Thoughts on Eternals

Source: IMDB

**Major spoilers alert**

Waah! Ermagerd! I have time for a blog post!! Life is good!

I have major, MAJOR news for y’all. First, I finished all my school work (YEEE!). So that hopefully means I have graduated with my engineering degree. (I actually don’t know yet because final grades are not out and it is totally possible that I failed a class. I mean, the possibility is slight. Like, less than 10 percent. But not 0 percent).

But who cares about that, the more important thing is I GOT A JOB!!! It’s the job I wanted with the company I wanted which is SO WEIRD. I never get what I want. So I’m trying to relax and enjoy the change and not self-sabotage inside my head. (Seriously, in there I’m thinking how did I fool these people into hiring me?) It’s an exciting time. I’m moving again. It’s the holidays. I feel unhinged.

Anyway, in the middle of all this, I finally carved out some time to go see Eternals all by myself today. (This is a hobby my brother indulges in from time to time. I never understood why until now.) Folks, if there’s one thing I will tell you, DO NOT go to a movie the week it comes out. Ever. Like, not before the pandemic, during the pandemic, after the pandemic…regardless of pandemic, don’t go to movies when they just come out. I absolutely hate the crowds that show up those weeks. I went and saw Knives Out the day it came out. I ended up sitting next to some stupid white girl who was raised in a barn and wouldn’t shut up the entire time. Like, was just incapable. And not in like a “she’s disabled” way, but in a “genuinely does not care about other people’s experiences” way. I made the mistake of going to see Spiderman: No Way Home last week. (This was a mistake on two accounts. First, that movie is mediocre at best. It’s 2 hours of fan service. The conflict is so contrived, it’s obvious the writers just needed an excuse to bring all the characters together. And the end relies too heavily on plots that happened in the past for all gut-punching emotions. Leonie was not impressed.) But then the stupid audience! Unredeemable! They clapped for everything, everything! The trailers! The kisses! Every! Single! Character! The deaths! The saves! Too much clapping!

Maybe I’m just turning into an old lady. I mean, it’s true that I’m quite at the ceiling of my twenties now. I can be very unforgiving to twenty-year-olds. But there is just something relaxing about having the top entire two rows to myself to stretch, take up three seats, put my feet up, laugh to myself, cry if I need to. It’s fantastic.

That being said, a lot of people have knocked this movie. I don’t know why. They must be those dumb twenty-year-olds who thought No Way Home was good. I think it is a very different film from the rest of the Marvel movies, but in the best way. I wonder if it’s because of the screenplay was done by Academy Award winner, Chloe Zhao. I feel like this story just comes from different roots than the average superhero movie.

The characters mostly come from classical Greek and Roman mythology, and it needed to feel like a myth. The Eternals are supposed to be ancient beings who have been on earth for 7,000 years. As such, I feel like we got a lot of screentime with people for whom myths matter. We got to see the brown people of Mesopotamia, Babylon, and Tenochtitlan. People before paper, before writing, when oral tradition was the way information was passed down. Reminds me a little of The Old Guard, but the idea of longevity was portrayed very differently in that movie.

Stan Lee is no stranger to stories about collectives. In every Avengers movie, I always felt that what bumped the film up a level was the way individuals in a group were allowed to be complicated. In groups, people who agree might agree for different reasons. People can have allies, personalities they naturally gravitate toward, people they can be annoyed by constantly, where natural antagonism grows, communication gaps fester, and problems arise. I like that Lee seems to know how groups actually work. In the Protestant Western world, I feel sometimes that groupthink has replaced actually talking through group dynamics. Lee lets his characters do this, and it’s a messy process (See Captain America: Civil War). It requires revealing secrets and motives, pointing out weaknesses, pointing out biases. It is by no means easy. This quality plays out on a huge scale in Eternals. The characters have centuries to become proper archetypes, to sink into roles like “leader”, “oddball”, “smartass”; to grow resentful, to have priorities.

The first few scenes of the movie made me surprisingly emotional. It could just be because somebody thought these ancient brown people were worth fighting for. The image of demi-gods finding something worthy in humanity to protect is kinda moving, honestly. Humans themselves are willing to renounce each other again and again. They’ll do it several times a day. But a bunch of robot-warriors decided we were precious enough to fight their commander for. That’s really sweet.

It was not lost on me how much Hinduism was portrayed throughout the movie. As a Hindu myself, I’ve always felt like Hollywood fucked up big time with its portrayals of anything from The Subcontinent. We usually got some jumped-up pseudo-Bollywood filmi stuff, or we got repressed, sad Indian girl/boy trapped by rigid and unyielding first-generation parents. One of the many reasons I liked the mythology route they decided to take is that in some ways, we see more of essential Hinduism. For example, there is both a Hindu marriage ceremony and a Hindu funeral in this movie. We usually NEVER get to see these rituals in a Hollywood movie. They’re some of the scenes that most tie stories together in Bollywood, the milestones in a life. I don’t think it’s a coincidence either that Hindus believe in a continuation of life after death, that the religion includes cycles and breaking cycles. The Eternals have lived millions of lives, destroying planets in each one, and are now want to leave that way of life behind.

Gemma Chan as Sersi. Source: cbr.com

I think some of the cast is a little typecast, but in a way that complements the roles. Gemma Chan is Sersi, the one with the cool ability to transmute inanimate objects. After watching her in Crazy, Rich Asians, I feel like there’s a character type that Chan gravitates toward. It’s usually the generous, kind, peak-of-femininity, deserving-of-more-than-she-gets character. Chan has this way of moving with such deliberation. She has this presence that I feel will rival Cate Blanchett’s one day. I think the choice to have her move slowly throughout most of the movie is so brilliant. For all their flash and might, the faster characters have very obvious weaknesses. Sersi holds on to hope even in the darkest of times. It is clear to me why Ajak chose her, but it is also the more radical decision to put humanity in the hands of a believer instead of a warrior.

