Things We Found During The Autopsy

My second collection of short fiction called Things We Found During the Autopsy is now available from Blaft. This the front cover, designed by Prabha Mallya.

 And this is the back cover.
 

And this is the trailer for my book, which I like very much because it contains, among other things, someone performing superdance, a man being enthusiastic while holding a trumpet, and Eye Brand cola.

If you feel like buying this book, you can do so at

Blaft 

Amazon.in

If you feel like buying the ebook version, you can do so at

iTunes

Amazon.com

Lulu.com

Also, there have been a few illustrious people who were kind enough to send me rather wonderful emails/comments- sorry for not replying but please know that I appreciate your words very, very much and I thank you for them.

And before I go, one last time, with feeling

"What did you say? Hay! What did you say? Nothing? Oh, it's alright!"

This blog post is late because, to quote the school leave letter of my youth, I was suffering from fever. This blog post title is from the the song If You Come Today which I watched recently because I like to watch it from time to time because I like to watch it. The comments section for this song offers varied forms of entertainment because people generally say the same thing, namely this stupid Indian song is so stupid because he sounds like all those stupid Indians who talk English and sound stupid. There will also be those illustrious people who feel the need to speak for India Shining as a whole by saying ‘please don’t think this is how we talk, most educated Indians speak better English than most Americans (this, for some reason, is something to be proud of) and India is a rising superpower in the world today thanks to IT industry’ I feel it is the English that makes this song such a popular conversation piece. If it had been in Kannada, I seriously doubt we would be using it as a platform to humbly beg people in first world countries not to think badly of us and our cultures.  

Then I read something by someone called Brendan O’Neill. Who it is? Frankly, I am very much not aware. I do know that he wrote this article on the revolutionary potential of the Queen’s English. He means that like seriously yougaiz. I’m sure this piece was probably written for British people in the Britain so as a coloured woman on the internet, I have yet again become #outragefail even tho I aint even mad tho. So why blog about this? Mainly because I couldn’t think of anything else to blog about. But also, because for some strange reason in my one number country, we feel the sun is shining out of the backside of the Queen’s English, and I feel like we speak “Indian” English but we just HAVE to write in the Queen’s English and that needs to be our standard and if it isn't you are against Indian culture. Even though writing in English is also against Indian culture, but it's like ok if it's in the Queen's English but it's not ok also. It's complicated yougaiz. Anyway, I feel like these complicated feelings are what makes people participate in that favourite Indian humiliation game called ‘you can’t even write/speak proper English’. This is what makes people hate on Rajkumar on the internet, love him “ironically” and apologize to the world at large because he had the audacity to sing a song in English which isn’t really English and we’re like so sorry about that. 

Did you know there was a Queen’s English Society? This also I was very much not aware. This society apparently “railed against the misuse and deterioration of the English language” to which I would just like to say 

stolen from here

Also apparently, "Despite the sending out of a request for nominations for chairman, vice-chairman, administrator, webmaster and membership secretary, no one came forward to fill any role," which reminds me of this thing I read that goes ‘Due to circumstances beyond our control, the annual meeting of the Vestal Virgins will no longer be held’. Anyway, basically what Brendan O’Neill sir is actually saying? Actually he is basically saying this.

stolen from here

Actually I just put that there because I think it's neat. I will now awkwardly attempt to connect this image to what I was saying. Brendan O'Neill sir is saying that the Queen’s English is not only neat like a spider playing little drumlets, it also has the power to bring us all together and make us happy and revolutionary like the people in bank commercials. There are many interesting things that are said in this article but I herewith quoteth some of the few beauty blossoms from this bouquet of awesomeness because I feel I have heard many of these things said in our selfsame onenumber country, so please don't think this is all about being mean to a white dude by taking what he has said completely out of context. It's also about other random people who I can't remember who have said things I can't exactly recall. So that makes this all ok but just to be safe, I am so sorry also. 

"More fundamentally, the ha-hahing at the folding of QES speaks to a society which is increasingly allergic to the idea of a standard language, and to standards themselves,"

In other words, “What's wrong with the world mama, people living like they ain't got no mama”. I just quoted BEP on my blog. I have wanted to use that line for a while now and this gave me golden opportunity to do so. So there it is. I guess this is what happens when people have no standards.

