Da Vinci Mania

[Onion - litter in crash site]

Apparently tourism to France is 'sky high' after the release of the much-hyped movie.

Methinks this badly written book and its only-slightly-better movie version has traveled a long way indeed. Just goes to prove that life is not a meritocracy.

Anyway, with all the brouhaha in the press and the Indian catholics asking for a ban on the movie, I was glad to get some comic relief from Dave Barry. I can't find the article on the Miami Herald anymore and am therefore linking to another blog.

Vikram Seth on being Bi

Some men like Jack and some like Jill
I'm glad I like them both but still
I wonder if this freewheeling
Really is an enlightened thing,
Or is its greater scope a sign
Of deviance from some party line?
In the strict ranks of Gay and Straight
What is my status: Stray? Or Great?


Seth was the Aamir Khan of my teens. Years have passed, much has changed in the world and yet, and yet, when I met him at the reading of his latest book (Two Lives) a few months ago, I became once again the schoolgirl who skipped school to finish reading his tome. A few weeks ago I discovered his bisexual leanings that, in hindsight, was always conspicuous in his books and poems.

How deceitful are teenage hormonal surges!

As the poets have mournfully sung

As the poets have mournfully sung,
Death takes the innocent young,
The rolling-in-money,
The screamingly-funny,
And those who are very well hung.

-- W. H. Auden

It takes an Auden to be tongue-in-cheek about death!

A Shinagawa Monkey

Loved the story 'A Shinagawa Monkey' written by Haruki Murakami and published in 'The New Yorker'. Read 'A Shinagawa Monkey' here.

Pursuing Happiness

New Yorker and fine writing are synonymous; anyone could have told you that.

Every week I discover at least one article that I think is profound, intriguing or just beautifully written. February’s issue had an article about the pursuit of happiness that made interesting read.

There was a time when I had fancied myself as being unhappy and went around spouting such nonsense as “Sorrow is more profound than happiness”. Now that I'm older and wiser by a fraction, I am gobble smacked that I am not skipping merrily about. My “set point” is perhaps not given to happiness. To find out what I’m talking about read the article. I promise you’ll thank me for it!

Feminist rant

I read an article in Boston Globe recently that irritated me quite a bit. The article claimed that if a price was to be paid to moms in the United States the number would be $134121. Now, here's the rub: half a dozen people mentioned this article to me and most of them were men.

Despite fear of sounding like a feminist I have to ask -

What about fathers? Don't fathers count?

My issue is not that such a study was made and reported. I am only nervous about the idealization of motherhood and of any mention of ‘penmai’ and ‘thaimai’ as a virtue. I see this whole deifying of motherhood as a function of the society we live in. Indian society, especially, comes down pretty heavily on mothers by weighing in on their feelings of guilt. Some other cultures may be a tad lenient but the difference is marginal. The bottom line is always that, an woman is expected in any society to put nurturing right up there in her list of priorities. Contrary to popular belief psychologists will tell you that the mothering instinct, like any other skill, does not come naturally to all women.

Nancy Friday speaks about this syndrome in the book "My mother, myself". Friday talks about how women are, from birth, taught to believe that their success and failure is hinged on whether they are good mothers to their children or not. This, according to Friday, is psychologically the most limiting factor to women's growth. Because they cannot think of themselves in any larger context apart from that of a mother they never let their children grow emotionally, preferring instead to keep them tied to themselves.

By idealizing/idolizing motherhood we also deny them the right to make mistakes and learn from them. We set them up in a pedestal from where the only place they can go is down.

Girl Power (Illustrations by Manian)

Kundavai 'The Brain' Piratti

Poonkuzhali - not your average boatwoman

I can't seem to find pictures of Nandini the seductress,who could make the legs of strong men turn to Jell-O!

Ponniyin Selvan & my mother

My mother is not very excitable but she usually lights up like a deepavali lamp at the mention of ‘Ponniyin Selvan’. I’m reading the last book of the series and when I mention this on my weekend call home, I can here the excitement in her voice. She does not agree with me that Arulmozhivarman is a pious goody-two-shoes and that Vandhiyadevan’s character is the least well delineated of the lot. But, like me, she is drawn to the female characters – especially Nandini (‘Enna strong character ava!’) and Poonkuzhali(‘Woman with loads of attitude illaya ma Poonkuzhali?’).

Now mom can no longer complain that I have poor literary taste - Ponniyin Selvan has bridged the divide between my literary gene and its blueprint!

Wondering Minstrels

If poetry makes you sigh and moan, then you probably already know about the website Wondering Minstrels. I’ve been receiving poems from this poetry-a-day-with-some-analysis-thrown-in website for several years now and can’t recommend it highly enough. Every once in a while turns up a gem that is truly delightful but their everyday fare is pretty palatable too. They are rather snooty about not sending amateur poetry, which is the way I like it (bad prose is condonable but bad poetry rankles and grates on the nerves).

Some years ago, I’d heard that the duo who run the show -Thomas Abraham and Martin DeMello- were planning on holding poetry readings in bookstores across Bombay. Wonder what became of that idea.

Warning: I would recommend you subscribe to their mailing list or at least wear sunglasses if you’re browsing their site. The blue can be blinding!