Via a tipster, the Telegraph (UK) has something on The Compulsive Confessor, a Bombay-based blogger:
In breezy postings, the 25-year-old girl-about-town – India’s answer to Bridget Jones – told thousands of readers of her partying, smoking and binge drinking, along with candid musings about sexual techniques and escapades. Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan writes her Sex and the City-style blog under the pseudonym “EM”, aware that although her material would not seem outrageous to a British audience, in India sex remains a taboo and anti-obscenity laws are strict. (link)
This particular article tries to play up the salacious content of the blog, and seems hell-bent on finding “controversy,” though this angle falls a little flat at certain moments:
Madhavan, a Delhi-born writer for a news magazine, Outlook, launched The Compulsive Confessor during a dull day at the office in 2004.
While her critics grow daily more scandalised, her thousands of fans believe she is changing the face of modern Indian womanhood. Her blog is among the most popular in India, receiving 400-500 hits a day, although only two per cent of India’s 1.1 billion population have internet access. (link)
(I would make a comment about how “400-500 hits a day” is actually not a lot of hits, but I’m sure that number has spiked since this profile appeared.)
The most interesting part of the article, of course, is in the concluding paragraphs, where it’s revealed that The Compulsive Confessor now has a book deal with Penguin India:
Unsurprisingly perhaps, the publisher Penguin India has commissioned Madhavan to write a semi-autobiographical novel, hoping she will rival the success of Candace Bushnell, the American author of Sex and the City, in giving voice to a new generation.
Meanwhile, Madhavan is apprehensive that news of her real identity will spread even further when the book is published, making it harder to be frank in her internet journal. “It will be harder to write when you’re no longer anonymous,” she said. (link)
Hm, she’s worried about news of her identity spreading after her book’s published? What about when she’s profiled by a major British newspaper, where the reporter uses her real name?
(Note: I hope this isn’t one of those situations where the reporter used Madhavan’s name against her wishes, thereby outing her… Something about this profile doesn’t quite smell right…)
Take a look at The Compulsive Confessor; what do you think? Is she the next Shobha De? Or merely the next Amy Sohn?
Manju,
I am with you too (remember, we have disagreed often in past).
Euphemistically, a lot were painting her as a second class to their western favorites in their comments – be it SATC, Hill staffers, take your pick.
People forget that in West, sexual confessional narratives are very old, and well-developed – going back to Anais Nin, and even further. Even the bare all, tell tale scandals to tabloids that brought down couple of British governments in 60s, especially Harold Macmillan at one point were as common as morning cereal. There was even a Brit Asian from Punjab who was involved in one of them too, she was one of the minister’s mistress (or paid escort), and then went public (something like that).
They are blogs by escort women in west that get 10,000-20,000 hits a day, and they are very well packaged.
She is writing within the confines of India middle class – it cannot be that just polished, as what she does still is not business as usual. I have read some other hedonistic confessional blogs from India too. They tend to be similar.
Remember, a few years ago, an Algerian immigrant woman in France sexapades became a best seller – West wanted to hear from a muslim women. The same might become of her.
Re: Amitabh’s view, I just could not bring my mental energies to think about too much, and form some firm, strong opinions. It is just personal way of life, and it seems odd to beat it to death by others.
Sure, face of the protagonist matters. Anyone will tell you – even Papa Hemingway in From Whom the Bell Tolls
If eM is a Penguin’s favourite author, then who is it’s favourite singer ?
Seal !
No seriously, that book is going to destroy the fabric of the Indian publishing industry. We cannot, at any cost, let the penguins take over.
Penguins publishing chhodo !
hm, what was her name/the name of her book?
I’m a
man of leisureenreprenuer who works out of his apartment.manju, your interpretations put the ‘ewww’ in nuance (people saying her content was blah is exactly equivalent to amitabh’s remarks, and should be responded to with the same indignation). but thanks for the comic relief, man.