"But in order to engage with society, with its public life and politics, you need to fully understand its language."

What this actually means is “But in order to engage with society, with its public life and politics, you need to talk the Queen’s English because I don’t like your language so I shall heretofore pretend like I can’t understand anything you’re saying.” So you’re like LOL! And illustrious acquaintance is like oh my God what is happening I don’t know what that means! Speak English! This is India and you should speak English like all the great people who are great. And you’re like oh that’s Laugh Out Loud, Ell Oh Ell. L for laugh, O for Out, L for loud, LOL. Also pronouced lolololo. And they are like what are you saying?!!? I can't understand you anymore, you're not the same person I once knew! What happened to you? Is something wrong in your personal life? Something is wrong in your personal life and it's making you speak in tongues. So you say haha instead and they know exactly what you're talking about.

There is this notion that the LOL folks are supposed to know how to talk “properly” but they refuse to just to make things difficult for everyone. Why? Because there’s something wrong with the world mama, people living like they ain’t got no mama.

"It is insulting to assume that young people, especially poor young people, are incapable of mastering standard language, of conquering English and all its glorious complications, and so instead must be allowed to write ‘potatoe’ instead of ‘potato’."

Because I'm just a silly girl, I thought English was a language which is popularly used for the communication purposes. But apparently, it's something that needs to be conquered, like a woman. I know this because in this one book I read, the dude said I WILL CONQUER YOU to this femaleperson and then they had sex. I feel that the Tamil equivalent of this is I WILL TIE MARRIAGE NECKLACE AROUND YOUR NECK. This seems to imply that conquering English is about having sex with it and tying marriage necklace around its neck which is not unlike the people fornicating with books, no?

Anyway, all that was just bizarre and made no sense. Basically what I wanted to say was what's wrong with the world mama, people acting like they ain't got no mama. The engsters are speaking English but it is not English because it's poorpeople English so we should make them be more better by making them learn the Queen's English. This is a super idea in 2012 because this form of English was basically all the rage in the late eighteen hundreds and ensures people write 'potato' because what in God's name could a 'potatoe' be??!!! Must be some poorpeople thing. Or maybe it's something they do in India with cows or something, idk.


 “When it comes to language, the rule is that the more you know the rules, the more you can play around with them and twist them for effect, if you like. But you need to know the rules.”

“When people doll up declining linguistic standards as ‘cultural diversity’, they’re really making a virtue out of dumbness, turning illiteracy into just a variant form of literacy.”

Those are like sametosame opposites, no? Anyway, so you’re like LOL! And your illustrious acquaintance goes oh my God what is happening I don’t know what that means! Speak English! This is India and you should speak English like all the great people who are great. And you’re like, yougaiz! I DO know good English! See? I have this tattoo on my elbow that is a certification of genuine authenticity of my knowledge of the rules of the Queen’s English! And they’re like, oh so you’re just playing around with language and experimenting and breaking new barriers in the realm of word usage and narrative forms, you brave pioneering linguistic unicorn you! 

This certification is very important because there is a difference between Queen’s English Approved Declining Linguistic Standards and Conventional Declining Linguistic Standards. The certification will essentially let us know when to applaud for literary genius and when to make fun of people for being stupid or for being from another country/section of society. 

"The refusal to uphold a standard language is really a refusal to be universal."

This is absolutely NOT like saying ‘ohai! I'm the centre of the motherfucking universe! Let's everybody talk like how I want you to talk so yougaiz can be universal too. If you say no, I'm telling everyone you're racist against English and the universe.' It's not like that at all yougaiz. Anyway, I guess my main problem with this idea of standardized English is really my own ignorance. I don’t know who decides what is universal. I want to know who gets to decide what is right and wrong with English. If anyone can do this, I want to know if I can also standardize English because I like to tell people that I am right and they are wrong (from what I can tell, this is the most important criterion for the standardization of English). And if I can’t do this, I want to know why not. 

