The arsenic-laced Indian reviewer

The longer I live in India the more depressed I get. It's not that this isn't an interesting country, with fascinating people and gorgeous architecture and beaches and shopping and food, it's just that I need my basics. I need paved roads, uninterrupted electricity and water, efficient garbage collection – and an intelligentsia that's, well, intelligent. I am brimming with angst because I've been following the reviews of a new book and this is what I learned: Every Indian review was either ignorant, sitting on the fence, or came laced, like arsenic, with the reviewer's particular baggage. It was all about, in other words, the person reviewing the book, not about the book itself. I wondered if I was reading too much into it, whether I should give the reviewers the benefit of the doubt, and then the international reviews started coming in.

Every single one has been a rave.

Whether it was The Guardian or the TLS, whether they were personal blogs or reputed sites, every single non-Indian review has been a rave.

Every single.....have I made myself clear?

This is just sad. What does it say about us, writers, journalists, readers? It says that we are children, in the worst way children can behave. We are uncomprehending, unreasoning, spiteful – not to be relied on. Not to be relied on to read a book and give a critical, honest judgement on it so that others can decide whether they want to read it or not. How simple is that? And yet it is not something we can do.

So this means that we can never, until we grow up as a nation, believe anything anyone says in the Indian media about someone's book, someone's film, someone's designs, someone's art, a new restaurant, a mall, even a personality profile in the feature pages.

Yeah. I'm depressed.

The Hunger Games

Numero Uno: Why does Miley Cyrus' BF have only five minutes in this movie?
2. A new but not really improved version of The Truman Show.
3. When Jennifer Lawrence trembles with fear right before the Games, you know why they're making a fuss about her in Hollywood.
4. Too much preamble before the Games begin.
5. Terrific actors from the teenage Amandla Stenberg to the seasoned Stanley Tucci.
6. The direction is as confused as the appallingly-produced Twilight series. Too slow, too little noir and too many questions left unanswered. Like if they had so little food in the territories, why didn't they fall on the feast on the train instead of delicately sampling it? 

Another one bites the breathalyzer..

With all the money celebs make, you'd think they could afford a driver. But no. They have to drink, drive and then crash into a cop car.
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20585014,00.html

Reading Room wishlist

Honestly, never dreamed I would be a bit of a geek but I do love my technology. And discovering new things on the Net, like I have with Pinterest. Here's why I love browsing it every day and discovering the most delicious images ever. And saving them! And gloating over them! And making plans about them! Yes, I can see it all getting a bit out of hand....

Va-Va-Gloom

Shebaaaa....Shebaaa....

Fifty Shades of (Bleak) Grey

As a huge fan of paranormal romance, I'm no stranger to erotic fiction which is great fun. So when I first heard the buzz about EL James' Fifty Shades I sang a Hallelujah chorus as I tripped to the nearest laptop and downloaded merrily away. Alas. This is why my mother taught me never to look forward too much to anything because the resulting thud of disappointment can be quite jarring.

Who is this little novella meant for? Thirtysomething housewives standing next to the laundry line with a ciggy dangling out of their lipstick-smeared petulant mouths, a dissatisfied meatloaf in the oven and a screaming toddler flinging food from a highchair? If you think that's a cliched image out of the 50s, I'd like to know what you think of this teenage dream alive and kicking between the pages of a book.

The hero is flawed, the heroine a virgin and just to modernise the whole, James throws in some sex toys, aka TMI. In the old days of Mills&Boon (a staple for all virgins), the formula was just that, without the sex toys. I know people (read romance fiction readers) don't change and I shamefully admit that the M&B formula can still float my boat but not when it is so painfully, haha, written. James has ensured that even if you only have a clutch of 'O' levels to your name, you can easily follow her simplistic style because it seems to be written from the point of view of a 15-year-old. (Sarah Honenberger makes that work in Catcher, Caught. Here? Not so much.)

Christian Grey is a CEO of who-cares-what, he's tall, gorgeous and has haunted eyes – really, what woman would not jump into the man's bed – and Anastasia Steele is lovely, shy and never felt the need to be bedded until etc etc. But, aye, here's the rub, when Christian speaks he speaks 'phlegmatically', when he's turning Ana on she sighs 'Oh my' and you wouldn't be surprised if she was pausing for a cucumber sandwich or two, and I do not mean that as part of their sensual arsenal but in terms of what a simpering Victorian Miss might do.

He has to have some BDSM going on and does sinful things with whips when he's not using his hands - and she is learning to like it.