Let’s clear a flagrant misconception first: Indians were celebrating sex long before Europeans had shed their prim and puritanical ways. You can still catch the vestiges of amorous abandon in pockets of rural India.
And just as I’d ask you to stop suggesting that you speak for Indian culture, I’d ask you to not paint Western culture with a broad brush ( how I hate that trite phrase ) either. At a reading recently ( where interestingly Jessica Cutler was one of the readers ), I chatted up a female sex blogger. She told me she remains anonymous online mainly because she doesn’t want her southern White father to find out. Most American parents wouldn’t approve of their daughters lustily making out with their boyfriends right in front of them either. But they wouldn’t mind their daughter’s boyfriend putting his arm around her or kissing her in front of them. What’s disrespectful about showing affection for a loved one? You are being all prudish in front of your future in laws not so much because you want to respect them but because in your mind you can’t accept your own daughter getting cozy with her boyfriend in your presence.
Also I’d say you ask your future wife, whether she is white, brown or black, to read your comments here to understand your values better. It’s better to be candid before marriage than to surprise her afterwards.
i’m offended by your indignation. how dare you judge me!
I had two nightmares yesterday.
The first was about a bunch of Penguins, who take over the intellectual mindspace of Indians through pseudo-modern chick-lit books, ultimately turning people into zombies and ruling India…efficiently though.
The other involved Rani Mukherjee who, in a constipated manner, repeatedly kept saying “Hi, I am Natasha.”
shudder
hm, what was her name/the name of her book?
When I remember, I will tell.
Here, more on the universality of woman’s confessional narrative
Kush, Amitabh has expressed two opinions on this thread. The first one was about izzat translated as family honor, where the behavior of a member affects the prestige of the family as a whole. His second opinion is about izzat translated as respect for some protocol with siblings, elders etc. Of course both translations are valid.
The latter is an individual’s personal opinion and largely harmless, the first one is more complicated, as it is essentially a way to wield power over female/younger members of the family.
Here, more on the universality of woman’s confessional narrative
An interesting qoute fron the article above:
“It wouldn’t be published if it didn’t sell,” says Pelling. “I want to punch the wall every time a commentator says, ‘The thing is, the sex is really dull’. That’s what we are socially conditioned to think. The truth is, it’s not boring.”
I can’t say I read each of the 200+ comments in detail, but it seemed to me no one is celebrating the fact that a blogger has been commissioned to write a novel on the strength of her blog. Isn’t that great news? Many of the people commenting here are bloggers themsleves, so why aren’t they happy with this development, since it shows that bloggers can break into publishing. India needs hundreds of writers writing popular fiction. Please remember that a publishing industry does not grow on award-winning stuff alone, it must have popular stuff. And presumably it was the potential for popular appeal that attracted The Compulsive Confessor to Penguin. As for Meenakshi’s writing, why not wait for the book before deciding whether you want to take it or leave it? What’s with all the criticism and speculation even before the book is published?
Great gods above, backlash from the US six months before the book is even published. This is going to be so huge.
I dont feel there is anything outrageous over Amitabh judging his sister if such a thing happened in his family, however I did find his hypothetical actions reminiscent of quite a few Indian families that sever ties with their kids over sex or marriage. That is too extreme. He’s got to ask himself if he would do the same if his sister ripped off someone.
As far as the blogger in question, I wouldnt equate mere momentary controversy with a gutsy spirit or being a trailblazer. Granted, she did not ask to be a trailblazer. But when we see the mini hype, and we do not get it, we will experess why we find her boring. It just seems like her lifestyle is the cool thing for her to do. So what is interesting about that? Now one can parlay a “cool” lifestyle or even a mindless foray into socially irrelevant debauchery(BTW, I am not implying that this is the case here) into an interesting blog. I just didn’t see that on that blog. I think I spent more time discussing this issue here than actually reading more of her blog. If she really likes living life as she proclaims on her blog, is just sharing the likes with a 1990s era American high school girl the only extent of her living life to the fullest? Isn’t that the hook of her blog which she has parlayed into a book deal? If the book deal was not in news, i don’t think we would even bother talking about her positively or negatively.
