The Image of Saffiyah Khan

First off let’s face it, this is straight up hilarious - this Chihuahua of a man nipping at the ankles of human decency. You can just about hear his ridiculous yelps (like our ruling party’s goons but with an accent) growing more and more hysterical as the mistress of bindi stares him down. “Should I swat him now?…Now?” I imagine her wondering which Louis Vuitton handbag he leaped out of. Bigot want a biscuit?

Look at her power stance – does she walk around like that, with her body angled for battle, her back ramrod straight, chest out, neck stretched, face relaxed yet ready to get into just about anybody’s face? Is this her normal life-condition*? I slouch, always have. That’s my normal life-condition. I have a weak core. My back is sick & tired of being sick & tired.

When I was 12 there were two Chihuahuas that would accost us on the way to our school bus stop. I remember being terrified in anticipation before I stepped out of my house. I’d pray they wouldn’t be let loose on the street that morning. If I saw them scurrying to get at our ankles, I would panic and slouch-run across the road. Maybe if I’d known, like Saffiyah does, that Chihuahuas live in handbags, I wouldn’t have been so afraid.

By her own account, when the image was taken, Saffiyah Khan was protecting another woman who’d been surrounded “360” by the same yelping thugs. Reports have interpreted Khan’s demeanour as ‘unfazed’. That’s bullshit if you ask me. She had to have been fazed, most fazed. You don’t get to stand like that if you haven’t been similarly fazed time & time & time again. You get to a point where the fucking Chihuahua has barked at you one too many times and you’re like fuck it, if it even bares its toothpicky teeth in the direction of your ankles, you'll swoop down, scoop it up and lob it into the stratosphere before its keepers realise that their dildo-themed pet has gone missing.

One might ask, why didn’t you swoop & scoop before? Why did you endure years of intimidation at the hands of these canine hobbits? Can’t speak for Saffiyah but when I was 12 they seemed bigger. Everyone at our bus stop was afraid of them, even the 16 year olds. Over years, they’d acquired mythic status and the stories had been handed down from seniors to juniors. ‘Did you know they bit so-and-so and they had to amputate his foot?’ ‘Their owner is a tantric yogi. His dogs have secret powers.’ (Ok that one I made up, such was the terror unleashed by these unleashed beasts.)

Obviously I don’t know what Saffiyah Khan is really thinking in these images but to me she has become the Monalisa of pussy power. She has run out of fucks to give and this fuck-deficit has allowed her insight into the Chihuahua’s handbag world. Sure it’s Vuitton (and that’s nothing to scoff at) but it is, at the end of the day, a dank handbag, made even danker by dwarf-dog sweat. Does Saffiyah Khan find this realisation amusing? Or did the Chihuahua pee in the bag just a little, its stench reaching everyone’s nostrils? Is that why Saffiyah is smiling? 

I’m no longer haunted by the Chihuahua twins from my school days but I have new challenges. The apartment where I live comes with neighbours, whom I would term ‘distinctly asshole-ish’. I realized this the day I moved, when the movers decided to use the elevator to transport a heavy sofa up two floors. My neighbour stood at the entrance of the elevator and threatened to let loose Jack – her 350 kilo vicious-looking dog. She knew the men were terrified of Jack, they’d asked her to keep him leashed. But she didn’t like ‘those men’ using ‘her lift’ and she let Jack loose. I slouch-stepped in and blocked Jack in a friendly embrace. Jack was confused. The men laughed. He jumped again. I slouched towards him again. This time Jack’s tail went insane, whiplashing his human-shaped asshole. She yelled “JACK! No!!”. I held out my hand. Jack held out his paw. We shook like adults who had no beef with each other. As we retreated to our corners, the men grinned and I thanked god that Jack didn’t live in a handbag.

Check out this beautiful Twitter thread:

Just a wee thread of women who truly don't have any time for your shit.

1) Tess Asplund, Borlänge, Sweden - 2016 (Photo - David Lagerlöf) pic.twitter.com/xjRmHfc3h5

— Xas (@_Xas_) April 10, 2017

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* Incidentally, her stance has been described as an “improbably calm stance – smiling, slumped shoulders, hands in pockets” – I view the image very differently.