I want to end this on a totally awkward note by talking about my former blog post about ebooks. I feel like there is this notion that if you love ebooks, you must by default hate other book forms because liking ebooks means you hate reading? Or something? I also feel like when you start snarking about a standardized form of English, there is this notion that you must by default hate grammar, proper spelling or the Queen’s English in general. Actually I think English grammar et all is pretty fabulous. But I also think other forms of English exist because a standardized form doesn’t work everywhere because we are all equal but we are not the same. And I feel that enforcing a standardized form of English ends up dismissing other forms, their worth and the reasons why they exist. I also don't think lol is some kind of sign that English is about to fall down and die- I actually think it's a sign that the language is growing and evolving. Then again, I'm someone who quoted BEP on my blog.

So in conclusion, this is one of my new favourite sites called Internet Poetry which I think is so fine, but many are thinking is killing English, poetry and mankinds generally.

Oh and also see this? It is a louly write-up about a louly feature in the louly Elle magazine that was louly enough to say louly things about my writing and other people's writing also. I am appreciating like anything and apologizing for not saying all that in the Queen’s English and for my excessive use of the word louly. 

live your lief

k

y u mad tho? cuz i aint even mad.

Even though I blogged extensively about Ronn Moss last weekend, it behooves me to blog again this weekend because frankly, I feel like whining. What does this mean? It means that this blog is having its period, so shit’s about to get all emo and uterusy up in here. The good news is that I won’t be blogging next weekend. 

So did yougaiz see this yougaiz? Tote bags, t-shirts, coffee mugs and fridge magnets that say Namaste, Bitches and have that folded Indian hands thing that Indians do, complete with exotic Indian religious symbols also. My first thought when I saw this was, aw man I wanted to think of that first! The product descriptor says, and I quote, “Enlightenment has never been easier. Plus this way you don't have to go to India and swim in raw sewage. (All proceeds benefit charity)”.  I couldn’t help but agree on this one. Because don’t you just hate it when you’re like all in India and stuff and swimming in raw sewage, as it is your wont to do because you live in India, and you’re like ‘I wish I didn’t have to swim in raw sewage. I wish I could swim in chlorinated peewater like the cool people in America.” I am hoping that they will make one another totebag that says ‘Vanakkam you moist motherfuckers’, with religious symbolism of Hinduism, Islam and Christianity neatly lined up at the bottom, thus reflecting the unity in diversity of this country.

That’s not even what I wanted to whine about, I wanted to whine about ebooks. Or I wanted to whine about how other people are whining about ebooks. I’ve always been a little flabbergasted by the good folks who have very strong anti-ebook feelings, especially those who haven’t actually read one and on further investigation, one discovers that they aren’t really sure what an ebook is, they just know they reallyreally hate them and they suck. I know I’m being superracist here but it seems like these illustrious folk always say the same thing- 

'One needs to be able to touch, smell, lick, and fornicate with certain parts of the book’s binding in order to experience the real and truly complete reading experience. Anything else is not reading. Also you can read the words on the pages if you want but this is not necessary.'

Ok first, wow. Second, am I missing something with this booksmell thing? Because I feel like a lot of the books I have been unfortunate enough to smell somehow managed to be sour, bitter and kind of like musty ass and once I may have accidentally inhaled a small silverfish also. This may have been because most of these books were not second or third hand books but eleventy-twelvty hand books which spent a large amount of time on the pavement and people may have peed on them at some point also. Which led me to think, hay maybe this aspect of molesting your reading material as part of your reading experience is actually a privilege. I say this as someone who has often not been able to get my hands on “real” books, but I could access ebooks and podcasted books which were available even in my tiny corner of the world and often for totes free. I think that eating and rubbing a book all over your body may be one of many reading experiences. I don’t think it’s the only one, the real one, the true one, the authentic one, the original one, or the best one ever. Not all of us have the means to buy and do that to our books. Many of us may not want to do that also. I don’t think that means that we are not reading because we are not reading like you are. 

'Ebooks have no soul'

stolen fom here

This gif has nothing to do with anything, much like the argument that ebooks have no soul which quite frankly, is one of those things that makes you feel embarrassed for the person who said it. Feel like it would be more interesting if peeps said, I hate ebooks because they have no large intestine. 

'Ebooks will make it easier for horrific, substandard literature to be published.'

