Guest Blogger: Neeraja Viswanathan

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Somebody told me that this blogosphere was small
we use to live in the same city, go to the same high school
and never met before
until I’m blogging on Sepia Mutiny
and peep this Indian queen from NYC
writing on her blog
while she’s practicing street law,
said she workin’ on a post and
could my click check her out,
she said she loved my posts from near Fargo
and that Kaavya sucks,
and now she’s stepping on this stage
to take a piece of our hearts…

My deepest apologies to both our readers and to The Roots. Sometimes I forget that I’m just a blogger and nothing more.

Our newest guest blogger is a lawyer, a blogger, and a published author, BUT NOT related to the disgraced chick-lit author. She’s the real deal. It turns out that we went to the same elementary, middle, and high school at the same time but have never met. Crazy.

But what really “got me” was this entry. Sublime. Please help me welcome Neeraja.

34 thoughts on “Guest Blogger: Neeraja Viswanathan”

  3. The entry to which Abhi linked is indeed sublime (especially the X3 commentary complete with a call for Dennis Quaid as Gambit). Looking forward to reading Neeraja on this space!

  4. Neerja,

    If you are worried ’bout what we’ve blogged and who we’ve had here and what we’ve been thinkin ’bout baby don’t worry just know that we wit u

  6. Welcome, Girlfriend!

    It turns out that we went to the same elementary, middle, and high school at the same time but have never met.

    I guess Abhi wasn’t hiding out in the library.

    From one undercover nerdy indian girl to another.

  8. Neeraja…… She is the blogger I had a crush on, soon after i read that chaaatwal post…. More reason to come back to Mutiny… 🙂

  10. yes! much love to whoever has the short hair fettish in the ND bunker guest blogger selection committee!

  11. I read her blog, she’s reallly good. And I’m be the slightly shallow person and say, “woot, she’s so beautiful” =)

  12. Well, I don’t know what makes a post sublime. To me, Neeraja’s posts reveal a sensibility and ethos that is completely American, and she has a very readable style.Good? Yes. Sublime? No.

    No, I was/am not a nerd or a geek, as I have not had access to most of the stuff mentioned in the post.

    Reason: I lived in a small South Indian town till I was 20, and then moved to a city.I lived in the US for a few years and now, at 33, drifted to the UK.

    So, what would be the criteria for an Indian nerd or geek?

    Trying to make your own radio set at the age of 10? Competing with friends to see whose pet caterpillar will morph into a more colorful butterfly? Buying magazines like Science Today, Electronics for You, and scouring the stores for the components to make small electronic gadgets? Making your own contraption to safely view the complete solar eclipse, or staying awake for the showers of Halley’s Comet?

    I guess Indrajaal comics, and folk tales, superheroes in vernacular literature don’t count. I donno. Shadow (Telugu superhero)’s adventures were as thrilling as say, the adventures of any American super hero.

    What else? Cracking JEE, may be?

    No, I think nerd-dom and geek-dom are concepts that may not have Indian equivalents really.Will be interesting to see what others feel.

    But yes, a hearty welcome to SM, Neeraja. I am a newcomer here as well 🙂

    Cheers.

  14. Yay Neeraja! Love your blog. (And I didn’t go to school with you, anywhere.) Great to see you blogging in these pages — welcome!

  15. But what really “got me” was this entry.

    That brought back awful memories that I had buried long ago…

    Welcome Neeraja – looking forward to reading your stuff.

  16. Oh! My! Goddess!!

    I hadn’t checked your blog in a while…you still write! You exist! Glad to see you blogging here. 🙂

    (And oh yes….love that geek/nerd post.)

  17. ” It turns out that we went to the same elementary, middle, and high school at the same time but have never met. Crazy.”

    Abhi…didnt you go to elementary school in California and highschool in Maryland? That would be quite the coincidence.

  18. Ms. Neerja,

    Me, no goth. However, I did go to Mariyln Manson’s show way back when……..

    There are zillions of Indians in India who live in goth like existence “Bootwallahs” (the people who have been possesed by spirits or deal with them). For them gothness is real, no hanky panky makeups. There is a cop in UP who thinks he is a woman and married to Lord Krishna.

    Geeks and nerds in India, the kids who get admitted to IIT/ IIMs are mother of all geekness – something vaseline in the hair.

  20. Is this Indian goth?

    Another smart, sharp woman! We will bring the patriachy of SM down one post at a time!

    Down with Mogambo.

    Peace

  22. Abhi…didnt you go to elementary school in California and highschool in Maryland? That would be quite the coincidence.