Angelina Jolie, after her years of portraying badass bitches on the big screen, is also the perfect Thena. There is a commentary on disability going on between Thena and Lauren Ridloff’s character, Makkari. Among us mere humans, being deaf is considered a disability, one that, until just the last few decades, could spell significant obstacles to obtaining a job (and really, still does in a lot of cases). Among the Eternals, who speak every language ever, including Sign Language, Makkari is definitely up there with the badasses (it is so satisfying to watch her beat Ikarus’s ass in the final battle). Thena’s disability, which is more specific to Eternals, makes her forget who she is and attack her own friends. Among the Eternals, this is considered far more debilitating, which makes it more believable that they’ve been alive for thousands of years. She makes an interesting foil to Makkari in this way.

I love the ironies that were dealt during the movie. The obvious one is Ikarus. Richard Madden plays butt-hurt pretty boy, Ikarus, who is mad that Ajak didn’t pick him to be head honcho. After pledging loyalty to her, he then betrays and kills her when she says she will not destroy earth in accordance with Arimesh’s plans. Ikarus, having little faith in anything other than himself, is shocked when Sersi pulls through and freezes the emergence. His lack of flexibility leads him to commit suicide by flying into the sun, thus completing the tale the ancient Greeks told.

The other irony we see is in Sprite’s character. Sprite constantly curses her own existence because she is a child for all of eternity. When Ikarus defects from the group, she does the most immature thing possible and decides to join him because she’s in love with him. As Sersi does her best to stop humanity from being pulverized, Sprite walks up to her and literally starts monologuing about how she envies her. Envies her! That was why she decided to join Ikarus. Because she envies Sersi. I guess I learned a lot in that moment. Namely, don’t let your pettiness let you look like an idiot. (I’m terrible at this myself. They do say characters that annoy you probably reflect some part of yourself.)

Lastly, I love that we get to hear Hindi and Arabic spoken out loud in this film. If you didn’t know, I think those two languages are the most beautiful in the world. I love that it is used in really goofy, everyday contexts, like telling your valet to go home. In general, I loved the use of languages in this film.

All in all, I would say Eternals is a gem and takes a step in a direction I didn’t think Marvel would go, but I’m glad it did. In its use of various communication styles, it rivals Dune, but serves a very different purpose. Where Dune set the groundwork for a sort of space-Lawrence of Arabia, Eternals gave me a more organic, hopeful vibe. The ideas are simpler, giving us a sort of messy kaleidoscope. But I think every pantheon in the history of mythological gods has been exactly that.

Thoughts on The Empress of Salt and Fortune

Hi loves, it’s so great to be writing again. I have actually been reading a lot during this pandemic, but I’ve been completing my Master’s in Transportation Engineering at the same time, so it has been really hard to find time to write blog posts!

Most recently, I finished The Empress of Salt and Fortune, a novella by Nghi Vo. I don’t know what it is about novellas, but I really enjoy them. I had an English professor who once said that shorter forms are distilled to only what is important, and I suspect that is appealing to my scientist brain.

I love Vo’s mastery of the basics. I love that instead of hitting us over the head with details, she gives us an outline, a shadow, and the chance to divine story from scraps. Another author published by Tor.com, her novella is comparable to those of JY Yang’s Tensorate series. Perhaps my bias toward the pithy is showing, but where Yang wanders in many directions in their series to reach that final toppling of empire, Vo is steadfast and unyielding to a singular goal.

There are a few other stories Empress reminds me of as well. In The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arundhati Roy employs a similar strategy of having a character with a disability whom we fall utterly in love with. I am assuming Sukai in Empress has a disability. He is described as “mov[ing] like a bucket on a rope, …tottering back and forth…He was not handsome, with a face that looked a bit like a proper face had been made out of wax and then heated and pulled very gently askew. (70)” And like Gulrez in Ministry, Sukai meets a tragic, early demise in the goings-on of a larger revolution. It cannot be a coincidence that both authors, writing about resistance, chose the same trope. During the Holocaust, along with Jews, people with disabilities were rounded up by the thousands for execution. Empire sees disability as imperfection, instead of the reflection of how vast a range humanity can have.

The way empress In-yo interacts with the other accessory wives reminds me of Nirvana in Fire and the many wives and courtesan wives of the courts. (I am going to do a terrible job of remembering their names and titles, having seen them only as translations, so my apologies for that). In Nirvana, Courtesan Jing’s rise parallels her son’s rise in favor with the emperor as a result of General Lin Shu’s assistance. Eventually, the emperor sends Courtesan Yue, his former favorite, to be exiled out of anger with her indulgence of her son. In Empress, it is In-yo who is exiled and humiliated, but not before beating Kaofan (the emperor’s favorite) quite squarely at her favorite game of chance. It is a moment of foreshadowing. The women of the Chrysanthemum Room find value in the minuscule ebb and flow of resources, gained at one another’s expense. In-yo’s end game is not a paltry material gain. Although she doesn’t hate Kaofan, the latter still understands there is something to be feared in someone as angry as In-yo.

I love Vo’s sense of humor. My favorite example of this is Rabbit’s explanation of Sukai’s name. She says, “The first name that his mother gave him was after the fashion of their people, designed to make him invisible in the eyes of malevolent spirits. It was Bucket…(68)”. Honestly, I am not opposed to the main love interest being referred to as “Bucket” throughout a story, though I suppose “Sukai” affords this adorable man some dignity.

In the end, the revolution is successful and the North invades the South. Cleric Chih finally uncovers the biggest secret of all in Thriving Fortune, and describes a feeling I know well. They say “I know what ambition feels like. This feels different. Like a weight around my shoulders, or a stone carried over my heart (117)”. And Rabbit responds “That must be duty, then. The Divine will be most pleased, Cleric Chih (118)”. And Cleric Chih returns to the capital, where the new Empress convenes court. And I? I wait to be vaccinated while a new president attempts to reestablish order.

Thoughts on Half Girlfriend

As is custom, I spent this weekend devouring the book Half Girlfriend by Chetan Bhagat and also watching the movie, instead of studying for finals. I’ll start by saying that, while I have a few bones to pick with Bhagat’s writing sometimes, the movie does absolutely no justice to the book at all. I’ll start with my thoughts on the book, and then I’ll talk about the movie.