Oh noes! What are we going to do yougaiz??!!! Somebody call the book police so they can save us from the horrific, substandard literature!!!1 When peeps say things like hay if I was the king of the god of everything, I wouldn’t let shit like Twilight get published and I'd teach everyone what good books are, it's scary like Scientology scary. I feel that people will always read things that other people will find horrific and substandard, but even if you don’t respect what they’re reading, maybe we can respect their right to read and like whatever they want to. Which I understand is superscary because if I don’t like it, nobody else is allowed to like it either, right? I feel like the issue here is actually ‘Ebooks will make it easier for horrific, substandard literature to be published.’ Which is probably scary for a lot of people who believe that certain people and certain kinds of writing don’t have a right to be published or read. 

'EBOOKS ARE KILLING REAL BOOKS!!!111 I FUCKING HATE THEM AND I WILL KILL THEM ALL WITH MY FACE WHEN I FINISH TALKING ABOUT HOW MUCH I HATE EBOOKS AND DIGITAL LITERATURE WHILE USING THIS DIGITAL FORMAT!!!1'

First I want to say,

stolen from here

This kind of argument reminds me of the illustrious people who love to tell everyone that they “support gay couples” because unlike "real" couples, gay couples are gay people having gay sex, and if all you know about homosexuality comes from porn, you believe these gay people are having gay sex all the time which just makes them so gay.  It’s similar to this je ne sais quoi that makes us say gay marriage, like it is different from “real” marriage possibly because it consists of gay people having gay sex all the time.

If you work real hard and try to wrench your focus away from the gay sex (which is hard, I know), one realizes that gay couples are just couples and gay marriage is just marriage. And if you take the 'e' and the scary internetedness away from the ebook, you find that the ebook is just a book. People write them and other people read them and hate them or forget them or enjoy them and collect them and take them along on vacay and if the thing isn’t DRMd to death, they share them with other people. It’s a fucking book, whether you like the format or not and while it may not be in keeping with your romantic, privileged and narrow notions of what a book should be, ebooks (and audio books and podcasts) make reading easier and a lot more accessible for a lot of us.

I would like to end this with some anti-ebook quotes by two rather famous authors, which just goes to prove that ebooks really do suck and the ebook haters win.

Maurice Sendak on ebooks-

“I hate them. It’s like making believe there’s another kind of sex.There isn’t another kind of sex. There isn’t another kind of book! A book is a book is a book.”

“F— them, is what I say. I hate those e-books. They cannot be the future. They may well be. I will be dead, I wont give a s—.”

Ray Bradbury on ebooks-

“Yahoo called me eight weeks ago. They wanted to put a book of mine on Yahoo! You know what I told them? ‘To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the Internet.’"

And because it’s Maurice Sendak and Ray Bradbury I’ll just say 

stolen from here

 Namaste, bitches.

i don't know why you look so sad but I'd like to take you home, try to put the roll back in your eyes

This blog post title is taken from the song ‘I’m Your Man’ by Ronn Moss who is that guy who played Ridge Forrester on The Bold and the Beautiful. This line is about taking melancholic people home in order to stuff various baked goods into their eyes. Like ohai, you haz a sad? Come to my house, I put LazeezDoubleChickenDoubleEggRoll in your face. This selfsame song has another line that goes ‘if you want some fishes in your ocean, some magic in your potion, I’m your man.’ And also ‘if you want some rhythm in your tango, some fun in your fandango’. Anyway then he also says ‘Well I’m rough around the edges but my poetry is smooth’. It sure is yougaiz! It is smooth like…smooth things that are smooth! Makes a girl wish she had a roll in her eyes. I also thought that maybe he’s saying ‘roll back in your ride’ but ‘roll back in your eyes’ is more better.

