The Internet Personified: I'm tryin', I'm tryin', I'm tryin'

This week's newsletter title: Bad Liar by Selena Gomez, which is ridiculously catchy.

I started to care more about my nightly facewash routine in the past month. I began to use actual cleanser (okay, still not something fancy like Kama Ayurveda, I'm using Himalaya's aloe vera, which has worked very well for me in the past) and actual night face cream and actual toner, and ironically, my skin just ERUPTED last week. Everything was exactly the same, my period was over, so can't even blame that, my alcohol levels were actually less these past few weeks than they have been in the past, my smoking was there, okay, but my smoking never completely goes away, EVERYTHING WAS THE SAME, and still my skin looks like it's badly spackled cement or something. I even put on a goddamn Lush skincare mask. In the past, all I used to do was splash my face with water after I brushed my teeth. And now? After all that effort? It's enough to want to give up completely. (I thought it might be the night cream, since I haven't used that before, but even after a week of leaving it off, nothing has changed. In fact, my skin might have gotten a little worse.) Here's an article K sent me (and is now quoting whenever I complain) about how acne is In now, apparently, but when you go from decent skin (with the occasional break out, but still decent) without doing anything about it, to shitty skin once you make an effort, it kind of sucks. Out of desperation, I have started taking a probiotic supplement, just to see if it's my digestion that's fucking things up. After I quit dairy in my coffee, my skin looked great, but now it looks like I will have to give up something else. Cheese? Oh god, let it not be cheese.

This week in why I was thinking about skin care in the first place: Went to the launch of Glow by Vasudha Rai, a former Harper's Bazaar beauty editor. (Or is she still there? I was pretty sure I heard "former.") It's a beauty book, which apparently tells you how to revolutionise your skincare by using Indian veggies and herbs. Mainly stuff we grow in our terrace garden, so that is quite exciting. I thought she'd do a little workshop or something, but it was just gin (Bombay Sapphire was a sponsor and they ran out of gin at 8 pm so we left and got sushi) and chatter at the gorg Bikaner House. Where I wanted to have our wedding reception, but they said the party would have to end at ten, which is when people are just about reaching the happy high you get with nice wine. Plus, they didn't throw in the alcohol at the cost, which En, our party venue, did, and En had that lovely Qutub view, so we got the better bargain in the end. Glow is apparently already on its second print run even though it was just released last month and an Amazon bestseller, despite not very much marketing, one of those surprise success stories, and it really shows you what people want to read about these days. I'm thinking of putting it into a future column, so more thoughts on that once I read it.

This week in other books that are not so much about skincare, except the characters in it seem the type to be obsessed with a certain face mask or the other: Borrowed and finished Polite Society by Mahesh Rao over the weekend. I'd only been seeing good reviews, and I'm here to say: believe the hype. It's a good book. But first, my one and only piece of criticism: he has a tendency to very long sentences of which, hello, I am a fan. But not when the sentences contain not one, not two, but about five, three-syllable words, then my eyes just start to ricochet around the page and I have no idea what I've just read, so it's a little jarring. I love big words! I am not of the Chetan Bhagat school of thought which assumes all readers are imbeciles! But, I wish in this case that he had broken up his sentences into shorter ones.

Other than that, I adored it. Emma! In Delhi! I love reading about rich people, don't we all? Plus, newly significant to me, there are some rich people in my Future Projects, so it was doubly relevant for me. I've got to say Austen's Emma was replaced for me by Cher in Clueless a long time ago, so while some people might have read Polite Society and gone, "Ah, the Mr Knightely character!" I was thinking, "Oh my god, that's Tai!" Emma was not very lovable in her original, as Cher she somewhat redeems herself, but as Ania Khurana, she's the worst. And that's what makes the book so delicious. Plus POV chapters from all the rest, and my favourite loathsome character, an English girl called Mussoorie because of her hippie parents. So bitchy. So great. (Okay, so the author manages to be kind and humanise them also, it's not all look these rich people are awful, but it's fun regardless.)

This week in stuff I wrote: This essay on how I learnt to forgive Amy March and accept her as a character who is maybe a little misunderstood. For the 150 year celebration of Little Women. Sadly, it didn't generate as much debate as I would like---I wanted drama! And heatedness! So please read it, and maybe share it if you like it.

The reader is given a vivid picture of Jo’s anguish as she watches Amy recover, and laments to her mother about how she lost her temper. And yet, if temper tantrums are rated, surely Jo’s was worse than Amy’s? Amy destroyed Jo’s manuscript, but Jo almost killed Amy. Jo is given a lecture about equanimity, but Amy is nearly drowned. She probably would have died, had Laurie not been nearby and helped to rescue her. As for Jo, we are told: “She tried to call Laurie, but her voice was gone. She tried to rush forward, but her feet seemed to have no strength in them, and for a second, she could only stand motionless, staring with a terror-stricken face at the little blue hood above the black water.”