Queen

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In a scene nearing the end of ‘Queen’, the camera homes in on Rani (Kangana Ranaut) as she says goodbye (probably forever) to friends she’s made on a life-altering European ‘honeymoon’. As viewers we’ve accompanied her on this journey of self-discovery and we’ve come to invest in her friendships – short and sweet as they’ve been. It’s as difficult for us to say goodbye to them as it might be for her. For a second, one hopes they’ll return because we worry for Rani, you know? But they don’t. Rani looks shaky for a moment and we hold our breath - Please be ok, Rani.

And then her face changes. Lightens. Something has shifted in her, not for a bit, not for a fleeting moment, but indelibly. She won’t just be okay, she will fly. The euphoria that comes from having made contact with her own power extends beyond her, permeating through the screen to reach us. We feel euphoric too because we know that with this film, something has shifted for mainstream Hindi cinema too.

******

Some reviews of the movie have called Rajkummar Rao’s character, Vijay, a ‘villain’, which is the saddest thing I’ve read in a while because this superbly-crafted obnoxious man is so bloody…normal. Who amongst us doesn’t know a Vijay? Some of us are dating him; some of us have him as a brother, a father, friend or boss. The guy, who needs to feel superior to you in order to feel good about himself. The guy, who really doesn’t care who you are as long as you serve his agenda. The guy, who struts around with such a sense of entitlement about his ‘property’ (and yes, you are his property, whether you like it or not) that he can’t fathom you’re an equal stakeholder in the relationship. The guy, who feels so small that he needs to make you feel smaller. The guy, who will fall apart, either grovelling or losing his shit if you ever realize your power. Vijay is not the villain. He struggles as much as Rani does – but unlike her, he hasn’t lost enough to put up a fight. In Vijay, I see the tragedy of so many men I’ve known and loved – men, who are as confused by their privilege as women are trapped by the lack of it.

*******

‘Queen’ is extraordinary because of the male-female & female-female relationships it showcases. In Paris, Rani meets the free-spirited Vijaylakshmi, whose name shortens delightfully to Vijay, same as Rani’s ditching fiancé. This Vijay, unlike the other, likes Rani just the way she is. She helps her loosen up but doesn’t inspire Rani to change overnight (nor does Rani convert her or show her the ‘error of her ways’ like in that other horrendous movie on female friendship: Cocktail) but teaches her that women can be all kinds of different shades. In Amsterdam, Rani’s character begins to understand how fun and liberating it can be to get to know men. Men are humans. And some of them think women are humans too! Ergo, men can be friends with women! These are touching friendships, based on affection and mutual respect (and yes, even a twinge of sexual tension).

In spite of this, I’m ashamed to admit that till the very end I kept expecting Rani to find a man. As though the thrill of self-discovery would be incomplete unless witnessed & validated by a man (like that other film about an Indian woman losing & finding her self in the Western world: ‘English Vinglish’). In that light, what a masterstroke by the writers/ director to leave Rani walking away in the last frame, alone & more joyful than any Hindi movie heroine’s ever looked at the end of a film (even Konkona Sen in ‘Luck By Chance’ looked underwhelmed about her future, as the film ended on her charting her path alone). Rani may find a man, she may not. Whatever the outcome, she now has the skills to create value for herself (like that other recently released film ‘Highway’ that ends on a mid shot of the lone & unexpectedly not-tragic heroine, clutching a copy of ‘Women Who Run With The Wolves’, looking hopefully into the horizon).

******

I don’t know if this happens to other Indian women who’ve travelled – particularly to the West. A pall of gloom descends on me whenever I have to return home. Even if the trip hasn’t been long enough to grow attached to the foreign country, even if my entire life is culturally rooted and thriving in India and even if love waits for me at home. It feels like I have to put back into a box, this version of ‘me’ that had momentarily roamed free – going where she wanted, at whichever time of night or day, in whichever mode of transport was convenient, talking to pretty much anyone she wished to, learning to smile at strangers and not spending an unnatural amount of time worrying if her shirt’s neckline is ‘too low’. And even though coming back to India means coming back home, it also feels like the loss of a person I really, really enjoy being.

‘Queen’ allowed me to relive the thrill of being free in ways I didn’t even realize I craved and the sweet relief of not having to constantly be ‘proper’ or 'careful' or 'watchful' (or 'disappointing', 'unsafe' or ‘stupid’ if you choose to act differently). Like Rani, I too have had catalytic adventures (some of which terrified me, forcing me to recognize my strengths). Like her, travel helped me relax into myself, without apologies. Like her, I carried this transformative new energy back to India with me.