Anyway now I need to do my Indianladyblogger duty and say something about a certain article that appeared in a certain publication whose name rhymes with Crimes of India. This certain article talked about the sexuals. I had a lot of difficulty just processing this information because we all know that people don’t have sex in India because it is against our culture. We prefer to just leave such things to the West. Then how we came to have so much of the population explosion in our country if we do not engage in the sexuals? I don’t know yougaiz! It’s like, I just turned around and there were all these brown people all over the place! Someone must have put them there! Ok so I wanted to read the article again, because clearly I don’t really like myself, but I can’t find it! It seems to be missing or I have not looked properly enough because frankly, I didn’t really look for it. What was it about again, the importance of breeding virginal women for betterment of the society or something? Idk. Basically I just wanted to give that article the Great Things About Virgin Women Who are Great Because They Are Great But Mostly Because They are Virgins Award. I also want to give the following awards to-

White People are the Worst Things Evar Award to this article  which apparently says the reason why certain Indian news sites/tabloids were saying things like Breaking News! Why is Aishwarya so fat? Find out why Aishwarya is so fat! is because of white people. Or something. Because that's just something we as Indians would never do on our own because we don't know how to do such things. It's like how we don't know how to to do the sexuals either. Apparently you can find ample evidence of this Aishwaryabashing on a site called Desimad.com which also has a Youtube channel with the following disclaimer 'If you are expecting something sensible than please avoid this channel.' Also want to say that this article gets this award, despite its use of the term ‘yummy mummy’, which frankly is right up there with putting a roll in someone’s eyes. Also fyi, youwhitegaiz are not solely responsible for bringing your ebil body image issues and skin whitening issues to this fair brown land of ours. You are solely responsible for bringing in homosexuality and feminism. Just so we’re clear. 

Musical Truths Among RapeyDouche Tweets Award goes to Sid Mallya who tweeted to say that 'Everyone wants there 15 minuets.' He later corrected ‘there’ to ‘their’, which is really great.

 

While we’re at it, I’d like to give out the following awards as well. 

The Amazing Carpet Award- This goes to the rather illustrious individual who I encountered during my househunting days. They had what can only be described as a mangy carpet spread out on the mangy floor. When we walked in, said individual said, don’t step on the carpet. I can only guess that they said that so we did not get any mange on our shoes. And then, during the hard sell, they said, see I am giving you this place with carpet also but you must not step on it. I believe this was also the selfsameplace that had a mound of cracked ceramic in one room and this apparently was the Italian design western toilet.

The I Hate Your Face Award- this goes out to all those peeps who followed the ‘basically we don’t prefer to give to unmarried bachelorspinsters. We appreciate families.’ rent policy. I totes understand this because basically I don’t prefer the unmarried bachelor spinsters either because they eat small children and pee on the floor and refuse to use their reproductive organs for what the good lord intended. Families on the other hand usually don’t eat their own children although they may eat someone else’s. Some of them pee on the floor but it’s ok because they are families. 

I would like to keep whining about some of the other places/people I encountered while househunting but this blog post is already too long. So I will do that next week and leave you with this

All About You by Ron Moss- There is a line in here that goes ‘it’s not about your new agent’ and I thought he was saying ‘it’s not about your new Asians.’ 

And because for some reason Ronn Moss reminds me of Zeb Atlas,

Love Hangover by Zeb Atlas and Pearly Gates (Don’t call the plumber! You know that I don’t need it! I don’t think he's saying plumber but whatever)

Stop for Love- Pearly Gates and Zeb Atlas

This blog post was basically about Ronn Moss.

kbai.

ohai!

I’m not sure if anyone stops by here anymore but if you do, ohai! I have come back after a longish hiatus which involved moving out of the smalltempletown. I am slightly sadface about this because the smalltempletown was the best third world writer cred ever. When people would tell me that they had an MFA, which back in the day I assumed was some kind of urinary infection, I would say ohai I come from smalltempletown in South India and even though they never really said anything about this barring a ‘wtf?’, I knew in my heart that they wished they could be like me. This is why I never missed an opportunity to put that up in everyone’s face when they made the mistake of asking for a ‘bio’. Speaking of bios! 

‘Writer, big city-dweller, chaidrinker, bike lover, foodie, wanderer, music aficionado, beer enthusiast, book-lover, serious sense of humor, human being’

Who is this person? Is it every Indian person in the internet today? Has it become the equivalent of ‘I love meeting new people, traveling and hanging out with my friends.”? Why am I being so racist against Writer, big city-dweller, chaidrinker, bike lover, foodie, wanderer, music aficionado, beer enthusiast, book-lover, serious sense of humor, human beings? Is it because I am jealous because I lost my smalltempletown bling? Yes.

