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Tejaswee Rao Blogging Award

26 Dec
I just WON a Tejaswee Rao Blogging Award, and I didn’t even know I was nominated! Thank you, IHM and the community at IHM’s blog, for this wonderful honor. I’m also in the running for a cash prize which I intend to donate to if I win.

[Obligatory SQUEEEEEEEEEE break OMG OMG I won my first blogging award!]

Ahem.

The post for which I won the award (Biology vs. Culture: DEATHMATCH) got me thinking. I’ve quite stopped blogging about feminism here, haven’t I? It’s intentional. And it’s been hard. It’s one of the main reasons why I haven’t been blogging very much, because I so often want to and then I think … oh, don’t want to blog feminism again. 

The reason is both ugly and stupid.

Any non-anonymous feminist blogger faces loads of vocal opposition from real-life folks who think feminism is passe or unnecessary or whiny or annoying or strident. It can often get personal: people whose opinions and friendships I value have asked me, “But why are YOU complaining so much when your life is filled with almost too much equality!” And of course my life is positively bursting with privilege so it’s churlish to respond “it is NOT”, and continue blogging as if they never said anything, even if they were completely wrong on many levels to say what they said. It’s so hard to be labeled a bitch by real-life friends! How does anybody navigate that?

That’s the ugly part.

The stupid part is where I censor myself and stop blogging just because some readers responded in a less-than-totally-thrilled fashion. Boo, hiss, get blogging, Nandini, and stop worrying about the critics. Right? I should get that tattooed on the back of my hand so it’s staring at me whenever I start to type.

Oooor I could just look at the shiny new blog award I got, and the seriously awesome post which I got the award for, and use them as both bitch-shield and inspiration to blog a lot more.

In conclusion, I would like to thank the Academy…

Post Written On The Eve Of My 29th Birthday

9 Nov


Yeah, I didn’t actually drop off the face of the earth. Hi. :)

What, I’m not going to get off that easy? *sigh* What do you want from me, an explanation? I’ll give you an explanation! I was busy, OK? I have a life. And a kid. And this hulking house that just sits and gathers dirt and generally descends into chaos every 16 hours. My vegetable patch died, and I was traumatised for weeks. It’s COLD out, and it gets dark at 6 PM and that makes me too depressed to blog. I threw two parties, you know how much work that is? Plus, I ate too much Halloween candy and then my sugar levels just crashed after a couple of hours of running about hyper, and crashes are not conducive to blogging. And then yesterday Angad stomped on my typing finger. See?

… Okay, I’m sorry, and I have no excuse. Mockingbird I’m looking at you as I say this because I know you poked me MONTHS ago.

I’ll try to make up for it, though, because I have a fantastic lineup – yes, an actual lineup for the first time in my blogging career, preplanning FTW – of posts coming to you over the course of the month. but indulge me a bit longer before the making-up starts, because I’m in a bit of a maudlin mood… and I was just thinking this year has been a pretty good year for me. Especially compared to the last.

Nov 2008-Nov 2009, I swear, may have been the worst year of my life. I mean, Angad went through his adorable babyhood during it like a giant ball of pure awesome, so consider how horrific the rest of it was to make it to the bottom of my list. I learned a huge lesson from that year, though, and it is a lesson that can be condensed into just one instruction, a five word sentence. It is GOLD if I say so myself. This is the kind of wisdom you only get by climbing up the Himalayas naked and pleasing a skanky rishi up top. Are you ready for it?

Never. Have. A. First. Child.

Skip straight to second or third, folks. By then you’ll be seasoned pros, too tough to be fazed by little things like your entire life turning upside down. So you can enjoy your baby without turning into a psychopath every even-numbered day of the month. Just skip on past all the crazy expectations of a smooth transition into parenthood, all the earth-shaking fights with your husband over the exact tone of voice he used when he told you the baby might need feeding, all the WTF DID HE JUST EAT THE EDGE OF HIS BLANKET moments… and go straight to the blessed comforts of peace, perspective, and a zen attitude (if he eats it, it’s edible). I told you this was gold.

Anyway, after that pretty much any old year would have been fine but Nov 2009-Nov 2010 really has been rather awesome.