Bhagat’s Young Adult romance novel came out in 2014. It’s about a plucky young dude named Madhav Jha who does not speak English very well, falls in love with pretty-girl Riya, and eventually wins her heart after a ton of plot. Bhagat’s weakness in my opinion is that he goes so ham with the romanticism. Some of this stuff only sells because it is a romance novel. Otherwise, I would not find it cute at all. For example, do you really want a person in your life who lies about having cancer? This is Riya’s method of making sure Madhav does not go looking for her. Personally, I would say that’s a dealbreaker for a romantic partner, friend, or really anybody trying to be in my life. But it serves some plot purpose, and I guess we’ll let it slide.

On the other hand, Bhagat does fantastic character development. To digress somewhat, I wish he would apply this skill in some realm other than romance between two young people. Imagine a story about two old people told with this level of lightheartedness and fun. Or even a story about two friends told with this level of depth. There are so many platonic stories about people that deserve to be told with heart. I feel like Bhagat’s insight about characters would be radical in the context of something other than romance.

An example of how characters change in the novel would be the way Madhav’s English improves from when he begins as a college students at St. Stephen’s to when he goes to New York for his internship. This is a great illustration of that phrase his mother says about how in his family, they do not give up. It plays such a huge role in how he relates to Riya. In the beginning, you can feel how he envies Riya’s ability to speak English when he is in college and how that makes him more of an outsider to her world. Later in the book, when they are working together on his speech, it becomes a force that binds them. Riya is so proud of Madhav when he adds parts to the speech that they did not rehearse. The way their relationship gets stronger is mirrored by the way Madhav’s English gets stronger. I love how subtle this change is, but how much of an impact it has on both of them.

In the book, you also get this beautiful moment of reckoning when Madhav reads Riya’s journal at the behest of the author he gave them to. We finally get an explanation for why Riya behaves the way she does. She is not just a cowardly rich girl, as we are lead to believe. She has been hiding a lot from Madhav. Her father used to molest her as a child. She gets married and her in-laws are controlling and manipulative, which leads to her decision to divorce. Like I said, lying about cancer seemed a little desperate, but given the context, it makes sense that she feels she has no other choice. I actually like that Bhagat doesn’t make this a huge deal. He seems to be commenting that every human being has a past, even Desi women! (I know, what a groundbreaking idea!) That does not make them any less worthy of love. I like the nuance of a female character who has complicated, human experiences. It is a great contradiction to the NRI obsession with the “good little Indian girl”.

I felt pretty middling about the rest of the book. We get this dramatic scene near the end where Madhav runs two miles in the snow to catch Riya before her last song. Again, a far more radical scene if it were for a friend. The ending is cute. It’s a bit of a fairy tale to me, the guy going after the girl and all that. Personally, I have never met a 19-year-old man who gives that many fucks about just one woman. But okay, maybe in Bihar, such romance still exists. Who am I to judge?

So if I had wanted to make a movie for this book, I would have followed the novel to a T. Bhagat’s novel is basically a Hindi movie. You have your script and everything already written. You just have to follow it.

That is not what these morons did.

The first weakness of the movie is that they decided to focus on the “half” part of Half Girlfriend. Riya (Shraddha Kapoor) tells Madhav (Arjun Kapoor) she wants to be a half girlfriend, his mom guts her about having half a marriage, blah blah blah. I actually think the point of Bhagat’s novel was that these characters are not half anything. They are two whole, good human beings, but they are still learning this about themselves and each other. That’s what made the novel beautiful. It was about two people who slowly get to know each other. The movie was really clumsy about that point.

I hate how Madhav’s English doesn’t improve in the movie. It would have been a better way to showcase Arjun Kapoor’s acting. In the book, the improvement of Madhav’s English gives him agency. He gains confidence when he can give a speech. He gets to a point where he can navigate New York on his own and even has other people ask him for help with English. In the movie, they went full 90’s and made not only Madhav, but even the white girl speak Hindi. I was not impressed. In the book, Madhav gave a spectacular speech. Our village Bihari hero stands up for all of India when he tells Bill Gates to give his school just one chance, when people in the United States are given so many chances. This scene falls extremely flaccid in the movie when he gives up completely and reverts to Hindi. It comes off a bit like a dog begging for scraps, not at all the gutsy young man of the novel.

I also hate how they completely left out the fact that Riya was molested by her father. They instead decide to make some kind of feminist statement with the abused mom and the school where no girls attend. I hate when movies do this. Films never make as good a feminist statements as books (See: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). I actually think addressing the fact that Bihar is considered “backwards” by the rest of India would have been a radical point for Bollywood to acknowledge. The fact is, there are still millions of poor people in India that do not have access to education, and it is true that Indians have stereotypes about their own countrymen. That would have been a brave and honest thing to acknowledge in film. It felt as though the filmmakers did not want to bring shame to the country by portraying poverty, so they chose instead to bring shame to the country by pretending that sexism can be given a quick fix by kind white people.

The rest of the movie was incredibly boring. Our director relies too much on the montage-set-to-a-song formula, so instead of acting, we get great swaths of The Sad-Madhav Reel. They tried to be deep and have Riya walk away at the end while grabbing Madhav’s hand, which was dumb as fried shit. (Why the fuck would you take away the “lovers reunion” moment? Isn’t that the whole point of a romance? Have these people ever seen a Hindi movie?) I thought it was also a stupid decision to include a lovemaking scene in the movie. You have none of the build-up for it. Definitely not the character development. The depictions of white people lack nuance. They’re either cute NGO people or bad, mean bouncer guys. The sound mixing sucked for some reason. Riya is weirdly breathy all the time. And the singer who portrays her English singing really overdoes the husky sexy-voice shit.

All in all, a disappointing movie for a book that is as much fun as Two States. It really makes me sad because this film is one of the few depictions we get of Bihar in popular media. It would have been great if it could have been portrayed with more detail and humanity, if the film could have breathed life into the book. It looks like literature still holds the upper hand in some regards.

A Letter to Young Adults after the Election of 2020

Honestly, I originally wrote this letter to my fellow peer counselors, but I sometimes think you all are the more worthy audience.

