Hello my dears,
It’s been a while. I didn’t mean to take a month long break. But, life has been busy. The good kind of busy, the kind where I haven’t had the time to sit down and write. I hope all of you are well. How’s the new year treating you?
I didn’t think I would survive 2020. I know not much has changed except the calendar year, but I’m letting myself be hopeful. Yes, the pandemic is still raging. But we have viable vaccines now. Many of my friends in USA and UAE are already vaccinated. Although the roll out of the vaccine has been horribly chaotic. The Gates Foundation urged the makers of the Oxford vaccine to patent and commercialize it. Now, poor countries cannot afford enough doses of it for their citizens. Richer countries are hoarding the vaccine. A doctor who tried to give away the vaccine before it expires has now been fired. To sum it up, there are enough vaccine doses but it’s all sitting in storage, getting wasted because of corporate greed, creating a ‘shortage’ and prolonging the pandemic. The vaccine distribution has become a true logistical nightmare for governments around the world.
Except New Zealand.
Rihanna upending the Indian government through a mere tweet was not on my 2021 bingo. Delhi Police lodging FIRs and arresting barely legal teenagers protesting was also not on my card, but I’m not the least bit surprised. I have, like any education and opinionated person, too many thoughts on the whole ~thing~ but I do not want to go to jail, so I’m going to keep it to myself.
Myanmar is under a military coup with its leader arrested, and I found out through a meme. Someone sent me this video of an aerobics instructor exercising while military tanks are rolling up to the parliament building behind her.
I shouldn’t be entirely surprised that I was finding out about a coup through a meme, after the whole GameStop situation. If you were living under a rock and somehow missed it, redditors went to war with Wall Street investment firms, and everyone lost their minds. A bunch of rich people lost billions of dollars, while other people became ridiculously rich over night. Look, I’m not a finance person but I am a Gen Z libertarian sociopath so any chance to break free from the shackles of capitalism, seems alright to me. #TaxTheRich
There is much to be said about how flawed the current economic structure is, and how it’s abating classism and widening the economic divide, but I’m going to let someone who is much smarter than me deep dive into that.
For now, I’m going wallow in nostalgia.
it's one of those days when i miss dilli. specifically, i miss dilli in february. when the harsh winter fades and makes way for spring. the bright yellow of the amaltas trees takes over every inch of the city, negating the grim grey hues. there is joy and hope and love in the air.
february is the month signaling the arrival of spring. february is the month of love. february is the month of engifest.
point of view: its the second week of february in 2016. you wake up to your phone buzzing. its your friend asking you to come to oat. there's some performance happening and she has saved you a seat. hurry up, she says. you step outside hostel. ugh there's too many people. the road is covered in streamers and paper hoardings. the over enthusiastic juniors have repurposed alcohol bottles with lights and hung them from every branch of every tree along the road. getting drunk at the cost of engi? not bad. you laugh at their ingenuity because alas, the alcohol must be drained somehow to get all those empty bottles right. you make your way past the gaggle of incoming people on their way to the oat and scurry to the mess. bhaiya serves you steaming hot aloo paratha. you complain about the crowd and chaos of engi. but secretly, you love it.
you make your way to amul. amul is unrecognizable. there are food stalls all around, there's a tent with some kind of virtual reality gaming thing, there are carnival type games. you make a mental note to have kebabs from the chandni chowk shop and the cake-in-a-jar thing that your roommate has been raving about. the performance in the oat is about to start. you find your friends. this indie band you have never heard of starts playing. you don't know it then, but they're going to be on top of your spotify playlist for years to come. you look around and notice the streamers in the oat lightly fluttering in the breeze. you're surrounded by your favorite people.
let’s go to nescafe, one of your friends exclaims. at nescafe, you meet some twenty of your casual friends. these are people you don’t know very well or talk to often, but you run into them on campus once in a while. and on days like this, with nothing to do and much to talk about, you catch up with them, while waiting for your food at nescafe. or you run into them on your way to the events. or maybe they’re also waiting in line at the overhyped momo stall.
someone suggests pre-gaming before the big concert. you are at some friend’s apartment. joints are passed around. you don’t even know half the people in the room. you find your best friend, he says he doesn’t know half the people in the room either. it’s his room. everyone is getting wasted, listening to some groovy music and talking over each other. your vision starts to become hazy. is it because of the fairy lights or the smoke haze or your inebriated state. there are multiple conversation pits. the door bell rings. someone has ordered pizza. you stuff your face. almost about to pass out on your best friend’s bed.
all is well.
Gifts From The Internet
Let’s talk about Bridgerton. If you have watched the show and would like to discuss, please text me or reply to this, because I am losing my damn mind over here. I finished watching Season 1 of the show and completed reading all the books in the series in one weekend! And now I have a giant Bridgerton-shaped void in my life.
I’ve been dreaming about Rege Jean Page far too often for my own sanity.
Thank you Shonda Rhimes for creating Bridgerton. Shonda Rhimes is also responsible for creating some other shows you might have heard of - Grey's Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder. She was very unhappy and felt disrespected at Disney, the parent company of ABC, the network where her shows were housed. A fallout at Disney led her to Netflix and gave us the gift of Bridgerton.
As part of her ABC relationship, Rhimes had been given an all-inclusive pass to Disneyland — and without a partner, she'd negotiated a second for her nanny.
……But when her daughters arrived in Anaheim, only one of the passes worked. Rhimes lobbed a call to a high-ranking executive at the company (Disney). Surely, he would get this sorted.
Instead, the exec allegedly replied, "Don't you have enough?"
Rhimes was beside herself. She thanked him for his time, then hung up and called her lawyer: Figure out a way to get her over to Netflix, or she'd find new representatives.
Her Netflix deal makes her one of the, if not the highest paid executive in television. The Hollywood Reporter profile of Shonda Rhimes cataloguing her move from Disney to Netflix is a great read for anyone interested in racial politics, power dynamics and the entertainment industry.
FiftyTwo is an initiative by media and content startup AllThingsSmall. It is a website where for 52 weeks, an essay will be published exploring India’s culture, history and politics. Every single essay published so far has been interesting and insightful, and if I could, I would separately link and recommend all the stories published on the website.
But for now, let’s talk about Mundian To Bach Ke. You know the punjabi song that is played at every wedding, every party, every night club. There have been countless remixes, covers, renditions. Even Jay-Z has rapped on this song.
To say it is iconic is an understatement. If you love this song as much as me, you are going to enjoy reading the FiftyTwo story on the song.
It was rewarding to trace the history of ‘Mundian’ : from idea to sleeper hit to omnipresence.
…And for painting a picture of the nightlife scene in India and beyond. …about film, art, music, and to new paths and viewpoints around ‘Mundian’.
The Pandemic Has Erased Entire Categories of Friendship. The pandemic is resetting casual friendships. There’s a reason you miss the people you didn’t even know that well.
How An Indian Stand Up Comic Found Himself Arrested for a Joke He Didn’t Tell. TIME Magazine’s profile of the comedian who was in jail for weeks for a joke he did not tell.
The Man With The Golden Airline Ticket. American Airlines issued unlimited free flying passes. Then they took it away. One man decided to sue them for it. And it destroyed him. This is that story. Told by his daughter.
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