We moved into our new house, got settled in, bought big furniture, met some great neighbors and have happily walked to restaurants and bakeries and movies and grocery stores all year. That is unimaginable luxury in suburban America. We’ve learned to cope with home ownership, everything from ignoring the inevitable spiders, to maintaining a narrow footpath free of clutter all through a 2000+sq ft home with a toddler running about leaving trails of destruction in his wake, to raking massive heaps of acorns and leaves from our backyard come the fall.

We’ve become gardeners, planting beautiful tulips and daffodils that bloomed this past spring and will bloom once again the next. We even planted a tiny vegetable patch, which we learned a lot from though it wasn’t much of a success. (Except for the habaneros – does anybody know what to do with eighty jillion of these impossibly fiery peppers??? HALP!)

We took a trip to India, had a blast, and went to my famous cousin’s dhamaka wedding. We hosted my inlaws on a month-long visit during Angad’s birthday and it went swimmingly because (a) I did not make a raving fool of myself, and (b) they were awesome enough to forget some of our past misadventures.

Saurabh and I watched Buffy, all 7 seasons of her, starting in February and finishing in July, and loved every bit of it. I got a job. Made some super-awesome friends. Then I lost the bloody job but the friends have remained, and they were the best part of the job deal anyway so suck on that, RR!

I also learned how to drive! And got my driver’s license! That was huge, ok. Then back in August I started dieting and exercising a bit, and even lost a liiiittle weight. Halloween made me gain it all back but that still counts. (Yes it does.)

This was the year that Angad started talking properly and learned a ridiculous number of very important and difficult things such as how not pee in his pants and the whole uppercase and lowercase alphabet and the names, biographies, vital statistics and character traits of every vehicle ever to appear on Thomas The Tank Engine. Watching him grow makes me squeeeeeee.

Pretty good year. So the last of my crazy twenties has a lot to live up to, but you know me. Optimistic to a fault.

Happy birthday to me!

I finished writing this post a little after midnight, but I had yet to do the linkage and picspamming… and I was thwarted in my attempt as aforementioned awesome friends showed up at my door with cake and presents just then. How’s that for a great start to the year? :)

Feed Screed

24 Jul

Leave it to my ever-awesome sister-in-law to show me the way out of my blogging block.

… Maybe that’s the wrong word for it. I’m not blocked. I’m writing a lot of posts. I have three finished posts and several one-paragraphers chilling in the edits queue. It’s just that whatever I write feels like the wrong thing to post. Since I never keep my blogging in pace with my reading, every post is old news before it’s written, so I don’t want to write it… and it becomes that much harder to find a jumping off point for every new post without having to tediously (for me) recap everything that’s gone before. I am semi-seriously considering converting this into a multiple-posts-a-day journal like Copperbadge’s. It would really work too, if only I had better discipline and also comment threading (god I need to switch to WordPress already).

But what was I saying? For the present, my dilemma is solved via ever-awesome SIL, who just wrote this very complimentary post reviewing all the blogs she reads regularly. What a fantastic idea. I want to do the same.

….*Looks at feed reader*: 51 subscriptions

Ohhhh-kay, how about I just review my favourite ones? That sounds like a very good plan to me, because I am quite sadistic that way. I will feast on the anger, outrage and cries of despair of those whose blogs I did not select.

(Please don’t kill me, I’m joking, this is just a stupid blog post, I love ALL your blogs! … It is at times like these that I begin to suspect I harbour a self-destructive streak deep within me.)

OK. In all seriousness, here are the blogs I read which are currently being updated at least semi-regularly, in the order they’re listed on my Google Reader:

  1. J. A. Konrath: A Newbie’s Guide To Publishing: This guy wrote the book (literally) on self marketing for authors. I began to read his blog three years ago because his optimism about writing is infectious. These days he’s making waves – and tons of money – as a runaway bestselling ebook author, putting him right in the center of the flux in the publishing industry.

  2. Shuchi: Allergic to Alliteration: I went to college with Shuchi for four years without ever finding out she is such a good poet. What she writes is simple rhyme suffused with emotion, wit and pith. Totally worth checking out.

  3. Copperbadge: The grand patriarch of livejournal fandom, and I mean that in a GOOD way. I started reading him for his fantastic Harry Potter fanfic. I stayed for the fascinating way he chronicles his life, making three or four posts every day: a living showcase of the extraordinary in a perfectly ordinary life. Bonus? He writes excellent original fiction these days, all of which is available as a download for free.