My beloved young adults,

I send you love on this day of celebration. If we have never met, my name is Leonie Barkakati and I am a 28-year-old woman of South Asian decent. I want to spend just a little bit of your time to share what is on my mind now that the election is over.

Four years ago, when Donald Trump was elected, I was 24 years old. At that time, in a state of hopelessness, I was convinced Trump would be a two-term president. Both consciously and subconsciously, there were futures of mine that I let go of. I was convinced I should not reach for dreams, take big risks, or hope for anything more than the status quo. I gave up on the idea of marrying at a time when that could put me at risk of being legally bound to someone who might lose healthcare or be kicked out of the country. Perhaps this was a cowardly way to live, but it seemed far too great a risk to put my heart in that position. I gave up on the idea of bringing a child into this world for possibly 8 years. I did not want to raise a young person in a world that would take away any hope parents might have and doom a child to live with heavy, heavy oppressions.

Yet, here we are only 4 years later, in a very different capacity than we were 4 years ago. I may have to re-evaluate a great many choices I made since I was 24. I may have to admit that all is not lost. We have thousands of (mostly young) people to thank, who made sure people had access to mail-in ballots and fought to protect polls. How many of them must have been working, probably overworked and underpaid, in red and swing states like Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Michigan, to ensure ballots made it into the hands of women, the working class, people of color, and young people?

Surely, you cannot still believe you are insignificant. 141 million people participated in this election, a 66.8 percent turnout rate. This is the highest turnout rate since 1900, when 73.7 percent of voters re-elected William McKinley. Whether or not we can see it, the wide world believes. They believe in themselves, they believe in the goodness of other people. Good people went out in the world and convinced other good people, and they set the world straight.

You have no excuses anymore. This is the time to put forth ideas. You are good enough to make suggestions, both in the wide world and in [any organization your are part of]. Speak up. Share the thoughts you never share (I’m looking at you, people of color who stew in your anger about racism. [And queer folks who stew in your anger about homophobia and transphobia.] Tell your leaders what you see. Tell them what would make things right). Take a stand against any victimization patterns you have. You are too valuable to be hiding in the dark, forgotten. You are too intelligent for us to not be listening.

I want us to rise to great heights these next four years. I want us to make it so that we never have to choose the lesser of two evils again. We have that power. In the next election, I want to see two or more worthy candidates. I want to see two human beings whose hearts are intact. I want to see two human beings that blow us away with their kindness and commitment to humanity. I want to see two human beings who have integrity and fight for what they believe in. It is possible.

And I want even more than that. I want news stations to report on things like Philadelphia Housing Action, that won a case which deeded 50 vacant houses to a land trust so that homeless people could live in them. I want to see the work of organizations like the Dream Defenders on the news, who have worked since 2012 to fight police brutality and the school-to-prison pipeline in Florida and beyond. I want climate change solutions to be public knowledge so that people can back them in every possible way. I want to cover stories about my own friends, the ones who work to help undocumented people live lives with dignity in Atlanta, the ones who want to run for office themselves, the ones who help microfinance small businesses in India, the ones who keep people from getting evicted in Michigan. These things are no longer the realm of just non-profit or charity. This is what it means to back the poor and working classes, and POC. This has become part of the liberal agenda, and if this is the fad among progressives, I will hold them to our expectations. I hope you will join me.

It is all possible. I want to bring you stories of hope every day, so that you do not give up on your dreams and you will never give up on what is possible.

Be with me, y’all. Bring forth your ideas. Our newest president claims he wants to see an America that works together and heals. This is the time to make our demands heard. We want the same things, Joe Biden and us. I don’t often say this about politicians, but he might even listen to us.

Furthermore, we have this organization, the IRCC. There is opportunity here, too. RC claims to want to hear the voices of young adults and POGM, to put them in leadership. We need to help this organization live up to its potential. Nothing will ever change if we do not come forward. Nothing will happen if we do not speak up.

I urge you to not endure the patterns of our elders simply because it is easy. I love them very much, and this is what they brought us into the world and into RC for. It will not be easy to convince them that you are the right person for any job. Convince them anyway. It will not be easy to overcome the fear of repercussions and mistakes and embarrassment and punishment. Do it anyway. It will not be easy to remember the rest of us are with you when you fight the battles. Fight anyway. [When the feelings come up, call me]. We will back you no matter what happens.

Remember, we did not start this to get something “good enough”. We started it for liberation, to gain back our full humanity. I do not intend to stop until we get there.

Fiercely committed,

Leonie

Affirmation

This is a post for all the women who put their sweat, blood and tears into work that goes unappreciated, unrecognized, underpaid, and taken for granted. For you who feel you are alone. I see you.
This post is to be read as a self-affirmation.

I am the person who gives chances. I come back again and again to the same place to fight the battle in the hopes of winning.

I am the one who reaches.

I am the one who returns to hope after years.

I am the one who organizes.

I am the one who remembers the good.

I am naive.

I am the one who believes people will change.

I am the one who has hope.

And one day, I will triumph.

I will be the one who triumphs.

I will be the one who succeeds.

I will be victorious in the end.

In the end, there are no sides.

You were mine all along.

In the end, I will triumph.

Thoughts on Indian Matchmaking

By now, I’m sure you’re all aware of the show Indian Matchmaking on Netflix. The show is being called “divisive” and is said to show a “skewed perspective” on Indian culture according to reviewers +that I Googled like 10 minutes ago. I guess I’m not surprised, but I think those people are kind of missing the radical potential of this show. As always, this review has got spoilers, so if you want to watch the show, do that first!

The show centers on Seema Taparia, a woman who calls herself “Mumbai’s top matchmaker”. Seema claims her job is “based on good faith,” which is terrifying to hear as a scientist. She’s essentially saying her job depends on human beings not wanting to fuck each other over. This woman’s job is hard, y’all. I would rather be the person who does the mathematics for finding black holes than do her job. So on that level alone, I have great respect and appreciation for this woman.