The biggest gift ‘Queen’ has given its viewers, is a story about an Indian woman on an adventure alone. Of course, travel changes everyone. But Rani & ‘Queen’ show us how a fearless journey to foreign shores can lead the Indian woman back to herself. 

POINT IS: GO WATCH THIS FILM

First, Listen

This is the remarkable speech given by Malala Yousafzai at the UN on her 16th birthday.
There are folks who are questioning whether she wrote the speech herself or whether she is merely a pawn in larger geo-political games.
To which, the best answer I read on the interwebz came from Overrated Outcast:

"So?"

In my humble opinion, it's very possible that this young woman will become a brand (well, she has already) or that her story could be exploited for base political agendas.

But to dismiss her message or the fact that she stands in front of an international gathering of world leaders, having survived a terrifying attack on her life and liberty and insinuate that she does so because she's too stupid to know better, makes you - yes even the Taliban-hating you - a shithead.

A shithead of the variety that cannot understand what wimmens with their tiny brains will ever be good for besides parroting someone else's words. Or what, if anything, they could achieve with an education or a platform to express themselves.
Oh wait...

Horn Please, Ok, Tata

Dear Liz Lemon,

True story. This afternoon I got an email from a friend. It began with a longish discussion about robots and then went, “Are you going to miss 30 Rock?”

Robots are cool but of course I’m going to miss 30 Rock. The show’s been an obsession of mine through all its 7 seasons and if I’d lived in your country, my multiple personalities & I would have bumped up your ratings big time. 

To be honest, I’m going to miss you, most of all. You see, our lives have shared uncanny parallels over the years. Your episodic evolution in 22-minute instalments has preceded mine in a way that even Bejan Daruwala couldn’t have predicted in his sagging crystal balls.

Just like you in your thirties, I too am married to the job and not to an actual human. This is by choice and I am single & proud and not at all ashamed of the nights I bury my head into my pillow to dull the sounds of desperate pleading for a Hindu goddess to send me a good same-caste man.

Even I’m a writer for TV shows with poor ratings and films that no one- not even the folks who finance them -watches. Regardless, I love what I do. It gives me a profound sense of purpose and the freedom to come into office wearing the same curry-stained shirt I fell asleep in the previous night. You have Frank, Lutz and Toofer. I have Bad Mood Editor and Dyslexic Associate Producer. They’ve taught me it’s possible to hate and love at the same time. Nah, I’m kidding, there’s no love there. When I’m feeling generous, I liberally throw fits at them. These fits sound a lot like yours: how I’m the one doing all the work, how no one else gets it etcetr-ah, etcetr-ah.

You have Jack and I have my own personal mentor to whom I’m a mentee (granted, he didn’t choose that role and strictly speaking, he may not even be aware he’s my mentor). We share a work-love that can only be filed under the unique category you & Jack have invented. 

Like you, my allegiance to my boss has made me do crazy things. Like going several months without pay. Like Jack, my boss too has looked out for my interests. Like that one time he tried to set me up with a gay man.

And sexual tension? What sexual tension? In the 12 years we’ve known each other, he’s yet to notice that I’m a girl.

There’s no Tracy Jordan in my life- not unless you count my ‘Award Winning’ cameraman, whom I simultaneously adore and want to strangle. He once famously stood in the middle of CERN and proclaimed: “I’m not leaving my camera in the car. Kya pataa koi chutiya scientist ismey proton ghussa lega.” He’s a delightful alcoholic-diabetic (which isn’t a disease but a lifestyle choice, stemming from the belief that ‘daaru ka sugar’ is the cure to hypoglycaemia). He has a toxically cynical take on life that is integral to success in the arts.

I have a Jenna Maroney too but she’s scary and I don’t want to talk about it okay?

Blergh! I wish 30 Rock would carry on for all eternity. Like the state of my penury.

I’m going to miss your romantic misadventures & sexual dysfunctions, although I’m glad you found Criss Chros. (Your almost-wedding by the way - the one at the Town Hall in your grungy sweatshirt before you changed your mind? That’s the dream. Your actual wedding wasn't bad either.) 

I’m waiting for my Astronaut Mike Dexter, although I’m still stuck in a Dennis Duffy phase. My Duffy turns up at protest marches drunk on cheap rum and roots for the team I’m yelling slogans against. He likes meeting me when he’s broke & hungry and in the past has playfully suggested I share my ATM PIN with him ha ha ha. In light of these troubles, I want to thank you for educating me about the Romance-Industrial Complex. I promise not to be a slave to it (plus it’s so effective when answering Old Aunty questions about why I’m still single).