So anyway, I bid a fond farewell to the smalltempletown and relocated to Bengaluru where all the cool people live. These are some impressions, alleged conversations, and things that happened during that first blush of Bengaluru when it was still making my nose bleed. 

- People are not speaking Tamil here. I don’t understand this. I am that gross species of person that thinks everyone speaks Tamil or English and I am flabbergasted when they don’t.

-  - "Ok wow you actually say ‘yougaiz’ when you talk."

"Yeah."

"It’s really irritating. Like REALLY."

"Yeah."

"Because like at least on the blog, you can close it when your lingo gets too irritating, no?"

"Yeah. That’s a drawback of having to talk to me in person."

"Right. Because it’s REALLY annoying."

"I know. Sorry yougaiz."

-        - Unrecognizable large green fruit! Wtf, it’s like I’m in Africa or China or something! SO EXOTIC!!111 ok that’s a watermelon. Nemmind.

-          - Sprite, muscular young man crossing road in very short shorts. Ok those are clearly not shorts, this publicfellow has come out in his undrawers. WE CAN TELL WHEN YOU DO THAT YOU KNOW!!! CROSS THE STREET AGAIN!!!!11

-           - ‘And this drinking place is called bacchus? Like tiny Hindi children people?’

-          ‘No, like Bah-Kus.’

-          ‘Then why is it spelled like tiny HinHinihfsdHindi children people? Hay, will everyone like me there?

-          ‘Probably not.’

-          ‘Oh. Tiny Hindi children people never seem to like me for some reason.’

-   - I had some dodgy pork and contracted some kind of stomach food poisoning type thing and thought I was going to die and now whenever I pass the establishment from whence I procured said dodgy pork I shout ‘I HATE YOU!’ but I don’t think they care at all. Also, LAZEEZ DOUBLE CHICKEN DOUBLE EGG ROLLS OMG I LUV YOU FOREVER

-        - “Excuse me, can you tell me where *someplace I can’t remember* is?”

“Yeah just like you can proceed over here and you can take a left and just keep going straight for some time then one Nilgris will come over there, like pretty big and you just don’t want to miss it because you can head over there and you can get all the information about that over there.”

“So you don’t know where it is?”

“Yeah no I don’t know.”

“Ok thanks.”

“Yeah don’t mention.”

-       - “Kuzhali? That’s an…unusual name.”

“Kuzhali? It’s Malayalam name I think so.”

“Sorry, I just can’t get that, I’ll call you something else?”

“Your name is what? Ok whatever, I’m calling you something else.”

Yes please call me SomethingElse.

-      LOL you’re talking to me in Hindi like I know what you're saying and like I am going to reply in Hindi also LOL!!!111

Like many people who have come to this coll city, I had trouble finding accommodation and I am going to talk all about that in the next few posts because this is my blog. It is also my hope that I will gradually start picking up some Kannada and this Kannada will gradually infiltrate my polluted “English” and soon I will suddenly discover I have some kind of Kannadiga ancestry and decide I am not so much Tamil anymore and actuallytotally Kannadiga. In this way, I hope to appropriate the cultures of all four Southern states, which is a close second to coming from a smalltempletown.

There were some other things I wanted to blog about but frankly, this blog post is already too long so I will just go through them fastly here.

-The Ashton Kutcher Racist Ad- Big ups to the righteous peeps who had to use multiple exclamation marks to tell us Indians to Calm Down!! Because it was Just a Joke!!!! And My Indian Friend Thought it was Funny so it’s Ok!!!! Also big ups to the righteous peeps who took the time to remind us that India still follows caste system so who are we to get offended by Ashton Kutcher in brownface. I for one was confused for two reasons- one, I thought he was being Mexican/Italian/Spanish so I was like STOP BEING MEAN TO MEXICAN ITALIAN SPANISH TYPE PEOPLE YOUGAIZ. Then also we must consider, if he didn’t do brownface et al, how would we know he was Indian? There’s no other way for people to identify Indianness, isn't it? It is.