The show is interesting because like life, it doesn’t have any set starting point or ending point. It offers way less closure and hand-holding than most American reality TV shows about dating. In the first two episodes, we follow the stories of two women, Aparna and Nadia, and one man, Pradhyuman in their process of finding a life partner. As the episodes progress, they add more people to the mix.

So other reviewers are touting Aparna as their feminist savior, but I find her to be at best kind of annoying. I really tried to like her. I want to relate to her because I suspect I’ll be in the same position myself, looking for a life partner at 34 years old, but for very different reasons. To me, she comes off as a workaholic with no chill. The second guy Seema sets her up with, Dilip, literally backs off because Aparna says she doesn’t know what she would do on a 10-day vacation and would prefer 3 days instead. She seems to have drank ALL the assimilated, middle-class Kool-Aid. And yea, I know, that alone probably isn’t a valid reason to not like her (though I’m like, dude, that’s why men won’t stay in your life. Because you’re asking for a robot, not a human being). But I think the point at which I was most disappointed was when she gets annoyed with Shekar because he, get this, has a conversation with one of the waiters at a restaurant. I don’t know about you all, but I think anyone who is kind to service workers is a good person. Apparently, Aparna does not. She gets annoyed because all of his attention is not on her. At that point, I was like, I’m done with this broad. How self-centered can you be?

Nadia was the second person to appear in the eligible singles lineup. I loved listening to her talk about her background. As another Indian who comes from a community nobody has ever heard of, I totally relate to her when she talks about being Guyanese, and how confused Indians from larger communities get about people from underrepresented communities. She also seemed like a sweet, fun person. I love that she’s a dancer. I got so mad at Vinny for abandoning her because I was like, I just want this woman to fall in love and be so happy! So it was really sweet at the end when she was talking to Shekar. They’re both such great people.

Pradhyuman is located in Mumbai and is a jewelry designer. In the United States, the equivalent of Pradhyuman would be one of those white guys with long hair who lives in either LA or Colorado, drinks kombucha all the time and practices Buddhism. In India, you’re still required to have some sense of pragmatism, but Pradhyuman seems like such a brooding-artisty type. He rejects girl after girl claiming that he wants to feel attraction. In the end, he seems to fall for a model from Delhi who Seema set him up with. Someone in the show called him shallow at one point, and I kinda agree.

The next bachelor who appears on the show is one of my favorites–Vyasar. A guidance counselor who lives with his mom, brother, uncle, and grandparents, Vyasar is a gentle giant with a big heart and a great sense of humor. He also has some skeletons in his closet–he reveals later in the season that his parents are divorced and his father was in jail for a lot of his childhood. He feels anxious to share this with his potential wives, claiming at one point that his family had to “throw respectability out of the window”. It breaks my heart that people would judge or reject someone so kind for that reason. Seema encourages him to be honest with his second match and tell her his story.

The next bachelor to appear on the show is Akshay, who is a fascinating character. He goes through a subtle transformation from when he appears to the last episode. Mostly, I feel sorry for him because his mother wants him to be married by the age of 25. God only knows why this woman thinks 25 is the right age, but she was really hell-bent. We learn that Akshay went to school in Boston. I can imagine it must have been hard to go from having the independence of living alone to being back in your mother’s house.

Akshay gets 70 proposals or something and is not interested in a single one. I feel like in some alternate universe, it would have been interesting to see how he develops if he moved out of his parents’ house, away from such pressure to get married. His mom would probably die just hearing about it. I do think he is a little young and has not quite figured himself out yet, which can cause problems in a marriage. His mom has done so much of his thinking for him. However, it was really cute to watch him fall in love with his fiancee. The second he meets Radhika, he claims “her eyes are so captivating, it’s hard to take my eyes off her”. I was like, we may yet make a romantic out of you, Akshay! In the episodes that follow, we watch him call this girl when he is on business trips and hang on to her every word like a helpless puppy. Eventually, he agrees to get engaged to her. From a cold, reserved young man, he becomes someone whose every thought is about a woman. I think if that’s how this process can change people, maybe it’s not half bad.

Ankita has by far, the most interesting story to me because of what it says about matchmakers. Ankita comes to Seema looking for proposals, but Seema feels out of her league in this case. Ankita is the owner of a startup clothing company, and she is a far cry from traditional. Her relatives started looking for matches for her when she was 23, and told her she should lose weight to be attractive to men. Though it causes her pain to hear these things, she says no and holds her ground, claiming that if a man does not like her the way she is, then she does not want to be married.

Seema enlists the help of her friend Geeta, another matchmaker, who claims to “better understand this generation”. But from her interactions with Ankita, it seems like Geeta’s idea of being in touch with younger people is to chastise young women into submission so that they say yes to any proposals they are given. In short, it looks like sexism. Geeta forgets to mention the first match she gives Ankita is a divorcee, completely losing Ankita’s trust when she finds out. By contrast, Seema tries to play up the strengths of the people she matches. Sometimes she makes character judgments based on her experience of who is easy to match with others, but that seems like a different approach than telling girls to just give up on their hopes and dreams altogether. Ankita is probably the person on the show I would most likely be friends with. In the end, she decides not to get married, choosing instead to focus on her startup and her friendships. (That scene with the friend honestly gave me subtle queer vibes. A girl can hope! I’m always holding out on y’all to be a bunch of huge gays).

So yea, we get a look into an industry that makes billions of dollars (trillions of rupees?) in India. It’s interesting to see the biodata that Seema puts together. Throughout the show, you get the impression that everyone asks for the same thing in a partner, more or less, and they are usually expecting way too much. Women will say “I want a tall, handsome guy who loves family, communicates clearly, is a good person” vagaira vagaira. Men will say “I want a slim, educated girl who is a little bit traditional but not crazy, and who loves family but also has ambition” vagaira vagaira. And then Seema has to put together this biodata that really sells a person up–it’s almost like a marriage resume. The part I found interesting was the category called “community”–she sometimes includes a phrase or two about what caste or part of India her clients are from. There was plenty from that section that I looked up on Google–what is a Marwari, Maheshwari, Baniya, Khatri. On the one hand, I don’t believe caste signifies anything about a person, but on the other, there are whole sections of humanity I don’t know about because I grew up in the United States.