  4. Krish Ashok: Doing Jalsa and Showing Jilpa: This is a dude I vaguely knew back in Singapore turned big-name blogger. Check out his hilarious infographic-style posts.

  5. Fugitivus: “Harriet Jacobs”, the writer of Fugitivus, is a feminist blogger and rape survivor. While I often don’t agree with her on her more radical views and especially her recent religiosity, her long, detailed, analytical posts can be stunningly insightful. I’ve not only learned from her as a feminist, I hope to learn from her as a writer: perhaps one day I can stop being afraid to write posts as long as hers! Or more accurately, perhaps one day I will have the clarity of thought to have so much *meaningful* analysis to offer on seemingly simple stuff.

  6. Gillette’s Journal: Super-husband and dad extraordinaire, this guy is right now playing with my hair. Stop, Saurabh. I need to finish this post. No, I will not say that your blog is the blog other blogs worship at the feet of. I put you on the list, didn’t I?

  7. Hyperbole and a Half: Great find from just a few weeks ago! Allie’s posts – usually about her own adventures and experiences – combine deliberately crude stick-figure drawings and hyperbolic storytelling to great comic effect.

  8. Sarah Rees Brennan: Author of the very, very awesome YA fantasy novel, The Demon’s Lexicon, who blogs about her road to publication and her thoughts on recent books. I knew Sarah as “Mistful”, way back before she got her big publishing contract. She used to write the most awesome Harry Potter fanfiction which are sadly no longer available online (but I have an emailable copy if you’re interested), and her uproarious movie parodies are legendary.

  9. Juice: Another college friend who turned out to be totaly talented! Juice and I hung out for a bit in first year, with her trying to engage a very taciturn me in conversation and me just trying to borrow her awesome blue skirt. Sorry Jups! Younger-Nandini was quite an idiot.

  10. neoIndian: Confessions of a Newly Returned Indian: This is hands down the best blog find of the last six months. Not only is neo a master comedian and urbane writer, our politics agree almost perfectly. That NEVER happens!!

  11. Nimbupani: OK, so we’re like BFF and I may be a bit biased. But this is one impressive woman. She moved to Singapore when she was 16 to attend university. While at college, she made friends with one of the most AMAZING people in the world (ahem), graduated NTU at age 20, and quit her regular job to start her own very successful web design business a couple of years later. She blogs and tweets about web design, Africa, books and a number of miscellaneous subjects. Also, she’s a feminist. I think any more awesome squeezed into one person would cause spontaneous combustion and supernovae.

  12. Query Shark: Oh, the BITE. This literary agent will, for the purposes of your education, chew up your lovingly crafted query letter and spit out its ugly/verbose/ungrammatical/self-indulgent bare bones. Always an entertaining read even if you’re not into writing.

  13. Roger Ebert’s Journal: His talent is ginormous, his wisdom sagacious. He is witty, empathetic, fiery and inquisitive. This man is my hero and I want to be just like him. ‘Nuff said.

  14. Sayesha: Back in my first year at college, Sayesha once held my hands in hers and told me, “Kitne chote chote haath hain aapke”, before proceeding to cover my crazy tiny hands with marvellously intricate mehendi. I knew her as a multifacetedly talented girl two years my senior… and now she’s this amazing bigname blogger that everybody seems to be reading! Makes me wish I’d gotten an autograph instead of mehendi. :)

  15. The Life and Times of an Indian Homemaker: Thoughtful, passionate and articulate Indian feminist. I’ve learned so much from her. Her blog is a must-read for any Indian regardless of political views.

  16. Tilopinionated: This blog is so much fun! Just like its writer is in person. Check out Tilo’s movie reviews and nostalgic posts about bollywood songs from the 90s.

  17. Captain Molecule: Speed of Sound: Aaaaand it’s official, I went to college with a bunch of hypertalented people too idiotic to clue me in on their awesomeness while we were, you know, actually on the same campus. Why do I have to keep finding out through *blogs* that these old classmates are poets? Yeah. Here’s another one. This one also writes rhyming verse, but here the poetry is a tad less personal (I think?) – but filled with startling images.