-Speaking of Brownface! I saw a bit of a movie called Bhowani Junction, which featured wellknown brownfaced actors Ava Gardner and Stewart Granger. According to the summary, the movie is about a half-caste. A half-caste is someone who has partial rights to be offended by Ashton Kutcher’s racist ad. There was one gentleman in the movie whose face bore a striking resemblance to a basted turkey, which meant he was the brown dude, which meant he was an Indian. I was only able to see a bit of this glorious bit of cinema and that bit featured a limerick type thing which was about a girl from Sharkie who hooked up with a Darkie and they had two white kids, two black kids, and two khaki or something like that. Or maybe her name was Sharkie. Could be that also because in the English culture they have strange naming habits. Isn’t it neat how English people can make darkie rhyme with khaki? That’s so neat. It’s one of the reasons why they had such colonial powers.

-I saw a trailer for a movie called The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel which apparently is Slumdog Millionaire but with old, white people. This movie also features brown people but these people are naturally brown and not brownface so it’s not racist and ok

Before I go, I want to say that

Damien Walter said some nice things about my book in his column in The Guardian  

I did this interview with my thozhi Ranjani at STS  

And a verynice review of my book appeared here

And now some ‘Oh My God This Is Adele Right?’ Songs

Mercy by Duffy  

Love Letters by Alison Moyet

okbai.

bai yougaiz

It is with much sadness that I announce that this blog is going on indefinite hiatus. I hope to write and blog again at some point but just in case that is a long time coming, I want to say thank you to the kind and gracious people who have read and commented here, it has been a privilege to get to know some of you and I would like to dedicate this mesmerizing gif of marlon brando to your sparkling faces.

from here, please right clicky if he is not being mesmerizing

 bai yougaiz and thank you.

<3

tawa is a hot iron girdle used by women in Indian culture

This blog post title is a good example of how I learn something new and amazing about Indian culture every day. I thought a tawa was used for the cooking purposes. Little did I know that this contraption is actually for holding all that Indian culture together. Did you know this? I did not know this. I think so this is what makes Indian women so great so hats off to you gals and congrats on your hot iron girdles, thank you for your efforts in supporting Indian culture. 

I now want to talk about one of my favorite pastimes. This is something I used to do a lot. I don’t do it as much anymore, not because I ‘learned my lesson’ but because I don’t go out as much. If I did, I’m sure I’d still be doing this. So anyway, sometimes when trying to be all badass and ‘one with the people’, one goes to rough and tumble places like tea kadais or hotels, where we eat on banana leaves! This is often done so you can tell people later about how you are so badass you sometimes eat off banana leaves. If one is very lucky, one will spot a small child, cleaning or washing up in the local eating vicinity. After being satiated and satisfied by a ‘common man’s meal’ which one can write about later that might (fingers crossed!) be picked up by a foreign publication, one calls one of these small children over. Small child is busy working but will come if you call them because that’s what they do. You ask them their name, ask them why they aren’t in school, and then (my favorite part!!111) you launch into a very big lecture about how education is important and small person should go to school, study hard to get first rank, learn computers and English and achieve great things. I would often say things like ‘when I come here next time, I don’t want to see you here. You better be in school!’ I was totally not coming back but small person doesn’t need to know that. It’s important to give children something to hope for and telling poor kids that I’m coming back gives them hope. 

If some adult was locally available, I liked to pull them up too, pointing out the many schemes and special measures available to help children ‘like that’. There’s reservation for poor folk! Free textbooks! Free laptops! It’s so EASY to get educated and be more better! But you have to work hard! You have to work hard to get this easy education! You have to work hard at working hard and work hard because you have to work hard. I am not poor (thangod!) but I can speak English so I feel totally qualified to tell you what you should be doing with yourself. Clearly you don’t know all this so imma sit back and tell you all about it while I wait for some transportation to take me back to civilization. 

This was my favorite pastime for many reasons- it made me feel smart and good about myself. It made me feel like I ‘made a difference’, that there will be one less uneducated child in the world because of me- I didn’t even have to do anything, I just had to talk like I knew what I was talking about! I liked to believe that my advice also helped to fight poverty in some way because if poor people were more smart, they’d know that poverty is a bad thing, right? And they wouldn’t do it, right?  Later on, when I needed to argue with people about Indian topics, these kinds of incidents made me feel like I am qualified to talk about things. 

