Accidental Misogyny

A meme has been making rounds of Facebook recently, where in one panel, the girl is standing with a board that says, "India needs Feminism because I don't need to pay him to marry me", and in the other panel, the same girl is standing with a board that now reads, "I don't need to pay him to marry me. But I will not marry a guy who doesn't own a house, a 7 digit salary, and a car".

The reason this post is called accidental misogyny is because this meme is very easy to misinterpret. We all have those people (women, in particular) in our lives who are okay with arranged marriages if it ensures financial stability. So, we see the truth of the second panel completely, and the double standard between the first panel and the second panel is apparently hilarious, so we laugh and share it. 

But people (particularly men) who are sharing this: India needs Feminism because it is not okay for your family and your intended and her family to expect you to be the only one who brings what constitute as financial luxuries to the marriage. You are also one of the people who are disenfranchised by patriarchy because along with forcing the woman to sell herself for a price, it also expects you to meet and maintain unnecessarily high standards throughout your life. Both parties are at a disadvantage here. She is not better off because you are rich: it is still not her money. If she's a sensible person, she'll value working for her own money than taking yours, or will at least contribute to the marriage in equal terms. 

If you refuse to "buy" her and she brings as much financial stability to the table as you do, India will be a much better place and your marriage, a happier one. So, don't be an accidental misogynist and cynically believe that any woman would marry you if you are rich enough: a lot of women have been fighting for their right to work and their right for equal pay for a long time to settle for anything less than their own money. 

Write Away!

So, I have a friend who doesn't think her writing is good enough. And another friend who thinks her writing isn't good enough And another friend... well, you get the point. So, the purpose of this post is how to make you realise that your writing is less shitty than you think it is (because I have just been called a chill advice dispenser, and I take my duties seriously). Make sure you've got the ingredients right, and don't be too harsh on yourself!

1. PRACTICE
See, practicing writing all genres is extremely important. There is always room for improvement when you write, and if there are nitty-gritties in your writing that bother you, you can always resolve them through practice.

2. FEEL YOUR GENRE
I have friends who believe that practicing writing engenders talent. I disagree. I feel like we're all formed from our experiences and our writing styles reflect that. Some people are more comfortable writing humor, some are more inclined to writer murder mysteries, some can write funny murder mysteries. Through practice, you need to figure out what your genre is (or are, if you have multiple genres that you can write). 

3. RECONCILIATION
The genre you feel might not always correspond to what you're interested in. For example, I am interested in psychological thrillers but I can't write them--they're not my genre. On the other hand, Indian marriage scene is not something I'm interested in, but I can write it well enough (I guess). So yeah, you need to find a way to reconcile what you're interested in and the genre(s) you can write.   

4. EUREKA MOMENTS
Writing is not always a thing you can do at will. It's like food--if you force it too much, it comes out like crap. While I believe that writing is something that you have to work for, I also believe that there are moments of inspiration that you have that ease the process of writing (in the food metaphor, these moments of inspiration are like water). 

 5. START WITH THE BASICS
Strengthen your plot-making skills, characterisation, descriptions, etc. to feel better about your writing.

6. STOP OVER-ANALYSING YOUR WRITING.

7. ASK FOR OTHER PEOPLE'S HONEST INPUT.
This will only make your writing better, even if your pride takes a thrashing. It hurts (a lot), but it helps you grow. 

Happy writing! 
(Also, if you guys want me to look over your writing, just message the page on Facebook!) 

Looking Back

So, 2015 started out horribly. I missed my family too much, and the local food hasn't been agreeing with me for some time. Some days I didn't know how I was going to get through the year. Being in a strange place for a long time made me very bitter. 

In retrospect, thought, 2015 was better to me than I thought it'd be. I gained some fantastic friends and valuable experience. I read good books, had some pretty good food (MOCAMBO!!!), played a lot of D&D (still not as much as I wanted to), and licked the jello bowls clean (not really). 

2016 is looking up to be even better, though. I'll be home, I'll have a job (hopefully), I'll be learning German. But before that, there are still a lot of restaurants to visit in Kolkata, more D&D to be played, friends to hang out with, and a dissertation to write. 

I have resolutions to stick to: less fanfiction reading, more blogging, be more sociable/express myself more... Let's see how they work out!

Thank you for the memories, 2015, and looking forward to you, 2016! :D

Letters

"It was as if I were writing letters to hold together the pieces of my crumbling life."

-Norwegian Wood, Murakami

The idea of letters is so romantic. I finished reading a fanfiction yesterday about this couple who get together by getting to know each other through letters, and after one of them dies, the other one is left with drawers and drawers of love letters that the now-dead partner left for him. Then there are movies like P.S. I Love You (yes, I'm aware it was a book first) that made me bawl all over my Economics notes (why I thought making notes for Economics was a good idea while watching that movie is still a mystery to me.)