    I went to two years of high school in CA and two years in MD. 🙂

  23. So I finally got around to reading the Nerd/Geek post everyone here kept mentioning, and I don’t know what to be more embarrassed about..that I qualified for 8 out of the 10, or that I had justclicked over from the X3 official site where I was scrounging around for any bit that I may have missed before…(btw – Dennis Quaid is too old and all-American for Gambit, imo. I heard rumors that Jonathan rhys-Meyers and the Sawyer guy from ‘Lost’ were considered at one point…I could have lived with either. I mean, not that I care..)

    I never played D&D, but as someone who had braces, glasses, rash-like acne, curly hair that my unhelpful mom made me brush (hello, my friend frizz!), 35 extra pounds in all the wrong places and a FOB accent all at once, it’s probably best i stayed away from that particular enthusiasm.

  24. Which, may, MAY make up for the fact that the X-Men cartoon is off the air, even if it wasn’t very good, and Jubilee was incredibly annoying and they kept fighting robots.

    asks anxiously:

    you know they’re called sentinels, right? They’re in X3, which is disturbing because, like you noted, they made the cartoon more boring.

    comes to senses

    ok, I’m turning this facking thing off and going to bed, repeating to myself “I’m a grown woman, not a teenage boy. i’m grown woman, not a teenage boy, I’m a grown woman, not a teenage boy, I’m-“

  25. ok, I’m turning this facking thing off and going to bed, repeating to myself “I’m a grown woman, not a teenage boy. i’m grown woman, not a teenage boy, I’m a grown woman, not a teenage boy, I’m-“

    Does that work? I can’t fall asleep either.

    And no D&D?!?!?!? What the hell did you do with your time (and your mom’s office photocopier) when you were young? [deleted inappropriate jokes about 20-sided dice]

  26. oh Saurav..You’ll always be a grown woman to me 😉

    I’m working. took a break and never went back. crap. must toodle off to bed immediately.

    As for what I did with my time… read far too much Piers Anthony, that’s what.

    (what did you need a photocopier for? wait – don’t tell me. I’m a grown woman and cannot let myself get curious about it now, dammit.)

  27. As for what I did with my time… read far too much Piers Anthony, that’s what.

    Seriously dude. 1) the Xanth series is exceptionally bad for children, I think. There’s healthy sexual ed. and then there’s Piers Anthony and 2) why do ideas from the Incarnations of Immortality still plague my thoughts every once in a while (i.e. a few days ago I was thinking about living backwards through time).

    Oh well. At least I still have a working knowledge of Asimov to rest on. Show me another author who manages to link almost his entire oeuvre of discrete series after the fact.

    okay, fine all of them do. but he did it really well!

    oh Saurav..You’ll always be a grown woman to me 😉

    Likewise 🙂 I’m too embarassed to tell you about the photocopier though. Suffice it to say that when you start getting really into something, you start making stuff not made by the manufacturer (or that you could make cheaper ;). Ask me in person some day 🙂

  28. As for what I did with my time… read far too much Piers Anthony, that’s what.

    I found his “Bio of a Space Tyrant” series to be entertaining reading during some of my teenage years, although some of the morality in it was slightly dubious to say the least 😉

  29. Not only is Neeraja perky, nerd/geek to the core and Southie (sorry, couldn’t pass that up), she’s Siva Vaidyanathan’s cousin. Welcome aboard, my lady!

    Holy cow! I freakin’ love that guy. I hope I’m not alone on this, but I’m a huge Siva Vaidyanathan fan. He’s a brilliant media scholar, social critic, and, until recently, I believed him to a semi-talented rapper. (I was recently informed that claims that he released the hip hop hit “Lean Back” are in fact spurious.)

    Siva Vaidyanathan and Fat Joe: separated at birth?

    And yes, welcome aboard Neeraja! Your blog posts have been witty and insightful thusfar; I can only hope you’ll encounter The Talented Mr. Chatwal again in the future and have some hilarious anecdote to share. Last thing, please don’t let Vikram Cheapwal tarnish your perceptions of Sikh men, we don’t need a degree from Wharton to be cheap and flashy.

  30. Has anybody else noticed that Neeraja looks a lot like a shorter-haired version of Bollywood actress Dia Mirza…..

    Just a general comment, not one of my usual ladykilling charm offensives. I’ll leave that stuff to DJ Dirrrty Poonjabi 😉

  31. Just for the record, I am “Cheap Ass Desi”, and “Krazy Ass Desi” is not me. I only go by “Cheap Ass Desi” in my various avatars, but always with the handle “Cheap Ass Desi” included: ie “Iron-pumpin’ Cheap Ass Desi, “Tiny CAD“, “Globe trottin’ Cheap Ass Desi“

    Just so ya’ll know, and don’t confuse my comments with Krazy Ass’!

  32. As for what I did with my time… read far too much Piers Anthony, that’s what.

    The punpreciation comes into sharp focus.

  34. Welcome Neeraja.

    I have to agree with what someone said on some other post. The women of SM are definitely lookers.