Another thing is I actualy find it interesting when Chinese or Indian youth try to coopt western pop cultural items as integral to their lifestyle. But when that’s all there is to it, I lose interest especially when it is merely coopted instead of integrated into their culture. I see it as blindly imitating another culture instead of taking what you like about it and making it your own.
And it’s not just because I am holding a DBD to a higher moral standard. Like some of us said before, some of us do not care for a Carrie Bradshaw type character in SATC and the last time I checked ,she is white and she is more sexually uptight than the Confessor. But her whole package did not amount to much. Now the Confessor is probably not old enough to have watched Pretty Woman when it came out, but damn, I wouldnt be surprised if that was her idea of a romantic movie. Man, it used to annoy me whenever a female would tell me what a romantic movie it was.
Anyway, if she was just another private person living her life, she could do whatever the hell she does and who cares what anyone thinks. But her defenders who are outraged by our criticism should understand we are expressing why we do not find her blog appealing just like we comment on many other pop cultural issues that come up. It is not meant to shame her into changing her lifestyle.
But when you see quotes like this , then you feel like weighing in too
For all the SatC comparisons on Sepia Mutiny, she may even sound a little Carrie-esque. Who takes Vagina-angst to a different level altogether. And keeping aside east-west culture-shock bitching, if I were to read Carrie’s blog, I think it would be something like eM’s. (I love both their unapologetic Cool Catness, but they both no Pathbreakers, if that’s what are being made out to be). But New York, Bombay or Delhi, neither Carrie nor eM are pathbreakingly feminist, or are writing sexcapades. For all her blowjob manuals, eM has never vividly described a sexual experience, not dated a married man/boss/father-figure-type-person/cradle-snatched/effectively-boyfriend-stolen…nothing about her sex life is terribly scandalous, for any single-in-the-big-city Indian woman. But, identifiable boring and lonely Fridays make for fun reading. And zero scandal. Or titillation.
….longer post on my blog…
Linux #208
Those would be Emperor Penguins?
She wasn’t a Brit Asian, she was Pamela Chaudhry mentioned above by another poster, known at the time as Pamela Bordes, and she slept with half of the Conservative Party, and a fair number of the most important newspaper editors in the whole of Britain, causing quite a scandal at the time. Wikipedia, as always, has the lowdown.
Can we please not equate Amitabh’s responses to all Indian male responses on this situation. FYI Amitabh from what I remember is an ABD and all his opinions are his own and he is not qualified to represent Indians from India or Indian Americans. As Posterity mentioned above, it will be great if Amitabh can have his girlfriend read his opinions on this board and see what she thinks. There are always people with similar opinions who are DBD or ABD and I personally think it is futile to try and change anyone’s opinion, to each to their own. I feel some people have their idea of izzat or sharam or whatever not frozen in time, I have lived for years in Delhi and Bombay and have friends who do pretty much everything that EM describes in her blog, and no one bats and eyelid. It is their PERSONAL choice and as long they are comfortable doing it more power to them. I for one am not going to sit on my high horse and judge them for the choices they make. Similarly how Amitabh chooses to the deal with the situation with his sister is his prerogrative, in his defence he is very passionate about the Indian traditions of the old and is very vocal in his support, the India in real life is rapidly changing but his idea of what India should be is static which causes some discomfort on this forum. I used to find his opinions equally bashful but have decided to move on from things I don’t agree with.
eM’s defenders need to take a chill pill. I (and I think most of the posters here) have nothing against her or her choices, its her life and she can do whatever she wants as long as it doesn’t harm anyone. The comments I and many others made were about the content of the blog and whether we found it interesting or not. I don’t think most people on this forum want eM to change her ways and become a Sati-savitri.
