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?
Priya,
Do you understand that India is not offering anything? I am not even sure where to begin, it is ONE independent individual and not a nation of billion people that are maintaining this blog. It is baffling why some people don’t spend a minute thinking about what they type.
linux?, I hope you are not a swordfish, because, as they say, the pen-guin is mightier than the sword-fish.
Puliogre, do you think a couple holding hands in front of their parents or in-laws is disrespectful?
i dont really care about other people. I wouldnt do it, because i would feel that it would be disrespectful on my part.
That’s it Puli…….no hug for you when we meet :-), it will be a good old fashioned namaste’.
IMHO a little bit of PDA between couples is good, shows a healthy relationship. But if it goes overboard……..look for the nearest hotel to check in to.
Speaking of the confessor, I happend to look at the picture on the Orkut site. She ain’t bad lookin’. Looks like a fun person, full of life and mischief. And don’t forget…..dynamites come in small packages 😉
Everything in moderation, the Middle Path, as preached by the Buddha.
I find it odd that in India there is so much hand-holding between same-sex friends but so little hand holding between actuals couples, although that is changing bit by bit.
I find the absense of affectionate displays between couples, young or old, to be sterile. Yet an over-display is often out of place as well. Hand-holding and light touching are the accepted mediums and such affectionate displays tend to soften and sweeten any atmosphere. I can’t imagine how anyone would feel “disrespected” by such kind acts of love.
is tara watabe pardesi gori?
was she staring at an abandoned copy of the la times when she picked her handle?
ummm…very simply put…she’s a really bad writer.
This is hilarious! A bunch of ABDs (notice how they drop the ‘c’) sitting and commenting on how her blog is so ‘westernised’! Newsflash: She didn’t compare herself to SATC, you did. She didn’t claim to be the prototype of the Indian woman, you made her out to be one (a poor one at that). She never said her blog is about sex, alcohol and parties. That’s just all you can see. She never claimed her blog to be a travelogue, you’re the ones who like to read sterotyped writing about “the smell of india” or the “smoky sunset” or the “mouth-watering taste of gol-guppas that no amouont of tacos can replace.” She never said smoking is cool, she just does it because she likes it. She never said ANYTHING about how her life is so cool, it’s just how her life is.
You’re assuming anything she does is to make a statement, and simultaneously you yawn and say her blog and her antics and her life are dull, mundane and so been-there-done-that (you still seem to spend half your lives writing about it. You know what’s worse than writing a boring book? Talking endlessly about it).
You’re assuming she is raised in the west because heaven forbid a middle-class girl raised in India can use English well, talk slang, watch American sitcoms, party hard and write about it, just because “your westernised cousins in Bombay are nothing like that.”
I can only assume that you guys are bored, jealous, completely out of touch with reality and carping about your own dull, book deal-less lives. And that all you want to read about is an India that is but a figment of the NRI imagination, peddled by sensationalist media and Karan Johar.
It’s not about yu. It’s not about the west. It’s not about projecting India to anyone. Unlike you, Minna doesn’t suffer from a colonial hangover, she cares as little what the west thinks as she does what you, your parents, conservative bozos who post brain-dead comments think.
That’s her contribution to feminism. Not bra-burning, not streaking through Bombay streets in protest against dowry, not petitioning against censorship. But by being an Indian woman living life on her own terms.
Indian’s next shobha de or that other whatsitsname? I don’t think so. Given Meenakshi’s superficiality, she is definitely India’s next Paris Hilton.
Now, reading through all the comments, the question that remains is, WHEN will we see India’s first real person? I find it utterly absurd that the famous compulsive confessor has to choose a British newspaper to out her identity — and I find it even more absurd that this all goes as a forerunner to some book publishing media blitz! So yes, I agree, all this reeks of something cynical. Especially the whisper (the “reinventor” of Feminism in India, the New Voice of Feminism in India) that accompanies all this buildup which one could only presume is a very clever type of marketing.
eM’s defenders are back!!
The highest number of blog posts (74) are logged under Dipso chronicles and this is how she describes herself;
Enough said, moving on to other topics now..
…what a profoundly pristine waste of time! 🙂
the only winner in all this is her
cheers to “minna”
🙂
Its not about defending eM….its about trying to understand why everyone is so riled here. People get book deals – and people write – whether well or not is something that can’t be judged till the book comes out. Maybe be it will be good, may be it will be bad….but I see MS’s point above — all the SATC accusations/comparisons and this distillation in most minds here about what it means to be Indian in America are obviously from a very different lens than a typical middle class kid growing up in India has.
Frankly, I found it very stifling when I first met people settled here for a while when I first got here(supposed pillars of the community – well-to-do doctors/engineers etc) — they just started making all kinds of assumptions — ‘Beta – you are from India – children raised there are so obedient’ hah! I dont think anyone among my class mates back home was obedient to the point of being docile — yes we were polite and respectful but we were also very opinionated and had strong minds of our own — sure, we got into arguments with our parents about points of view…..somehow in urban India there is enough of that subset that its not as small a minority that you think it is….I just don’t like essentializing what it means to be Indian — I understand that it happens when one is a part of a diaspora – no matter what you do – one doesn’t escape the essentializing/stereotyping that other races do of you. When I was in India – what mattered was who I was and what my thoughts and ideas were but here it was also the part about me being brown — I understand how that works and am now comfortable with that. But, I think I also understand why a kid in India would not have any hang-ups about watching american sitcoms/MTV and yet being very Indian in a way that is very different than how an Indian American sees herself or himself. I remember when I first moved here and preferred watching VH1 to re-runs of Ramayan and my ABD cousin being offended/shocked by that. To me it was a no-brainer – I did the same thing in India – watched something else when ramayan came on — I didn’t need a garish production of it to teach me what it was about – I had grown up with enough references to it around me that neither my parents nor my family was going to be offended that I didn’t choose to watch it. In fact — there were enough people in my circle who would cringe at how badly it was made – and then I land up here and see a lot of highly educated desis here owning the entire set and watching it again and again and showing it to their kids whether they liked it or not. I have several ABD cousins who grew up here who have told me that they resented how their parents shoved culture down their throats.
I am not trying to argue for the sake of arguing here — am trying to get a point of view across without invoking stereotypes and knee jerk reactions….please understand that the diversity of the lived experience in India is much broader than you think. An, its certainly not what its like here…so there are going to be differences in perceptions…why is it so hard to acknowledge that?
And on a tangent — MS, loved the Karan Johar comment — no, most people in urban India don’t think its “all about loving your parents” – his tag line to one of his movies….please!! That’s the cheesiest line ever. ..In fact, if I am not wrong — Sudhir Mishra who made one of the best films to come out of india in recent years has a very tongue in cheek comment on it — something about “its not all about loving your parents” as a tag line in a movie….Btw…check the movie I am talking about: Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi if you havent yet….very well made…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazaaron_Khwaishein_Aisi
Sudhir Mishra was involved in the making of another cult movie: Jaane bhi do yaaro. He’s brilliant….
259 by MS
and
263 by A DBD View
good perspective, and points worth mentioning (probably the only ones worth mentioning among all 260 odd)
and yes… “Hazaron Khwaishein…” is one of the most beautiful pieces of sensible cinema made in bollywood!