  18. Shalaka: Bits and Bytes: My picture-perfect SIL’s blog. Now, granted, this might be a little more interesting to me than it is to you, but hey. My list, my rules! Shalaka has spent the last two years complaining that blogging is boring :P but when she does write, she shows herself for the good diarist that she is, and more important, it’s great insight into her life and her thoughts, We’re both so busy right now with our small kids (she has twins the exact same age as my kid!) and so disconnected from living on opposite ends of the country that this blog is about the only way I get to know her. She’s recently started the blog up again, which rocks. Totally rocks.

Phew. I feel like I just sang Breathless.

Do you guys have any blogs to recommend? Would you like to smack me for neglecting to mention someone on my list? The comment board is at your service.

A Name Of My Own

17 Apr

LOOK, you guys! *points up to the address bar*

This blog now has its own domain name! I’m still hosting it on Blogger for the time being but a switch to somewhere with better comment threading is in the works…

It’s time to update your feed settings, in case you weren’t using the feedburner link before.
Subscribe to my posts in your favourite reader!

My Excuse

7 Mar

A tiny person keeps jumping all over me and pressing buttons on my computer and keyboard when I’m trying to write blog posts. Haaaaaalp.

A new beginning

17 Nov

The first time I ever heard of blogging, I knew I had to do it.

This was way back in 2003, you understand, back when blogging was cool and still ‘in’ and people talked about the “blogosphere’ as the hip new place to be. I got myself a ZBlogger account and got started. I wrote there for a few months, the only memorable post I made was one about Independence day (August 15, not the movie), but it’s only memorable because I remember being happy with what I’d written, not because I remember what was actually in that post.

Long story short, ZBlogger kept crashing. A couple of times it went offline and then came back with all my posts intact. I blogged blithely on, refusing to sucumb to peer pressure to backup my blog. Then in January 2004 ZBlogger crashed for good and I got my first Blogger account. In it, I blogged well and blogged long, ranted, raved and recommended, changed my layout a zillion times, got stalked by my ever-unflagging stalker, took long vacations that turned into hiatuses and came back and went away again and came back and went away and then I just… stopped.

Because I was restless.

Because the old blog suddenly didn’t fit.

Because I was no longer “Wendelin”.

I’m coming back to the blogosphere when it’s no longer cool (or as The Economist says, when it has “entered the mainstream, which – as with every new medium in history – looks to its pioneers suspiciously like death”). I don’t mind. I blog to keep a journal (though as always I promise not to turn this into a “Dear Diary”). I blog to keep in touch, because the rate at which I respond to emails, letters and phone calls would make Miss Manners shrink in horror. All else is incidental.

Some introductions for new readers and updates for old, then.

My name is Nandini.

I’m a new mom to a six month old kid, whom I shall refer to as Mr. Awakey Pants because he is currently driving me up the wall with his refusal to take his damn nap already. Oi!

I’m married to Saurabh, aka Mr. Smarty Pants. That is not to be taken as a sarcastic perjorative unless I am fighting with him (I’ll let you know when).

I’m 27 years old. I feel about half a decade older than I am, both wisdom-wise and crumbling-body-wise. Bah, pregnancy.

I am an atheist. I used to be a fervent one, and for a while flirted with New Atheism, but no longer.

My politics are very left liberal. This is new. I used to be a Randroid, and afterwards a plain libertarian. Then I lived in USA for a while and BAM. The cue of social justice knocked the 8-ball of Nandini’s conscience straight into the left pocket of the snooker table of politics.

My jokes are overlong and always fall flat.

I write fiction. Sometimes I even write things I am not ashamed to show other people. This happens very rarely, though, so don’t get your hopes up.

Welcome to my new blog.

Back With A Tag

3 Jul

Wini tagged me. A little thing like that has gone and made me feel confused, guilty, absurdly happy and comically grateful.

Lately on this blog, I’ve been doing an excellent impression of having fallen off the face of the earth. I wonder where y’all think I am and what you think I’m doing, when you think of me and this blog at all. Do you see me wandering, Jack-Sparrow-like, on the white cracked surface of Davy Jones’s locker? Do you think I’m out there partying it up, living a life far too thrilling to stop by once in a while and tell you about it? Or do you chalk me up as one of the “married-and-disappeared”, that universally hated tribe of bimbotic idiots whose lives are completely contained within their significant other’s?