All in all, I would say for a reality TV show, Indian Matchmaking is a stylish yet human look at the process of finding a life partner. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “best foot forward”. How much pressure is on young adult Desis to look respectable as a potential partner? The sad truth is in the 21st century, there is still a considerable amount.

Love Letter to Every Man I Ever Loved

I can’t remember if it’s Alok Vaid-Menon or Rupi Kaur who said this, but I think I am still in love with every single one of my exes. The thought is terrifying, but it’s a distinct possibility. Even if I hate some of them, I have to have trusted them at one point to feel so betrayed now, right?

I really hate this whole “I have feelings” thing. I went a good 24 years without any, and I felt so much better then! Everything makes me cry now. Those episodes in Avatar: The Last Airbender where Aang loses Appa make me cry. Stupid little memes about how people show kindness to one another make me cry. The internet is no place for someone with feelings.

Ugh. I hate how badly I want to show this part of myself. I’m supposed to hide it forever. If I put it out here on the internet, humanity is just waiting to eat me alive. I’m like, taking a huge breath just to even type this stuff out.

So this is my love letter to every man I ever loved.

I know half of you are probably in relationships right now, so I’m going to preface this by saying I am not trying to make you break up with her. I’ve got a partner, too. What I’m beginning to discover is that being single or not single are actually not that different…there’s not really a line. But that post is for another day.

I just want you to know I wish I had waited to tell you I love you. I wish I could have told you now instead. If I had waited, then maybe I could have given you my whole heart. It turns out that is something I had to learn. I didn’t know how to give someone my whole heart before now. If I had waited until now, I would have given it to you. Without hesitation.

I just want you to know I think I’m an idiot for not doing that. I think I’m a coward for not putting my whole self, my whole soul, and everything I am capable of into being with you. It took until now for me to understand that every human life is precious. Every moment I get to spend with another human being is precious. Every moment I got to spend with you was precious. Out of thousands of humans, you and I got to spend a little bit of life together. I hope everyone you meet feels so lucky.

I see all the good you are doing, even if you don’t. You bring such joy to people you love. You pursue such big dreams, even when it is risky or when you are uncertain. You show kindness to people. I should have said these things when I was right there next to you. It makes me guilty saying it now. I’ve turned out like my mother. I say sorry long after it’s relevant. I hope I figure out how to say it sooner for the sake of my current partner.

And now that you’re gone, I just miss you. I miss the strangest things. I miss your voice. I miss the way you reach across the table and hold my hand when we are drinking tea together. I miss watching the expressions on your face change. Is that strange? I miss your shoes. Men’s shoes are so not like the ones I wear. So simple and monochromatic. I wonder what it’s like to wear them. I wonder what it’s like to be you, to be told to hide your feelings from a young age, to be told not to show affection to other men, to be told the only way you can ever be close to people is to be in straight, romantic relationships. Will you come back to me? Not, like, to forgive me or with conditions or all that other crap, but will you just be here with me? Just be with me. I don’t need you to forgive me. I don’t need you to be romantic with me, and I definitely don’t need sex. I just remember what it feels like to be connected with you. To be two human beings together.

Oh my love. I’m only 28 now. Imagine what I’ll be like at 48.

Thinking of you makes me cry. I will only remember your face and your body the way I knew it, whatever age you were then. We will not stay like that, though. You and I will age and change, we will grow wrinkly and gain weight or lose weight or lose our hair or our hair will turn gray. That thought makes me laugh, but only a little giggle in the middle of me crying.

I will grieve when you die. I will carry the little mark you made on my heart. If I die before you, then God is good. But I suspect it will not happen that way. I don’t know why. Call it a hunch.

Selfishly, I am not going to tell you I hope all your dreams come true. I mean, I do hope it. Sort of. I hope you live a happy life. But I also want you to remember me. I hope sometimes, when you are rocking your new-born child to sleep for the fourth time in a night, the thought of me creeps into your mind. Or maybe some song will come on the radio, and you will think of me. And there we will be, thinking of each other and not telling each other. Life is long, friend. Neither you nor I know what will happen. After only 200 hours of counseling experience, I can attest it goes rather strangely.

Goodnight for now, then, loved ones. It’s for my past loves, but I know you’ve gained something from it, too.

Thoughts on Staying Connected

This is a sad week, y’all. The Universe has taken both Irrfan Khan and Rishi Kapoor from us within two days. (I am slightly consoled, though, that neither died of Covid). I imagine they would get along with Omar Shariff in the afterlife, if they met.

Well, life is long, huh? It’s been over a month since COVID-19 precautions were put in place in the United States. It feels like the flavor has gone out of life. I used to think having a lot of down time would be great, but honestly, there is something missing when you have nothing but down time every day. I feel as if some piece of my spirit has gone to sleep. Where there were once sounds and smells and touch, there is only the memory of those things. I feel no desire any more. I used to live to eat, now I feel like I eat to live. Modern psychology would say I’m clearly depressed, to which my response would be duh. People are dying out here.

Sometimes I think to myself, the hardest thing about life is connection to other people. This might not be true for everybody, but for queer South Asian me, it feels like it is. The closer I get to home, the harder it gets. Somehow, in my adult years, I understand what it means to form a healthy connection and what it means for other people to respect who I am. I seek people with better communication skills. I have a solid group of people that I can talk to about my feelings. I have planned my escape routes for when things go wrong. It took a long time, but I’ve figured it out.

It was not like that when I was young. There’s this direction I get from my peer counselors sometimes, where they tell me imagine living as though you prioritize your life as a woman. I wish anybody had told me that even one time in the 18 years I lived at home. On one hand, I am so thankful to my parents for really going after connection with other Indian families. It has helped me resist assimilation in ways that other Indian descendants living in the US have not. On the other hand, I don’t think there was a single woman figure I grew up with that was not subservient to some male counterpart–whether that was her husband, brother, father, or somebody else. So I wholeheartedly believed I was doing the right thing in giving all my power to male friends and being small so they could take up space.

