The Internet Personified: The Festive Edition

Merry Christmas! Happy Good Governance Day! Speaking of the latter, the power of attorney guy who helped us get our Goa house is the head of the Indian Catholic Association, and he has PERSONALLY fought with Modi about not making Christmas GG Day. "Why should our festival go?" he asked us, and why indeed, when the 24th or 26th would work as well?

(ETA: I wrote this the morning of Christmas, but then went off to see La La Land halfway through and then got stuck in Bangalore's infamous traffic, so you'll probably only read this on Monday morning, but if you're still up: hi! More about La La Land below.)

Anyway, I'm writing to you from Bangalore, where the weather is Almost Winter, but not quite, and I'm drenched in Valentina perfume (a Christmas present), while my other Christmas present (a lovely beige handpainted Raw Mango sari) waits for me to become a better Indian woman and learn how to wrap them on myself. K's mum (who is German and bought me all these things) suggests that I do what she does and have them stitched into ready-made forms which I can just slip over a blouse, but I'm going to give it one more go. It can't be that hard, right? (Most of you, competent sari wearers, are now thinking to yourselves, "What's the big deal, M?" But the big deal is that I have tried via YouTube, I have tried with my mum, I have tried with K holding on to one end and helping me drape and they all wind up in a puddle around my feet, with me almost in tears from frustration. So yeah, maybe some people are not as good at dressing themselves than others.)

Here's a photo of the sari from the Raw Mango website. I plan to get a hot pink sexy blouse to go with, because I am not this long sleeved chiffon type.

In other Christmas presents, while we were shopping for his parents and Lily (the spitz, a sweetie), I saw an amazing fringe-y crop top at the Artjuna Christmas fair. It's faded black and has a picture of a white cat sitting on the moon, and so I totally made K buy it for me. Wore it to Verandah (remember, my friends Matt and Meghana's restaurant?) when two friends were in town and they were all like, "Wow, you've gone fully native!" So it's that kind of top. It also makes me feel fabulous, which is always the best part of new clothes. I also feel like I'm significantly thinner despite doing zero exercise (not even climbing three flights of stairs), although this could just be an optical illusion.

A correction: Matt would like it to be known that Meghana actually does most of the cooking while he sits around and drinks cucumber sandwiches. (If you're confused, please go back to the archives of this newsletter and read last week's.) Noted!

This week in Culture: To be honest, I only heard of the Serendipity Festival because my friend Naila was working on it. However, they had an amazing line up and all sorts of exciting things, and so we made the long trek to Panjim (spoilt by having everything ten minutes away, even a 30 minute commute is too much for me) to watch a Malayalam version of the Tempest, called Talatum. It doesn't matter if you don't know Malayalam, because the whole thing was done circus style with acrobats and things playing all the different parts. The Tempest is not one of Shakespeare's most accessible plays--K had to do a book report on it in school and still didn't remember much of the story--so doing it this way made a lot of sense. There were trapeze artists and illusions and giant floaty creatures, and I loved the whole thing. They are touring around the country, so make sure to catch it somewhere.

This week in wildlife: Have I told you before how the windows in the bedroom of our house are reflective? Anyway, the whole structure is built on a slope, so as you go deeper into the house, the rooms are lower. Our bedroom is ground level, and behind it is forest land, which means we get a lot of bird calls and random rustlings.

One morning, after binge watching Flesh And Bone (drama about ballet, on Amazon Prime, which I have added to the list of TV services I subscribe to) we were woken up very early by a loud insistent rapping on the window and weird call.

I opened one eye, "K, it is hen!"

"It IS hen," he agreed.

He tapped back and the bird, delighted at having established contact, began to renew his efforts.

It was very early (have I mentioned that before?) so K opened the window and then the bird ran off. The next morning, I only rolled out of bed at around 10.30 am (bloody hen) and when K came in, I asked him if I had dreamed it. "No, there was hen," he said, so I pulled out my trusty bird app (Salim Ali has been Amazon ordered, but will only arrive next week) and looked up "fowl" since all eat-y birds are generally called "fowls." Success! It was the red spurfowl! A seldom seen, but not rare bird, with a weird cry. You can hear the cry yourself on this awesome website.

Anyway, that's my bird story. Illustrative photo below.

This week in movies: You guys! La La Land is so FU-FU Fucking Brilliant! It's an old school musical, and just the right sort of pretty escapism we need in these troubled times. Plus Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling together again after Crazy, Stupid Love is just... ahhhh. It made me very stand-up-and-salute about this business we call show. Here have a La La Land gif

This week in stuff I wrote: All my time is being taken up with the TV show, however, I did do a piece on voluntary celibacy for Outlook. You can read it here.

Reading list: Christmas films, a snarky take in the Guardian. ** Book Twitter and why it's often harmful. ** Verrrryyyy clickbait, but the end of the year is also a time to be sentimental so. ** Indian restaurants are still turning away gay couples. ** Sam Miller on Delhi, demonetisation and pollution. Excellent piece. **


And that's all from me this week. Since I don't have a "holiday," (#freelancelife) I will also be sending out a last year-ender newsletter next week, so look out for that one. See you soon!
xx
m