The idea of poor folk winning at life and teaching these poor folk how to win at life is a wonderful topic for cinema- some of my favorite Tamil movies are about this. I can’t tell you how heartwarming and empowering it is to see movies where poor child woke up early, cooked food for sick mother, studied by candlelight while rocking baby sister in arms, then went out to work three jobs, ate one meal a day, and did all sorts of mad studying in between that equipped him with the skills necessary to fight corruption and smack the brown off English-speaking chicks in jeans. Did I mention that by earning two paisa a day, he was able to become a millionaire when he was big because he didn’t waste his money on bad poorpeople things like alcohol and beedis? And he beat poverty! In two hours! I mean if he can do it in two hours, what’s with all the poor people in real life? Why are they going to movies and buying cell phones when they should… be doing whatever it is poor people are supposed to do to make them not poor?

This pastime of mine was a good thing to do for fun, especially when the small child in question was photogenic. And it certainly makes great fiction, esp. when you write about third world countries where people are third world and stuff but then they work hard and become first world winners. I’m just not sure if one should write how-not-to-be-poor internet articles about it though. Gene Marks has received a lot of slack for this article and I feel like none of this fallout would have happened if this had simbly been timepass kept outside the internet or if it was a fiction piece or best of all, a Tamil movie. A Tamil movie is always a good option because you can include song and dance numbers, fight sequence and we always appreciate it when people use technical computer words like Google. 

Now let us talk about RuPaul. I was informed that I shouldn’t blog about RuPaul’s Drag Race anymore because men aren’t supposed to dress like women because they are supposed to dress like men because they are men. Also my blog posts which are incomprehensible on a good day somehow disintegrate entirely when I talk about RuPaul. And anyway, Logo still isn’t letting nonAmericans watch the show online but they let us see the Meet the Queens clip for the new season? So that we can all feel bad in our nonAmerican countries? So I will just say #TEAMSHARONNEEDLES!!!11 Season 4 is going to be CANCELLED!!1

Now I want to talk about Kalasala song from Osthi. I like this song because LR Easwari sounds nice autotuned and the chorus is great slow-motion walking music. Although there also seems to be a dog panting in the middle and it is little unnerving to hear T Rajendar screaming Ikada Ra Ra into your ear. According to this clip, LR Easwari is the Asha Bhonsle of the South. Is LR Easwari some indecipherable thing that can only be understood in terms of Asha Bhonsle? Or does this mean that Asha Bhonsle is the LR Easwari of the North? I cannot able to understand this. Similarly, I cannot able to understand when people say that Bengaluru is the Silicon Valley/ Boston/Manchester/ Greater Matcham Scratchings in Lower Market Snodpicket of India. Or that Chennai is ‘the Texas of South India’. What does that even mean? It means ‘ohai! I mentioned Texas so that I can tell all you coll people that I have been to Texas, which is the Chennai of the United States.’

Anyway, the Kalasala clip also says that T. Rajendar is the RD Burman of the South. The accepted practice is that whenever someone mentions T. Rajendar on the internet, you have to immediately link to a ‘t rajendar speaking english’ video and go lol at t rajendar speaking English lol. Instead of doing that, I would like to share this interview clip which actually features Simbu and some other dudes but it also has T Rajendar so it’s basically just all about T Rajendar talkingdancingsingingmakingastrologicalpredictionmakingpoetryplayingdrumbeatboxingtakingoffwatch and everyone else gets reduced to pieces of furniture that sometimes talk. I’m not sure of this proves that he is the RD Burman of the South but anyway. I remember once I heard T Rajendar speaking during election tyme and he said ‘Vaiko, nee oru psycho’ and I went lol but also felt bad for Vaiko but not very much so. #kalasala #thankyoupiratedvisumoviesforevaforsendingthisclip

I would now like to say bai with this Golden Tweet from Shahid Kapoor.

‘Too bloody random ... So seize every moment n juice it ... Cause it'll never come back ... Work hard always did .. Party harder ! Loca style’

bindaaz4lyffe muthafuckaz