 

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I’m proud to say I’m a feminist like you. Which means I’m often confused about what feminism means. So I try to live by your code: Know your heart and be faithful to whatever the fuck it tells you. Because no matter what happens, at the end of the day you always have the Real Housewives of New Jersey to come home to.

And hey, I have a gross foot disease too! (Fist bump, Nougat!)

I’m getting awful sentimental now so I’ll just say Thank You Liz Lemon. You’ve inspired a generation of women across the English-speaking world (but only where basic cable is available). You’ve allowed us to forget, if just for 22 minutes at a time, that we’re not in New York and might step out of our homes, get kid-car-jack-napped by a group of underage boys and be used as on-board sex slaves. You’ve shown us that a woman can claim her space, be funny (& farty), sexy (& sour-faced) and insightful (& irritable) - all in the same package. 

 

I love that you’re not Superwoman. I’ve drawn comfort from your failings as much as from your successes. I’ve loved your idealistic speeches and speech impediments, which have grown into a language that demands its own country (‘I want to go to there’). When I grow up I want to be just like you and so what if our clothing choices make people question our sexuality?

Best of luck, Liz Lemon. You’ve done good here. You’ve turned me into a chick, who stays in on a Friday night, writing goodbye letters to an imaginary character from a TV show. So I’m going to take a page out of your book and, before this gets any worse, shut it down. 

What Gives Us Mass

Growing up in classrooms where a brand of fascist physics held sway in the steel cold grip of NCERT, we never looked beyond Rutherford's atom. There was no such thing as the Standard Model and everything was particulate & unquestionably spherical. 

The electron was life of the party, hopping about in celebrity circles, making all the difference between one kind of compound and another.

Considering that we rote-learned the Periodic Table built on its back...

Considering its firstborn, Hydrogen, seemed to be 75% responsible for our existence (and the existence of Boyzone, whom we loved in those days)...

...No one really talked to us about the proton at all.

  

**************************************************

There's a light drizzle as we stand beneath the belly of the Globe. There's a lull in filming so we begin to chat. She's a revelation to me and she's mildly uncomfortable about it. "Everyone always wants to talk to me about being a woman scientist," she says, exasperated.

I cringe inwardly because, to be honest, that's what interests me the most about her. In spite of a higher voice trying to steer conversation to matters of scientific importance, I realise I'm starving to know how a young girl from smalltown India, grows up through the '80's to become (a) a particle detector hardware expert (b) a permanent employee at CERN and (c) the top honcho for all the upgrades of a CMS sub-detector. My mind is screaming "But you're an Indian woman!!" There's an urgent need to crack this code.

Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt her mind. Her remarkable intellect is above any discussion of gender or nationality. I'm not such a fool. 

I'm trying to understand what else sets her apart from me. Or what set her apart from me 25 odd years ago, when she emerged from an Indian university and earned a first-class ticket to this mecca of particle physics. I want to know if she ever hesitated. 

**************************************************

Experiments at the Large Hadron Collider are said to be 'paradigm shifting' landmarks of our times. Whenever they run, they perform profound feats like recreating conditions similar to the universe a billionth of a second after the Big Bang and attempting to describe the Higgs boson: that thingamijig that gives everything (you, me, Boyzone) mass, etc.

As the name suggests, the LHC collides hadrons to achieve these ambitious goals. Hadrons like protons. Two protons accelerated in opposite directions at 99% the speed of light, meeting along the 27kms tunnel only to smash up against each other. Much of this catastrophic rendezvous proves to be beyond our visual imagination and it will take mathematics to make complete sense of it.

Infact, before the LHC began its first run, there were those who panicked that such colliding protons would hasten the end of the world. Instead, they gave us new science.

*************************************************

On camera, she is vibrant and engaging when talking about her physics, her workplace and the exciting ventures she'll be part of in the LHC's next phase. It's hard not to look at her animated face and be very aware of her fate, inextricably bound with the most fascinating discoveries of our time.

I see an opening and take my chance. I ask her to tell our viewers what it's been like being Indian, female and making it big. "Tell those young girls watching that they can be scientists, physicists, hardware specialists even though they're in traditionally male domains. Tell them, tell them!" 

She falters, her confidence wavering. Like a bloodhound, I pursue my track relentlessly, egging her to talk about her personal story. But she needs a moment. She composes herself and then looks askance to the director, who nods yes. 

