links are all my favourite stories off the internet! And often the best part of this rather strange and rambly personal newsletter, so read them below this, okay?)
In theory if a person orders a book and it never ships, he or she can cancel the order and get a refund. That means it would be possible for someone to create the appearance of high demand in a short period—say, just enough to qualify for the bestseller list that week—by placing big orders, then canceling them later.
The US book market went nuts over a YA book gaming the bestseller lists, to which Indian bestsellers are like, "Been there, done that, sold the movie rights"
Livraria Lello, I learned, has a creative solution to that problem. They charge admission to their store, and the ticket price is applied toward the purchase of any merchandise a visitor buys. Other bookstores, like Shakespeare and Co., don’t allow photography at all. The ability to discuss those decisions with the bookstores who had implemented them was one of the great opportunities of the gathering.
The world's most beautiful bookstores had a conference the other day.
The notion of sexual innocence emerged as she cried over her best friend giving “everything she had” to a “boy who changed his mind”, and through the repeated mention of a highly sexualised “other woman” swooping in to steal her love interests. Her innocence also contributed to the emotional impact of the most common theme of all: Swift as the victim of the behaviour of a bad boyfriend, or rejection by her crush. This is a common trope in teen pop music, but for Swift it became the very foundation of her posture as victim.
Okay, I gotta admit I listen to a lot of Taylor Swift, but is she playing the victim more than she should? (Why do we never write these kinds of think pieces about male pop stars though?)
Ghaziabad, reluctantly NCR and notorious for many unkind things, is now creating a new unusual record of its own – having nine Delhi Public Schools in the city. Yes, within a 20-kilometre radius, nine huge state-of-the-art schools with exactly the same names have come up. Some proudly ‘genuine DPS,’ ‘under the aegis of the Delhi Public School Society, East of Kailash, New Delhi,’ and others not so much.
I went to DPS for an entirely forgettable two years of my school life, but this story is indicative of everything that is wrong with a "factory" school.
I’ve been performing long-form improvisation at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre for 15 years. I’ve been a member of the house teams, the weekend teams, the Touring Company, an the teaching staff at the school. And the first thing we teach every student to say is this: “yes, and,” which means that you accept whatever your scene partner says as truth (as opposed to negating it) and build on the information they present. Agreement is at the heart of long-form improv. I love the magic and pure fun that grows from two performers saying yes to each other in a scene. Maybe saying yes could have the same effect with my kids.
An interesting experiment: one mother decides to just say "yes" to everything her kids ask her for a week and it made her wonder why she said "no" so much.
In 1740, Jacques de Vaucanson created an automated duck with a body made of gold-plated copper and intestines of rubber tubing. At the command of its creator, the duck rose, flapped its wings, stretched out its neck, pecked, nibbled, and then swallowed a handful of grain. The duck next took water, splashing with its beak, and then sat, before rising with a quack and defecating onto a silver dish. According to one admirer, the animated fowl was among ‘the greatest masterpieces of mechanics that humankind has ever created’.
Lovely art factoid listicle by Christie's auction
That's it from me! 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 six books (suppport me by buying a book!) and general city-potter-er.
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