The Internet Personified: Tale as old as time

I'm late with this newsletter this week, but since the only person who seemed to notice is my mother, I don't feel that bad about it. It was K's birthday yesterday, and the night before it, we stayed up late and danced around the flat and talked about many things, which, after five and a half years of being in each other's company almost constantly, is always nice--that you can find new things to talk about. There's my relationship advice for all you singles: find someone with whom the conversation is always fresh.

It's been raining the past few days, and while I love our flat in the rain, my little study is as leaky as an old boat. Every time I turn on the fan, it starts to spray water, which is charming, but also not the safest, so I need to unplug everything and go sit outside. Luckily, we spotted the flood before it began, so nothing was plugged in to begin with. Also I am leaving for Europe in eleven (!!!) days, so I'm thinking of the flood as a hypothetical. While one doesn't want to return to a collapsed roof and a waterlogged floor, it's also a concern that's weighing next to my "what shall I do in Frankfurt" feeling, which is far more pleasant. But we're leaving the cats in the care of a house-sitter, who had to manage last time with a broken pressure pump, and now with a flood-y room, I'm not sure he'd come back a third time!

This week in The One Who Swam With The Fishes: I have a Facebook live event on my page tomorrow. Having had events where only three of my friends showed up (Bombay) or events where the publicist had to frantically rope in some people (Hyderabad), I am crossing my fingers that a decent number of people will log on, despite the fact that it's Friday night (9 pm shows the maximum engagement for my page). However, it's only twenty minutes, so please log on and ask me something so this whole exercise will be worth it.


This week in Birthday Presents: I'm very pleased with the fact that K was so pleased with the compost maker I bought him for his birthday. It may seem like an odd choice of a birthday present, but for a long time, we've been trying to reduce how much waste we put out as a household. We've been separating for the garbage man every day (he recycles and sells), and in that separation, you can really tell how much plastic and cardboard you're throwing away. I bought him this one. I guess Isha, our flatmate in Goa, really got us into this watch-what-you-throw-away life, and while we're not quite at the Goa levels of eco-friendliness, we're trying to do what we can in the city. Plus composting seems so easy and fun, your garbage turning into food for your plants. (We have to wait till August when we return from Europe to begin using it, since there are many things you CAN'T compost, and it needs some supervision.)

My mum also wanted to get K a birthday present, so I suggested a few graphic novels. We went with classics: volume two of Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and The Watchmen, and since K has gone off already to various parts of the world, I guess I'll just have to read them first.

(I also got a birthday present--well, sorta--because K bought me a new travel backpack so I don't have to trundle my suitcase everywhere, and it's very beautifully purple and I look forward to stuffing it so full of things that I can't move. Only joking: K has set a hard limit of 14 outfits. FOURTEEN. This is what you get when you take Ryan Air flights and are too cheap to buy extra baggage. [But the backpack is so long, I'm not sure it qualifies as cabin baggage ANYway.]) (PS: by "backpack" I mean a hiking one, not just your everyday, take your laptop to office one. Just so we're clear.) (PS 2: I'm going to call her Elvira. She looks like an Elvira.)

This week in cocktails: I read about the Dark & Stormy in one of the books I've been reading recently about rich people (it seems to be a common summer theme). It's basically dark rum with ginger ale, and while I'm sure these rich people in New York do not mean Old Monk when they say "dark rum," I used it anyway and it was delicious , but the hangover the next day was brutal.

This week in Culture: Actually, the next day, we were meeting friends at The Piano Man Jazz Club, which you may know from the fact that they recently had to cancel an event on the grounds that the band had a casteist name, which it did. Super casteist, and I'm glad people pushed back. I was thinking of just that yesterday, following a comment thread on Facebook about how the Delhi Golf Club made a woman leave, because she was dressed in a traditional outfit? Or because she was a maid? I'm not sure, but the comments from some privileged men (and of course they were men) ranged from "Maids are not allowed in the dining room, that's the rule!" and "well, women aren't allowed into certain rooms at certain clubs too, so why should this be such an issue?" One parent even chimed in and said, "Kids aren't allowed at the bar, isn't that the same thing?" and god, people are so clueless. Anyway, long digression aside, I appreciated that the owner of the Piano Man seemed open to dialogue and conversation, when so many other people would have gotten defensive and refused to admit anything was the matter. We went to see a vocalist called Lucia, who had hair that looked exactly like the eggplant emoji. Purple and hard and shiny. She was very good, but perhaps because it wasn't very dance-y music, or the fact that we had to stand the entire time (Piano Man is ridiculously small and crowded), we left before the set was over.

This week in stuff I wrote: I'm rather proud of my review of the recent Man Booker International prize winning novel A Horse Walks Into A Bar. Please read.

Thursday link list: This profile of Dalit entrepreneur Kalpana Saroj deserves a biopic. ** My friend Nayantara makes awesome shoes and also please check out the blog attached to the website for beautiful links and recommendations. ** Why does Hollywood never get London right? ** Debunking wellness and detox diets. ** This trans cop got a sex change, got married and is now accepted as a man in India. ** The All India Hindu conference looks like a barrel of laughs. ** Great profile of this Christian mom blogger who discovered she was gay and changed her causes. ** Why do all women's books have the same cover? (Not mine, I always send detailed briefs about what I want the covers of all my books to look like.) ** My favourite new Instagram account is Carrie Dragshaw. ** Is Banksy that dude from Massive Attack? How... disappointing. **



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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