Her answer is a public service announcement. It's one I've heard a million times before, about believing in dreams and not giving up. The bloodhound's scent has run cold. 

Ok, I want to whine, screw the viewers. Screw gender or being Indian. Screw your smalltown upbringing and all that it came with. Tell me your secret: Did you ever question your talent? Were you ever ashamed of being the odd one out, did you ever regret your intellect? Did you ever balk at winning the biggest trophy in the room? Did you skip a beat before accepting your entitlement? Did you ever second-guess your worth?

************************************************

On the 4th of July 2012, CERN holds a live webcast to unveil an astounding discovery. 

Director-General Rolf-Dieter Heuer announces: "As a layman I would now say I think we have it." 

'Bumps' in data from two LHC experiments show that the Higgs boson has finally been detected. Thanks to a bunch of enterprising protons, it has graduated from being a theoretical construct to a highly probable, experential reality.

There's mad applause. A snow-haired gentleman in the audience wipes his eyes.

 

We'd always known we had mass. But, I guess, it had been really important to know why.

  

Sidebar: Watch Sheryl Sandberg Talk About Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders

Books And Covers

My grandmother, my mother's mother, was a biologist. She did her MSc in an era when good Brahmin girls were reared to be good Brahmin wives. She was the Head of Department of Biology at one of Delhi's biggest public schools. She walked out of an unhappy marriage and earned her PhD at age 60. For years, I remember her taking crowded DTC buses (much to the annoyance of my mother) to go meet her thesis advisor. 

My aunt, my father's elder sister, is a biotechnologist. She left her only daughter in the care of her husband and went off abroad to study in an era when good wives gave up careers to raise good children. She returned to join the All India Insititute of Medical Sciences and went on to do remarkable work in the field of leprosy. Every time I visit her I'm drawn to the Padmashri hanging in her living room, awarded for her contribution to Indian science.

My mother is a doctor. Growing up, she was perhaps the only mum amongst my friends', who pursued a full time career and managed to be available to her family. I remember the few times she took us with her to the clinic. I was so proud to see her in action. She cured people. With science.

Today I attended a seminar on high-energy particle physics. A national meet to celebrate India's contribution to the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider. 

It was not until I sat through this session....:

Crappy Photos, Awesome Lecture

...that I realized how unprepared I was for the appearance of these women on this particular stage. 

The lady in the white sari is a key member of the India-CMS project. (The CMS experiment at the LHC detected the Higgs Boson.) In the picture, she's just finished schooling the audience on how the Higgs was discovered. The lady in the brown sari is one of India's leading authorities on S particles and Supersymmetry. (To quote The Hindu, 'she is in a panel that decides the specifications of the next big collider at CERN'). She's just finished schooling a grumpy 185 yr old scientist-bully in the audience on how it's really done bitch.

If you'd asked me to visualize what India's leading particle physicists look like, these ladies would not be it. Why? Probably because they look like my grandmother.

And that's where it becomes about my failings. Why shouldn't they be India's leading particle physicists?
After all, they look like my grandmother.

**********
Must read: Lilavati's Daughters:The Women Scientists of India by Prof. Rohini Godbole

Sometimes things just take time

I like when the unlikely character makes it.

A few years ago, I was watching Paris Je T'aime for the second time - having fallen asleep midway the last time it came on TV (not the film's fault, I was exhausted). I'm glad I stayed awake through to the end because the final story '14e Arrondissement' by Alexander Payne reached right inside me and made me cry. 

This was the genius of Margo Martindale - whose name, I'm ashamed to say I didn't know until last evening when the 2011 Emmys were broadcast in India. It was a great evening for unlikely characters. Peter Dinklage won. The funny women of American TV gathered en masse on stage and suddenly I had a glimpse of what the world might look like one day when more women were at the top of not just their game but THE game.

Miss Martindale is as far from the LA cookie-cutter star as your imagination can take you. She fumbles, bumbles, sobs most unprettily, does not have great posture or body, is not a 22-year-old 60 year old and she has never, until very recently, been recognized for her powerful talent.

Then this happens to her:

And in her acceptance speech I find the faith I sometimes struggle to have in my own life: "Sometimes things just take time..."