This is not to say I believe all men are bad and should be beaten down for being sexist. I think every human being is good, and the ways they hurt other people only shows the ways they themselves were hurt in the past. I think if we actually want sexism to subside, we need to look at how isolating it is to be a man. We make them be alone in ways we do not force women to be. In addition, men need healthier outlets for the crap they’re carrying around–and that should not include dependence on women to help them unpack emotions. They need to be given the tools to be able to figure it out among themselves.

But I have digressed. How does this relate to connection?

There is something about looking at something ugly and not running away. I think this is the thing young social justice communities accuse elders of all the time, but ironically have not figured out how to do themselves. (Like let’s be real, when we don’t like something, we run away from it. I would know. How do queer communities react when conflict arises? They vilify one another usually until someone can’t show their face in public any more. What do we do when someone points out our mistakes? We try our best to hide, or at least lay low for a little while.) We have inherited policing so well from our elders that now we do it to one another. If you are not 100% on board with OUR politics and OUR perspectives and OUR rhetoric, you are not one of us. You MUST practice our way or we WILL kick you out.

There is something about showing our feelings that we have forsaken. “Community organizing” among young adults has been reduced to an intellectual pursuit, a discussion about ideas where we barely acknowledge the presence of other people, barely connect with the humanity that is right in front of us. We talk some big talk about self-care and feelings and all that, but when it’s down to the wire, when was the last time you cried in front of someone else? There is something that one of the Jewish leaders in my peer counseling region says:

The key to courage is to weep and rage about the despair and hurt we see, never turning away even if it breaks our hearts. After each cry, we are renewed with deeper commitment, can take the next step and consider the next challenge with our full intelligence, flexibility and love. -L. Friedman

I have to remind myself of this frequently. As I reach for my own community again in my (not) old age, I have to let my heart break sometimes to know that nothing has changed. I have to look at these people I so badly want with me on my journey and weep that I might wait for the rest of my life for them to join me. And every time I show heartbreak, I am reminded that showing feelings is an act of courage, even if I am the only person who believes it. If I am really lucky, and if I do not run away, someone might agree with me.

I look forward to communities where we stick with one another even when things get hard. I imagine young people who remember of one another that we are good and that sometimes good people make mistakes. And at my most ambitious, I imagine that when things get hard, we show how it feels. We stay through the awkwardness and discomfort, because that is what it means to be resources to one another. There is nothing shameful about messiness. And there is the added bonus of strengthening our relationships, so that we are no longer living in pretense.

Thoughts on the Tensorate Series

So my partner recently handed me the Tensorate series by Jy Yang and…Wow! That was a great decision.

The Tensorate Series consists of 4 novellas written by Jy Yang. They follow a loose timeline around the lives of the Sanao twins, Akeha and Mokoya. I love the world Yang created as a backdrop to these stories. Yang lives in Singapore, and their surroundings seem to influence their writing. Throughout each novel, we see a country, the Protectorate, that is an actual melting pot: people of various Asian backgrounds, religions, classes, all roiling together in the same stew, rubbing up against one another. There is still stratification in the Protectorate–for instance, the Kuanjin ethnicity seems to be privileged over Kebangilans and Gauris–but there is also an awareness of this in Yang’s writing that I rarely see in fictional novels. If anything, they bring the differences to the forefront to be commented upon. Characters are not shy about noticing one another’s differences and are not frowned upon for bringing it up as much as people would be in the United States. I enjoy hearing the Asian-ness in the writing.

While Yang’s writing style remains impressive throughout the series, I think the soft spot in my heart is always for Akeha’s story, The Black Tides of Heaven. This title comes from a saying that Akeha’s lover says, “The black tides of heaven director the courses of human lives…but as with all waters, one can swim against the tide” (166). Yongcheow says this to Akeha when Akeha claims his mother believes he is a mistake. Akeha is a lovable brute. Perhaps this says more about me than him, but I relate to him greatly. As a child, he is dauntless, reckless. It is interesting to watch him navigate his bond with his sister when they are children. At the time, both Mokoya and Akeha are non-binary. They live in a society that confirms gender later in life than at birth. Mokoya is clearly a controlling factor in Akeha’s life. He seems to put her wishes and desires before his own. I actually felt proud of him when he yanked the reins of his life out of Mokoya’s hands. He confirms his gender as a man (an unexpected move–none of the Protector’s other children were men), and promptly leaves the Protectorate for 18 years. To, you know, grow up and shit.

My heart breaks for him when he leaves Thennjay. Sadly, I don’t have much sympathy for Mokoya in the first book. She seems spoiled and a little ungrateful. Maybe also, it’s queerer for Thennjay to love Akeha than to love Mokoya. (I have no biases here at all, obviously). He gets just one kiss for all those feelings he has. Then he wanders into the woods to become Yongcheow’s honey and a Machinist. All in all, I think Akeha does pretty well for himself. I love a good rebellion, and it seems like a good choice to put our endearingly grumpy murderer twin in its waiting hands.

My heart breaks for him again when his niece dies. The irony of the century is when Akeha finally comes home after she dies. I remember reading that part and thinking, dammit Keha, couldn’t you have stopped being a butt-hurt little shit some time before that moment? There is something about stories that are both beautiful and sad, though. They are always the most memorable to me.

The other three novellas take us on a roller coaster of narrative styles. The Red Threads of Fortune tell us about Mokoya’s perspective after her accident. I like that Yang chose to write her in that way. She becomes a much more approachable character as a slightly broken, grieving mother than as The Prophet Of The Protectorate Married To The Head Abbot. Things I like about this book: Rider does really cool things with the slack. Mokoya fights with Thennjay Sometimes. Good to know. Mokoya and Akeha love each other. Yay. There’s a background thread of how the Machinists, the Monastery, and the Protectorate are kind of all at odds with each other, but it gets a little lost. The plot that I was most interested in was the one of intrigue and betrayal between Rider and Mokoya, and what they find out about Wanbeng.