Also, I definitely think it is not OK to comment on her looks and physical characteristics, that is just wrong. period.
Dude…this is scary. What’s wrong with showing a little affection in public? I can assure you that most people are as much disturbed by a complete lack of physical affection between couples as by a full-blown public make-out session. When me and my exes stopped even putting our arms around each other in public we knew it was over. What does your girlfriend think of this?
Alright, before more people demonise Amitabh like this, I am reminded of that scene in The Namesake when Kal Penn takes his white girlfriend back home to meet his parents. And he says to her, don’t hold hands or kiss me, it’s different to how when we’re with your parents.
And that’s done out of deference to his parents. And even if I don’t agree with everything Amitabh says, I can understand that, because it’s the way it is with my family too. A certain decorum has to be observed in situations like that. And I bet that if 99% of the people here are honest, we are the same in front of our parents or family to various degrees. That’s just the way it is with Indian sensibilities, and as much as it’s great to stick up the middle finger in peoples faces like punk rockers, I will always observe certain boundaries of decorum in front of my parents and grandparents. If you remember that scene with Gogol’s parents in The Namesake you’ll understand why. So I think people should stop demonising Amitabh on this point.
He mentioned though that he did that in front of his white in-laws, not his own parents. Otherwise I would’ve understood.
Btw, haven’t watched the Namesake. Read the book though. I don’t think the film was even released in my country.
i would never engage in displays of affection in front of my or the grls parents. that would just feel wrong (for me).
@ #216 lol 😀
i applaud you for being consistent in your hypocrisy. i love steady, dependable men (wait, did i just endanger my clan’s nose by admitting to have been with more than one man?)
luckily, i too have an actual brother , as well as an actual relationship with him. by that i mean, that i don’t have to hide who i am from him. i am lucky to be able to discuss (among other issues of importance to me) my romantic life with him. i value his opinion a lot, simply because he is mature enough to evaluate things as an outsider, not the sort who goes beating about other men just because they see his sister as a sexual being. i am also confident that he could be sonny corleone type should i end up with a carlo rizzi. similarly, he talks to be about life in college, be it academic issues, experimentation of all sorts, girls, whatever. i don’t think being open about our lives to each other is a lack of izzat and/or sharam. this is how we conceptualize our rakhi bond – to be each other’s mentor, bully, consigliere etc. i know that if he’s in some sort of danger or is curious about something or feels peer pressure in a sticky situation, he’ll come talk to me. we depend on each other to be BS detectors. i’m not saying that you don’t love or respect your sister (or that my relationship with my brother is some sort of platonic ideal); but i’m not sure i’d characterize your relationship with her as the paradigmatic example of izzat. there is something to be said for giving izzat to your sibling’s entire personality and lifestyle choices, another equally valid (and perhaps deeper) conception of respecting and honoring people, especially family. if my life was akin to eM’s, then my brother would be worried. but he would worry because such a life would be a waste of my potential, a sign of insecurity, and represent a commitment to a very superficial, material lifestyle that seems only apparently “liberated.”
ok, that felt good.
that states in a more intelligent clear way what i was saying would be my problem with my sister living this kind of lifestyle. (mostly).
OMG this is horrifying !!
I’m sure you all know eM/MRM has a book deal with a PENGUIN.And the Penguins, in my opinion, are planning to take over India, and subsequently, the world.
A lot of you may think this is a joke. Well, I have proof.
Has anybody else noticed that rearranging PENGUIN, we get PINE GUN..a weapon sure to cause unbearable pain in the you know what.
And this is not it.
The most horrific fact of all ::
When MRM (compulsive confessor) joins hands with the PENGUIN, rearranging the letters, we get..hold your breath..
MEN GIMP RUN !!!!
That means all the men run away with a limp.
If this isn’t a clear message, I don’t know what is.