But anyway, letters. Letters are personalised ways of expressing what you feel. Hallmark cards are supposed to do that as well, but letters are like shoes for your emotions. If you don't have the right one, it's always slightly uncomfortable (which is why Hallmark cards feel so awkward.) I wonder if this was the reason why Angela Vicario wrote to Bayardo San Roman for seventeen years: she couldn't write something that fit (Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Do yourselves a favour and read it, please.) Is it even possible to write something that fits exactly right? Most of us actually live with shoe-bites and carry band-aids around. 

If the answer is no, then letter-writing is wrongly assumed as cathartoc. Every time you write a letter, you feel like it is not enough: you could have said it better, added a metaphor or two that might have come slightly closer to expressing what you feel. But I ask this of people who write letters: does writing a letter really give you a sense of closure, as if you've expunged whatever you felt onto paper and don't have to deal with those emotions anymore? I don't think it does. Small bits still stick to your soul; they wrap themselves around you and regrow.

I find letter writing extremely difficult. The other half of this dynamic duo demands letters for her birthdays. I oblige, of course, but it's not easy. Some of it is because I'm immensely repressed and the though of expressing meaningful emotion onto paper for someone else to read is terrifying (which is really funny considering I blog for funsies.) Some of it is because of my woeful vocabulary; I just don't have the words.

Really, I have no idea how people do it. To bare yourself like you do onto paper requires a kind of courage that I do not posses. I feel very strongly for people, and am constantly worried that I'll creep them out if I express what I feel about them in letters (I hope I haven't creeped people out already .-.).

But yeah, if someone asks me to write a letter to them, I'd probably end up not expressing myself fully. In fact, these words by Aaron Smith ("Secrets of an Identity Thief") would probably best express my feelings towards letter-writing:

"[...] Everything that's asked of you is too much.

Say, Too much. Say, I used to. Say, I never wanted this."

Rise of Juggernaut

So, most of us who watch cartoons know who Juggernaut is--Professor X's step brother who, when gained momentum, was unstoppable, and was out to destroy Professor X. While Juggernaut kept being thwarted by the X-Men continuously, the publishing industry is actually expecting the opposite of this phenomenon.

Juggernaut is a new publishing house, infamous before it actually took off because Chiki Sarkar resigned from Penguin Random House to help Juggernaut gain the momentum it needs. With the first catalog here, Juggernaut boasts of some very impressive titles (I really want to get my hands on the Snowden and the RSS books. The crime fiction also looks delicious.) But the thing is, Chiki Sarkar is now competing with her old publishing house to make it to the top. Her claims of knowing what to feed people is backed up by her experience (and yes, I'm fangirling at this point), and Juggernaut is definitely going to be a site where she can think about feeding people one chapter at a time, like a TV episode: 

“Could we think of presenting a book in a way that people access it not just as one big, one-off serious thing with 200 pages, but in snack-sized portions,” asks Sarkar. “Can we make it possible for people to buy it in short, digestible bits?  A chapter or two first, and then if they like it, more? Could each chapter be looked at almost as a TV episode?” 

I feel like Juggernaut is the publishing house that I have been waiting for. Penguin Random House sold its soul long ago, before it even merged. In Juggernaut and its titles, I see a spark to produce good books, ones that should be consumed without compromising on the quality of themes and writing. Even the commercial fiction in the catalog makes me want to read those titles, and knowing how much I dislike reading commercial fiction, that is saying something. They are no compromising on the quality of content to find a bigger audience (*cough* 50 Shades of Grey, Vintage *cough*). Instead, they are looking for new modes to make books accessible to people. I might hate reading on a screen but if reading on screen is the only way some people will read, I can get behind that.  

I definitely see Juggernaut challenging Professor X (Prof. X being Penguin Random House, of course) here, and I'm quite certain that Juggernaut's going to be Professor X at his own game, even if it takes a while. In the meantime, I'm just going to sit here and wait for job vacancies at Juggernaut.

You guys go check out the catalog, though--http://www.juggernaut.in/catalogue
  

Slice of Life

So, I haven't really slept in two days because I had a term paper and a few tests coming up. I got through all of them with lots and lots and lots of tea (thank you, tea god and the chai wala whose shop is just opposite where I live).
Anyway, so, in the morning, I was in college, typing out an answer to be submitted in two hours. I was sitting along a ledge, and there were people milling all around me, singing Atif Ali songs and saying random stuff. And in the midst of such hustle, I was there with my cup of tea, brought to me by my minion, S (thank you, S!), talking about Paris and polyglossia when I realised that I could get used to this.
After almost one-and-a-half years of feeling stifled here, I realise that I could get used to staying like this, typing away on the floor, surrounded by people who talk in a language I don't understand. And then I realise that I'm going to miss this when I leave in another semester.


Maybe I'll come back for convocation, after all  

Of Leaving

It's a story we've all heard:

it's a story of leaving

people and 

places and 

towels behind

to find new people and 

glamorous places

and fancier towels.

It's always been about 

opportunities for you—

you reach out to them,

and I don't reach out to you.