Simmer
Dear friend,
My birthday was not the best I’ve ever had to be honest. It fell right in the middle of a bad mood that spread with the malice of an oil spill over my conception of past, present and future. For many weeks, I wished that the invincible summer that Camus talked of had had the good manners to stay within me. There was nothing to recommend it once it was without.
But then June came, and removing myself from all forms of social media began to revive my psyche. I got over the disappointment of not being able to draft my ambitious historical romance novel to my satisfaction and got to work on a second one, a short, quick novella-length work that helped me get over the slump. The third one was the best yet. I think I am getting the hang of things now. If I haven’t responded to your emails at any point in the last four months it’s because I was either working or preoccupied with this new hobby, I am sorry.
And now here we are, nearly in the last month of the monsoon. The electrician was finally able to come around again. I have discovered desk lighting, which for some reason I never had before. Seeing the engineers of Mac Fix Station, the most helpful tech service in Bombay (this is a recommendation), was even more heartening. I now have a new keyboard whose ‘e’ key does the work for which it was intended.
Our experiments at All Things Small are going well. My colleagues have been producing podcasts and working on film and video stuff remotely all through quarantine. Vikram and I will hopefully have something to show for all the pots we’ve been watching in a few weeks’ time. I will write with an update just before we’re ready with that.
I was honoured to contribute a list of recommendations for Indian films to the Nikkei Asian Review in early May. You may read it and be incensed about whatever I have left out here.
Harper’s Bazaar asked me to introduce Korean crime dramas* to their readers, also in May, or maybe in June. I did so in brief and saved the story in my Instagram highlights, which you should be able to find here (if you can’t, it’s in the ‘Writing’ highlight). A long and torrid essay on my year of watching drama remains to be written. I will get to it.
My books column at Mumbai Mirror continues hitchlessly. Recently I wrote about Karishma Upadhyay’s biography of Parveen Babi, Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste, Barbara Demick’s Tibet book, some cookbooks I enjoyed and more. Please read them here.
Onam greetings to one and all. Please don’t reply with advice on personal electronics or asking to read my romance novel outlines. I wish you and everyone around you good health and revolutionary spirits.
Supriya
* Please do reply with your thoughts on Stranger if you are watching the new season.