The end of mankind as we know it.
Start counting your days…
I think in all the talk about izzat and its interpretations into various things, there was something that Amitabh said which I think should be expanded. He said he does not have delusions that his sister may have done the same thing and he is cool with that (and a lot of Indian men and women smoke, drink and have pre marital sex in urban India) but he would not like it if his sister made it highly public (like eM does). Now whether eM is right or wrong in doing so depends on her own perspective and family and it’s not my place to judge her for that but I can see where Amitabh is coming from (whether I agree with it or not is immaterial). What happens in India is if say one person of the family indulges in things like these publicly, other members of the family are judged accordingly by people who have a different moral fiber from you. And society being what it is especially in India, the interaction with society is a lot more than here and thus the life of not just the person but everyone around him or her gets affected. Thats how things are whether we like it or not. This gives rise to what is often called family izzat but is more along the lines of ‘don’t screw me over – go and do what you want but don’t flaunt it’. And this is independent of whether you are a guy or a girl, guys are judged too though not as harshly and excessively as women. Thus I don’t think this was a guy or girl thing based on what Amitabh was saying. As to why people judge other people in what they do, I think we can discuss tomes about that.
It gets even worse linux, once they catchus, guess where they’re going to make us put our jewels:
Gem Inn Rump
Ardy has a valid point about the Indian family feeling the repercussions of 1 or 2 of it’s members behaviour.
I have a friend who cannot get anyone to marry her now because her parents are divorced. She is very bitter about that. When she meets guys who seem interested, their parents always discourage them from seeing her further because she is the daughter of a divorced couple.
I think EM’s blog would be alot more interesting if she would write more about the cultural mileu and social mores of her environment, to give international readers more of a “feel” for India, as well as more of a feel for how her activities are considered “rebellious” somehow. Without that it is just boring because frankly, her activities are “normal” and “everyday routine” for much of the globe.
Like Sex and the City gives us a feel for the pulse of NYC, in the same way she should give us a feel for Mumbai, it’s multi ethnicities, religions, traditions, customs, cultures, etc.
I’d like to read about how what are considered normal behaviours for a woman to me are in fact not the norm in some cultures, and how that effects everyone involved, particulary the writer.
I’ve only read a small handful of her posts but in none of them did I get this “feeling” or “pulse” for the wider society and environment that she is living in.
Like they say in South Park :: You b*stards !!
I can relate to this somewhat. I am not comfortable showing overt displays of affection with my spouse in front of either of our parents. However, I make it a point to do something simple like hold his hand or sit really close to him on the sofa so that the un-healthy “coldness” we’ve been raised seeing between couples in our families gets diffused somewhat. I would not kiss him passionately in front of them or even hug him for a long period of time, but I purposely always do some small sort of touching to set an example. I’m not going to turn into an artificial ICE QUEEN just because I’m in front of elders who have an unhealthy attitude about simple affection displayed between a married couple. Plus, it’s not good for children to grow up in an environment where they see no love and affection between parents and other elders.
no, but there’s a post from a while back on how one of her friends was dating a man who was older and married with two kids… and her analysis of the situation was ‘oh well they’re in love, what’s more beautiful than that?’ or something like that. maybe being married with kids means something different to upper class urban indians, but if my friend were dating a much older man who was married (in a monogamous relationship) with kids, i would smack her. if her reasoning was that ‘he’s gonna leave her!’ i would have to smack sense into her (sorry honey, but chances are it’s NOT gonna happen); if it was just that she wanted to fool around with a married man, well, i’d smack both of them.
also, it’s hard to find honest writing about sexual experiences in general.
portmanteau /b> – total word. you expressed what i was trying to say much better. 🙂
i dont think i ever saw my parents showing each othe rphysical affection. there are other ways to show love if your not comfy with PDA’s. i learned how to show love by watching my dad do things like wake up hours before his wake uptime right before my mom had to wake up to make her coffee, etc. i dont consider my childhood particularly unhealthy.
do you really think Sex and the City gave us a feel for New York City’s ‘multi ethnicities, religions, traditions, customs, and cultures’? C’mon, at the end of the series, all the girls were in shock because Miranda was moving to gasp Brooklyn! They didn’t even need to be worried, since she was probably moving to Park Slope or some place where she can safely be surrounded by other godless materialistic upper class (white) people. S&tC was just another show about some place called the Big Apple where everyone is white. I’ve never heard of this place.