Fifty Shades has perhaps five nice lines but in terms of why it is popular – this is a mystery. I can get my kicks from Stacia Kane and JR Ward, the gods of paranormal/erotic fiction, and I can re-read their dialogue and lust after their characters without a second thought. With Fifty Shades I keep thinking 'Why, God, why' and once you start thinking...God help you. Great fiction just lets you feel. That clutch at the throat first, then you let it sink into your consciousness.

Then again, maybe I can guess why Fifty Shades has caught the public imagination. Working women everywhere with busy husbands, or no lovers at all, may have very vivid imaginations to make up for what they're not getting at home. Christian and Ana work on the obvious level, but James has added a clever touch: She's made them have normal family lives, siblings and best friends so it seems that much more realistic. As in: Maybe, just maybe, this could happen to you.

James has also understood the need most women have for that something extra in their personal lives, which is where the Dom/Sub element of the book comes in.

It's the same reason why I've stopped reading Mills&Boons and have switched to its more substantial big sister; and she doesn't always need to wield a whip. In fact, erotic fiction like Fifty Shades pales in comparison to paranormal erotic fiction for the simple reason that you hardly, if ever, meet human males who are even vaguely interesting, either in real or unreal life. But if you're having dinner with Zsadist of Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood, with a scar slashing his face, his penchant for green apples and his tender, tender loving, hell could freeze over and you wouldn't notice. Of course hell will freeze over before you meet someone like him other than in the pages of a book, but you can't have everything.

Although these days, much as j'adore Ms Ward, my heart belongs to Terrible, Stacia Kane's incredible character from the Chess Putnam series who I keep beside my bed.

Just to remind myself of the standards I must hold.

My song du jour

I don't know if it's the singer or the song, but this is a bit of alright. Comments are hilarious.

Me and Mini-Me

Indian wedding art

Marigolds twined around a tree as part of the decor at a wedding dinner in Madras.

The nominees were Dross and Gold

That's what it all came down to at Oscars 2012. On one hand, you had Angelina Jolie vamping it up to the entirely wrong crowd, on the other you had Meryl Streep with her bottomless talent accepting an Oscar and saying what mattered was looking out at the audience and seeing all the friendships that had accrued over the years. It was like a farewell speech, and perhaps it was because mortality is always around the corner and she's been on that stage so many times, the odds, as she herself said, are against her. But what a woman. Where La Jolie is a bottomless pit of hype, here is someone with the kind of class you have to be born with, not the kind of flaking-off vanity that you need to escape from under. Streep is a good egg, and she has the respect of every single person who crosses her path. She doesn't need to be Jessica Rabbit to validate her existence, she just goes about her remarkable business.

Oscars 2012 was also Billy Crystal bringing a level of comfort and hilarity to hosting that is exactly what Jay Leno brings to the table. Critics panned Crystal and Leno has many haters, but as a viewer you know why you enjoy, say, Leno while Letterman is nothing but a conundrum. It's entertainment, not existentialism that you need at the end of the day with your feet up, drinking green tea. The latter you're faced with the minute you open your eyes to another over-bright morning anyway, and how many mornings are those. Crystal was impeccable, with the kind of inputs (Clooney and Justin Bieber) that had you laughing long into the night.

Loved Gwyneth Paltrow's flowing-like-molasses white gown and matching cape from my hero Tom Ford, and Rooney Mara's fragile beauty in another delicate, virginal creation whose designer I don't recall because Rooney's fantastic face overwhelmed everything else.

Blew kisses at the screen every time Scorsese's face was shown and wiped away the tears as Christopher Plummer spoke but that was only to be expected.

It was the best Oscars in years, with new inputs like actors talking about their profession and only a few people going over the time limit with their acceptance speeches. Of course, the media has said it was the worst but what do they know. They're the same ones who think La Jolie is a great actress.

Big, bad manners

People simply don't know how to behave in public. This coming from someone who screeched 'Asshole!' and flipped the bird at an auto-driver yesterday may seem a bit much, but still....I would never do what this woman did at Barista. First of all, she was getting the evil eye from other customers because she was a big woman, and tucking into a cheese croissant and cold coffee with nary a care in the world. Yes, people are like that. 'Honey, really?' were the thought bubbles appearing above several turned heads but I digress. As I tried in vain to catch the server's eye, she had no such compunction. 'Tissues!' she bellowed. Then she stabbed the croissant with a forefinger you couldn't ignore and said, 'Bring butter.' When she next bellowed for the bill, we were better prepared but honestly, what ever happened to using some good, old-fashioned articles prefaced with a 'May I' or some such thing. So okay, I was still struggling with a delicately upraised hand while she had already paid and walked into the sunset to rue someone else's day but I dunno, I don't mind waiting a bit rather than opening my mouth and removing all doubt about my antecedents.