In the third book, The Descent of Monsters, Yang takes a turn into darker secrets of the Protectorate. Of the four novellas, I thought this was the darkest one. I don’t know if it was meant to be hokey, but there are times when Chuwan Sariman is so oppositional to authority that it’s over-the-top. Granted, she does seem justified. The authorities are kind of gross in this book. They seem totally cool with sweeping the deaths of several people under the rug, not to mention the torture and abuse of several children. Maybe this was one of those Star Wars things: make really hard political themes easier to swallow with goofy and lovable main characters. The narrative style was also great, but presents a few pacing problems. For example, since we gain information through reports, interviews, and journal entries, the big reveal about the prophet-children does not feel as big as it possibly could have been. We only really know it is true at the very end. We spend a lot of time wandering around the lab, but some of it is repetitive. This is fair, since a number of the characters experience the same crime scene, but perhaps it could have been done just once–in Rider’s journal, for example–and the reader would get a feel for why covering up what happened at the lab is so horrific.

Lastly, The Ascent to Godhood takes us on a more intimate, sentimental journey. In this novella, we learn about Lady Han’s relationship with the Protector. After reading this book, my thoughts were that the Protectorate has seen some shit! Also, the Protector’s family is a riot. I’m not sure why, but I felt like pacing was again slightly off. Granted, it is a drunken monologue by Lady Han. Perhaps questionable pacing is the point. I feel the story could be improved if pacing was done more intentionally. For example, if Lady Han kept going back and forth in time, then the lurches might make sense. Again, Yang seems to skip over the parts that are truly revealing. A lot of groundwork was laid for Hemana’s betrayal of Hekate, but there didn’t seem to be as much for Hekate’s betrayal of Han. The reason is there and justified, but it comes as a small revelation, followed swiftly by the arrival of Xiuqing and Han’s escape. The end is actually more interesting to me than the beginning–and in other stories about rebellion leaders, such as Lawrence of Arabia or even The Empire Strikes Back, we get to see more of a before-and-after turning point that makes a rebellion leader. Then again, a novella is a rather different art form than a feature-length film. Perhaps the beginning–Lady Han and Hekate as young women–was all Yang wanted to get across.

In short, Yang has done some stunning work with this series. There are deep insights about gender, resistance, and being human embedded in each novella, and Yang does a great job of not hitting you over the head with some tired message. The characters in the series experience development and honest emotions like grief, fear, resentment, jealousy, and triumph. They also get to have secrets, which I feel makes them even more human and engaging. I deeply appreciate the world Yang created. Even with magic, it’s a reflection of a world that feels more real to me than that of most other books.

Thoughts on Wordslut

So I recently read Wordslut (2019) by Amanda Montell. I have mixed feelings about the book. On the one hand, the writing is very good. Montell has a great sense of humor and keeps my attention throughout the entire book. This is an impressive feat–my attention span is pretty short and my next blog post would have been 6 months from now if it had not been interesting. But after reading through the whole thing, I think it also has some glaring shortcomings.

I do appreciate that Montell is a Millenial who really has her generation’s back. It’s refreshing to find a non-fiction, academic book that is written by someone who was born after 1985. It is rare for someone that young to write non-fiction that is significant enough that it’s on the New Non-Fiction shelf in the library. Montell’s tone is prosaic, which I think is a strength; she really isn’t trying to impress academia by showing how much linguistics jargon she knows. Her writing is accessible, and that’s really fucking important. It can reach a wider audience because it is not trying to be a textbook. In addition, she is very affirming of young women (111), queers (229) and Black folks (95) and how they all use language. Indeed, the claim could be made that these are the people who invent new language all the time. This is a notable quality–all of these populations have a significant impact on our country. Just look at how much Democrats start crying when they don’t show up to vote.

One of the more important points made is that men and women fundamentally use language differently. Men mostly seem to use it to put forth ideas, or request or exchange information. Women seem to use it for SO much more. Women use language to create trust, to enforce relationships, to reach consensus, and to navigate a myriad of fluctuating social dynamics (125). On a sarcastic note, this makes me wonder why we allow men to speak at all. Their use of language is so limited. Though I also realize, this is probably what we condition both genders to do. Women have access to the fullness and richness of language, while men are encouraged to eschew it. This would account for why women, and not men, are adept at communicating feelings. To me, this is sad. We systematically set men up to fail at the things that bring people closer together. Their violence betrays the isolation society conditions them into.

One of the shortcomings of Wordslut is that it is so English-centric. Montell does use examples from other languages to explain certain things about English, like how people who speak Yoruba explain siblings (143) or how in the Native language Kwak’wala, you can’t pronounce certain words without vocal fry (117). But much of the book focuses on English-speaking media and how non-mobile, older, rural men (NORMs) (127) treat young (white?) women. I feel like the feminism of the book could have really been strengthened if there was any information in it about folks who are bilingual, multilingual or people for whom English is a second language. How do those populations conceptualize gender and sex using the English language? In what ways are their accents and butcherings of English actually radical? I realize that since linguistics is still so young a field, this information might not exist yet. But diluting the whiteness of any non-fiction work is definitely something I encourage by any means possible, and it feels like it could have been possible in this case.

I also feel like a weakness of the book is that it does not talk about how English has been a colonizing force in the world. What does colonization have to do with feminism, you say? Well, it played a huge role in subjugating women, frequently forcing them to become even more objectified since they were able to give birth and thereby produce a labor force. Colonizers like their labor forces because their lazy asses don’t like doing work themselves. What contributions have those years of colonization (and it’s like, a good 500 years) had on the language? We know language changes in as short a time as 50 years. Surely this process has affected the English language, the language spoken by what was once one of the largest colonizing nations on the planet? Yet nothing is said on this subject.

All in all, Wordslut is a fun book that scratches the surface of what feminism in the English language could look like. However, I find the premise on which it is written to be a little naive. The truth of becoming a gender-equal society requires looking at the ugly history of what English has been used for. Should the dominant language of the world be one that came to dominate through unparalleled violence? Should we expect we will gain gender equality by continuing to speak this language? Sure, these were not the questions Montell set out to answer. But in the world right now, where the governments of large and powerful populations are leaning far enough to the right to be called fascist, can we afford to ignore these truths? Can we afford to think that we should focus only on our own (very wealthy and very powerful) country? I think the spirit of optimism is important to carry out our hopes for a better world, but not without looking critically at the English language.