My parents must be desi anomalies then that they did show light affection to each other in front of us(caressing, kiss on the cheek, etc). I concur that it’s unhealthy for kids to grow up in an enviroment where parents don’t show any affection to each other at all.
eM is neither Shobha De nor Amy Sohn (both these women aren’t good either, probably clones of Betty Friedan, but not good for sure). She is funny because she writes it as no holds barred giving a voyeuristic pleasure (for the lack of a better phrase) to anyone including herself. YES, the article does not smell right. “Her fans believe she is changing the face of modern Indian womanhood” I do not know when we Indians would let our thinking grow up or better still, grow ourselves. And what is with those oh-I-would-soon-be-popular-and-god-knows-how-I’ll-write-then expression! This is one kind of bad english these DU-educated women would never get over. Pah, I’ll let those hedonistic hobos, compulsive confessors, emancipated eves et al make merry. This is Internet where every Jack has a tom-tom in his hand. (One of the first responses I got from people in here (London): Is the article writer related to the blog writer? Seems like a load of shit got discussed over rum)
indian parents do not have sex. ever. we are all baby jesuses (jesii?).
I think I missed that. Link please?
Shobha De is pretty good. She gives us a feel for India in her writings. I recently read SPOUSE in about one hour, couldn’t put it down. I was transported back to an Indian relationship during that time.
You pick up the pulse of the NYC moreso than you pick up the pulse of Mumbai on EM’s blog.
whatever. im just sayin PDA’s were not acceptable in my house growing up. i still dont find them very acceptable in front of elders.
and indian parents are elders. why is why they don’t indulge in PDAs in front of themselves 🙂 i was just having fun, puli.
but i think there is a difference between engaging in frenzied copulation on the living room couch during a polite afternoon tea, and writings on a blog or some of the other things being discussed on this post.
i realize that you are just kidding, but i will beat this to death anyways.
indian parents are MY elders. they are each others peers. it would be disrespectful for me to engage in PDA in front of them. it would not be disrespectful for them to engage in displays of afffection with each other. It would however be inappropriate for them to be making out in front of my grandmother….now that i have the mental image of my parents making out in front of my grandma stuck in my head, im going to gouge out my minds eye.
paternal or maternal grandma, puli? what about your parents’ elder siblings? are they there too?
if you MUST ask, the mental image is as follows:
its my maternal grandma sitting in her usual chair in the kitchen holding her cane with a disgusted look on her face with my parents making out on the kitchen table. no siblings there.
Puli, you might like this:
http://comics.com/comics/diesel/archive/diesel-20070924.html
😀
Well a coupla things She is changing the face of womanhood but is that good? Do we want multiple eMs? Its a judgement call but I dont think I am going to like the changing face of womanhood
Sadly, rebelling in India only seems to mean behave western..Honestly cant you think of better ways to rebel?I remember this girl who walked naked on the streets protesting aginst dowry in Gujarat just a coupla months ago..wish there were more like her. Now she should write a book.
Granted, eM said above she is uncomfortable being called representative
So considering that the blog is not representative and is not indicative of the changing face of women in India etc. etc. it is just plain insipid and boring
Didn’t read all the comments here, but checked out eM’s blog, and its nothing special. A little bit boring, actually. Sucks that she is the best thing India has to offer to counter Bridget Jones!
I implore all people to not surrender their souls to the PENGUINS !!!