Girl Crush

Dear Madame Sarkozy,

I am unclear on how to address you - Your Excellency? Your Eminence? Ma Cherie?
You see, I have a little girl crush on you. And it came out of the blue.
It was a full moon and I was nursing a semi-broken heart. In my naivete I decided to watch a little film called 500 Days of Summer. I won't bore you with the details, the royalty cheques might give you a clue to what happened next.

Your husky, almost-not-there voice filtered in through the speakers of my beautiful white Mac as two very Caucasian actors kissed each other on screen. The girl didn't really love the boy and would go on to irrevocably damage his idealistic heart - but that's not important. See, the thing is you began to sing and I forgot everything else.

Let's cut through the bureaucratic bullshit. I'm totally in love with you. I can't understand a damn word you're saying in spite of having studied French for 6 years in school (Mrs. Swaminathan had a good heart but she ladled sambar on all her French pronunciations). But I don't really have to do I? Can we get together sometime? Maybe when Nick is pulling an all-nighter (wink, wink). I know I'm not the President of anywhere and I'm not Mick Jagger but I do bring a certain exotic je ne sais quoi to the table (which, incidently is spelt the same in English and French).

We don't really have to do anything much. You could strum your guitar, wear that white linen shirt you wore on the pants-optional cover of No Promises. You could sing Quelq'un M'a Dit - it's my favourite song. I could just sit there and hear you make love to the microphone (how that husband of yours manages to get any work done with you around, I do not know). You could do that gravely little laugh you do at the end of Le Plus Beau du Quartier and I swear, I could die happy.

You see, till this afternoon (when I illegally downloaded two of your albums - forgive me Carla, I come from a Third World Country where we don't have money to buy CD's but have pretty decent broadband) I was madly in love with a boy, who wasn't good for much else except walks in the moonlight. But the more you sang, the fainter his memory became, replaced instead with all those images I found of you on Google.

However, reality is such...sigh...you strum your guitar seven seas apart, you belong to a man who scares women into discarding their burqas and you frolic with the likes of Nelson Mandela.
Who am I but a simple albeit voluptuous girl from New Delhi, India. Neither rich nor particularly gifted at anything except illegal downloading activities.
I have nothing to offer except humble efforts at resurrecting my knowledge of French. Right now, all I've got is:
Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?

XOXO
AS

10 Things I Love About Nancy Botwin

It had to happen. There had to be a post about Weeds. It's been all I can think about, this past week. I've obsessed over it endlessly (people have rebound relationships with other people, I have them with TV shows) and then last night...Last night, I ran out of episodes to watch. Bang in the middle of season 4, at a fortuitous and very telling point in the story. But more on that later.

Weeds is a super-duper hit show in the US that revolves around Nancy Botwin - a suburban mom, raising two sons single-handedly after the love of her life drops dead while jogging. To make ends meet and sustain her lifestyle, she begins to deal drugs, specifically (that's right) weed. Just one of the reasons why I absolutely adore her.

Nancy Botwin is my absolute favourite.

First of all, she's friggin gorgeous. Man or woman, you can't really escape that. I love the stuff she wears, so on the count of fashion, she gets my vote.

Second, she always looks so surprised, so well meaning even as she goes around fucking up. I feel strongly connected to that feeling - "What? What? What just happened? Did I just do that?"

Third, she loves her family, her sons to death BUT that doesn't stop her from doing what she wants, even if it puts herself and by default them, in extreme jeopardy. It's behaviour that would have most women's groups up in arms, but it's also real. Women aren't always these self-sacrificing creatures who live just for their families. Real women are as selfish, stupid and reckless as men - equally capable of making bad choices. I'm not saying that's something to glorify, but it's nice to see a 'real' woman character emerge from the cesspool of television.

Fourth, Nancy instinctively gravitates towards danger and I LOVE that about her. I love how her eyes light up every time there's a scary assignment for her, how disappointed she is when she's told she won't be making drug runs across the Mexican border.

Fifth, she knows what she wants and she gets it before logic and ethical doubts can get in the way. Nancy, I think, is one of those rare women who scratches her itch before she stops to think about consequences. She needs money, she gets it, she needs a lay, she gets it. Not like me - agonizing days, weeks and months over plans and blueprints and strategies to get what I want. Only to learn I never had any control over the situation in the first place.

Sixth, Nancy rolls with a fun crowd and she sucks them into her crazy adventures. I've always been a follower but secretly I'd love to be that charismatic leader, who doesn't need to 'do' much but manages to attract people to her fold, people who'll go along with her hairbrained (but always colourful) schemes. Nancy makes drug dealing looking like fun. Again, not something she'd be elected Citizen of the Year for, but you know what I mean.