This week in street shopping: I was going to do a whole Guide To Sarojini Nagar for you guys, but I realise I have no idea of what the shop numbers are, let alone how to reach them, except by instinct. So um, yeah. I'm sorry. There's this little lane that has great stuff, and then the tree stalls, which are usually overpriced, so haggle a bit, and then you just wander about, looking. My mother and I usually make an afternoon of it, she's great with bargaining, and we have a lot of fun. This time we wandered into the lane on the other side of the tree shop than how we usually approach it, and it was a lot of Indian exporters selling things, not the name brand things in the other lanes, and I got some nice clothes from there, including a polka dotted dress and a maxi dress with embroidered bicycles down the front. Other things as well, which will all be on my Instagram under the hashtag #whatiworetoday.

This week in literature festivals: I made it out to Jindal Global University in Sonepat to speak at their college literature festival--my first time in a Delhi college that is not Delhi University. God, it's so FANCY compared to LSR, which is where I went to college, but also so faaar, but wow, pretty buildings, and posh classrooms, but also, the LSR cafe used to have these seekh kebab rolls which were the best, and this bhelpuri guy outside which *kisses fingers.* I'm aware it's not a contest though, and the students and faculty of JGU were very nice and the lit fest which was in this small conference room had great speakers and an active, questioning audience, which is more than I can say about a lot of other lit fests I have attended in my career as that One Person on a Panel Who Will Make You Laugh. (But Also Think?)

This week in stuff I read on the internet:


Loved this piece on looking for tigers in India.

I had no trouble imagining a tiger creeping up behind the T-shirt stand, in any case, because in the presence of a tiger what most astonishes is not its size or its power or even its beauty but its capacity to disappear. I’m sure you’ve heard about the stealth of tigers on nature shows. It’s no preparation for the reality. You will not see a tiger that does not choose to be seen. Maybe a professional guide can spot one, or one of the forest villagers who live around the reserves; for a regular human with untrained, human senses, there’s no chance. The way a tiger arrives is, there is nothing there. Then a tiger is there. Outside one of the exits from Bandhavgarh, the densely forested jungle reserve in central India, there is a sun-faded sign. It shows a picture of a tiger, and next to the tiger the sign reads: PERHAPS YOU MAY NOT HAVE SEEN ME, BUT PLEASE DON’T BE DISAPPOINTED. I HAVE SEEN YOU.

This snarky profile of Bradley Cooper is why I read celeb profiles at all, even if I'm not super familiar with the celebrity in question.

Listen, he said to me. I seem nice. He gets that I’m just doing my job. But he’s not going to get personal with me. He has to promote his movie — he wants to promote his movie — but beyond that? What would telling me anything truly personal really do? “I don’t necessarily see the upside of it. You know? I don’t.”

The solidarity of men in this great takedown/explainer around the Tanushree Dutta reveals.

There are many mysteries in the universe but none that seemed as mysterious when I was younger than the Fevicol bond of male solidarity in the face of a woman claiming injustice. In class 12, my teachers declared two months before the exams that they would stop teaching my class because of my male classmates’ terrible behaviour. A couple classmates and I confronted S, one of the ringleaders and then complained to a teacher that we shouldn’t be penalised for the behaviour that he had fuelled. My male friend T, benchmate, fellow nerd and fellow hater of S, astonished me by suddenly piping up in support of S and contesting what the girls had been saying. My world was rocked forever.

LOL but also SO TRUE NODS about this poem called The Book of My Enemy

The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I rejoice.
It has gone with bowed head like a defeated legion
Beneath the yoke.
What avail him now his awards and prizes,
The praise expended upon his meticulous technique,
His individual new voice?
Knocked into the middle of next week
His brainchild now consorts with the bad buys
The sinker, clinkers, dogs and dregs,
The Edsels of the world of moveable type,
The bummers that no amount of hype could shift,
The unbudgeable turkeys.

It's a difficult read, but sometimes you have to grit your teeth and see what your heroes are doing. (TW: rape.)

The man isn't just anybody. It is Cristiano Ronaldo, arguably the best soccer player in the world, with vast amounts of success, money and adoration from the fans. An anonymous woman versus Ronaldo -- the discrepancy could hardly be greater.

Just came across Urvashi Bhutalia's essay about Mona, the eunuch who also inspired Arundhati Roy's last novel.

Mona talked to everyone. Speaking to the men she became, or assumed, the male persona of Ahmed-bhai, and many of the men present addressed her as such. Speaking with the women she was Mona, or baji, or behen – all female terms. This quick switch from one identity to the other, and the ease with which she achieved this, was remarkable. Now she was Ahmed and now baji or Mona, and no one seemed to find this odd.

And finally, if you're a foreigner in China, they have a Magic Number to help, but it could make you addicted to it.

Pretty soon, I was calling the Magic Number for everything. When I went to the fruit market and didn’t know how to ask for strawberries, I called the Magic Number. If I was lost and needed directions, I reached for my phone. Any time I was stuck, I dialed 962288 and pressed 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 six books (support me by buying a book!) and general city-potter-er.

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