The correct answer is a combination of all three scenarios. Lately the fun quotient of my life has shot skyward, what with that five-week holiday and my new job and summer being here. (Yes, I got employment authorisation, finally, and a “real” job, didn’t I tell you?) Full of zeal is how I find myself, and in my blazing rush to fit job apps, (local) friends, paid writing gigs, other writing projects, a new exercise routine (pilates) and summer cooking into my day, all day, every day, it’s easy to let the blog slide.

But there’s also the element of bimbotic idiocy here: I must confess the more time I spend with my husband, the more I get used to it. Contrary to popular belief among you singles (and singletons and defiantly-singles and all shades thereof), we “married-and-disappeareds” haven’t disappeared because we’re moronically worshipful of couplehood to the point of exclusion of all else (um, not always, at least)… it’s more a matter of taking the path of least Resistance. A form of laziness, if you will. It’s so much easier to hang out with my husband than anyone else, because let’s face it, he’s right there and he likes doing all the things I like, and the force of the dreaded R-word – routine – cannot easily be denied. Which makes it sound all dreary and boring, but I swear it’s the opposite. That’s the deadly appeal.

And when I am on my own with time enough to update this blog and scrap all my old friends and send them cute e-cards that say, “Hi, hope you’re having a nice day,” I find I turn very Jack-like indeed. Because by now, I’m so out of touch, and it’s so long since I even said hello to some of the dear old crowd (you know who you are) that it would be plain embarrassing to show up and say hi now. Wouldn’t it? So I labour along at the bottom of this self-made Davy Jones’s locker and wish I could find some cute device like those stone crabs to drag my ship of hello out to meet the sea of old relationships and then everybody would go “awwwww”. “Awwww, there’s our dear old Wendelin, back from the dead.” Instead of, “bitch, who do you think you’re talking to?”

So from a very different route but some remarkably similar specifics, I’ve arrived at the same place that Sayesha is in now: looking for friends old and new to halt this precipitous decline towards totally encapsculated coupledom. Dammit, I don’t want to be lazy.

Back to Wini and her tag: thanks, girl. Anything that looks remotely like a way back into the old fold, I will take.

Here are the rules:
1. Players start with 5 random facts about themselves.
2. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 5 random facts.
3. Players should tag 5 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

So here we go! –

I’m much more excited about the place I work than my work itself. Working in the heart of the city is going to be brilliant – great food, parks, libraries, cafes, museums and people on the streets, all just steps away!

I recently began to do paid writing gigs online under an assumed name.

To paraphrase Wini: I can’t drive. And know I HAVE to learn sometime soon, but I’m hoping a miracle will take me away to live in New York City or Boston, where I never have to look at a car unless it’s to curse at it. I like chauffeurs – cabbies or Saurabh or private stretch limousines, any way is ok with me.

I have a snacking problem – in a few years I think I will have degenerated into snacking in secret.

I’m always tempted to stop shaving my legs in winter because I’m under so many layers of clothing anyway… but it takes only a couple of weeks for me to gross myself out.

———

I’m tagging: Sushil (WAKE UP!), Nimbupani (WAKE UP MORE!), Yodha (YOOHOO!), Juice (who makes my day every time she writes a post) and Sayesha (who does the same).

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Gone till 5th June

24 Apr


Home – New York – Mumbai – Shanghai – Beijing (?) – Shanghai – Mumbai – New York – Home

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Step Up, Mr. Birkhead

10 Apr

Listen up, we have a father!

What a fantastically appropriate name that Larry Birkhead has. As Earl would say, Artchy Fartchky Berky Borky. And I’m shocked – shocked, I tell you! – that the U.S. media’s jumping all over this story and making it frontpage headlines when there are planes being hijacked and planets being melted around here. (Secret confession: I had my heart set on a Maury Show reveal. Sigh.)

Whatever. I’m going offline for another three weeks to get away from this horror, the horror. In case you can’t tell, I’m going through a bout of supreme blogging-apathy which is, surprisingly enough, translating into decent writing. Let the eeeeeeeeagle soooooar…

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Blogger Comments Feed

2 Mar

Does anyone know why it’s suddenly putting out the oldest comment first?

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