Seventh, she is so goddamned classy. It took me 3 seasons to realise that MY GOD, this woman is a criminal. She is doing bad things, selling drugs, having people killed, being a shitty mom. She might just be the smoothest bad guy around but you'd never know it - because she barely believes that about herself.

Eighth, she's got a wonderful violent streak. I have a wonderful violent streak. I get it.

Ninth, she makes deviance look normal. We're all deviant - I know I am - and it's so bloody okay.

Tenth, she sees the light. Sort of. Or at least at the point in season 4 where my episodes ran out. She looks out over the ocean and realises how stupid her choices have been. Choices - not things that 'just happened', not things she 'can't help', not things 'beyond her control'. She gets it. She owns her poor choices. She does not run away or make excuses. She's no role model and she accepts it.

Right now, as I write, the next episode is downloading into my computer and I can't wait to meet up with Nancy again. She makes sense to me.
Of course, I know she's just a manufactured character on TV. I know she's not real.
I know.

Plug

If ever anyone - especially a woman - gets the opportunity to listen (live or in illegal download) to Ani Difranco perform her poetry, she must take it.
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"My I.Q." - Ani Difranco

when I was four years old
they tried to test my I.Q.
they showed me a picture
of 3 oranges and a pear
they said,
which one is different?
it does not belong
they taught me different is wrong

but when I was 13 years old
I woke up one morning
thighs covered in blood
like a war
like a warning
that I live in a breakable takeable body
an ever-increasingly valuable body
that a woman had come in the night to replace me
deface me

see,
my body is borrowed
yeah, I got it on loan
for the time in between my mom and some maggots
I don't need anyone to hold me
I can hold my own
I got highways for stretchmarks
see where I've grown

I sing sometimes
like my life is at stake
'cause you're only as loud
as the noises you make
I'm learning to laugh as hard
as I can listen
'cause silence
is violence
in women and poor people
if more people were screaming then I could relax
but a good brain ain't diddley
if you don't have the facts

we live in a breakable takeable world
an ever available possible world
and we can make music
like we can make do
genius is in a back beat
backseat to nothing if you're dancing
especially something stupid
like I.Q.

for every lie I unlearn
I learn something new
I sing sometimes for the war that I fight
'cause every tool is a weapon -
if you hold it right.

High level meeting

This was part of a conversation I had today over lunch at this very swanky Chinese restaurant, with a woman who was once my supervising producer and now a dear friend:
"Main tere lund ko kaatkar ped pe chadhha doongi. Phir kowey usko chodengey."

I'll Have Me a Helping of Gratuitous Violence, Please

A couple of days ago I did a Facebook Rorschach test that declared I was an insane psychopath.
This evening I did another Facebook quiz to determine the exact time & circumstance of my death. January 17th, 2021, 5:33 am, by lethal injection. Consistent as only Facebook quizes can be.
But not as off point as some might think...
...because I've recently got me a hankering for some blood & gore.

Was having a low moment ("why hasn't he called?") when HBO started showing the James McAvoy-Angelina Jolie action movie 'Wanted'. All my sensitive, 'The Hours'-lovin, bleeding heart, arty-farty illusions went flying out the window (like McAvoy's father towards the end of the movie..but I'm not going to spoil the film for those who haven't seen it). Everyone was kicking everyone's ass, bullets were flying in slow motion, guns were being bandied about like chocolate bars, explosives were being constructed out of peanut butter-addicted mice and even though all the make-out scenes were cut by HBO, it still got my heart racing, wondering what other destruction was up next.

Now, I have decided I want to be an assasin when I grow up.
I want to be the 'perfect weapon' (again, see the movie to know more). I want to karate chop and kung fu with the best of international secret agents. I want to not feel pain and miraculously heal my body even though I've been punched, drop-kicked, stabbed, shot at, blown up and pushed off steep cliffs. I want to curve bullets, hurl knives across kilometres of crowded city and still hit my mark, I want to launch bazooka attacks & carry tampons that double as RDX-loaded explosives.

Fuck, I wanna be BadAss.

(This is a character called Anaksha: 'A beautiful but deadly femme-fatale who embarks on a brutal, bloody-thirsty rampage through the city of Santa Lina, delivering her own brand of justice to social parasites who've avoided punishment.' http://www.anaksha.com/)