This blog is all grown up and now I'm at www.vaniviswanathan.com. Head there for a more professional, holistic view of my writing. But the spirit of my writing stays the same: there will be hopeful, personal, meaningless accounts of everyday lives.

Thank you for your support over the years. I hope to see you at www.vaniviswanathan.com
Oh hello! A million thanks to you if you still come by this page (of course, that could have been due to social media). Eleven years since its birth, this blog has been languishing - my mind has been occupied with what appears to be endless reams of writing: writing as part of two jobs, writing for Spark, writing my journal - so much so that I have no space left to conjure something up for the beloved Blogger.

It's rather ironical that writing - for myself - which I used to turn to at every emotion, every stage of my life, has come to naught. Is this what they call adulting? My mind doesn't make up stories anymore, and my emotions have gotten too complex for me to put them down in writing. Working on gender and sexuality means the only non-fiction that immediately comes to mind has to do with feminism, social critiquing and a deep unhappiness at the current goings-on in the world. While I delight in writing these, at times, I just wish that I didn't have to outrage at every other thing, that I appreciate my privileges and learn to enjoy life a little bit more.

Travel, which used to supply me with faraway tales and magic, has also become a regular occurrence now. It's only August and I've already travelled to two countries (both second homes to Indians, and two countries may not be a big deal to many, but nevertheless). People, sights and foreign things don't enthrall me as much anymore, and I see myself routinely going to places, sitting down, trying to absorb things in my mind and not clicking pictures.

And finally, of course, there's marriage, which is a full-time job in itself. As my partner and I navigate our lives together - building memories, overwriting old ones, fighting-forgiving, forging new paths - marriage puts us through tests of patience, emotions, affection and perseverance. And mind you, I have had it rather easy so far, and yet that's me complaining about the enormity of it all. What if, and when, the serious adult things come into the picture? Like an aged parent, job woes, long distance marriage, etc.? My mind grapples with the complexity of all that marriage is, and writing - non-journal writing, that is - comes only in sputters, starting with little promise, coughing and dying an early death.

I wish - and desperately hope - that this is just a phase, for my mental well-being (and heck, identity) depends extensively on conveying thoughts, painting pictures and weaving tales through words. Friendships, partners, jobs - many of these have come about because of writing. At times I have to stifle a depressive sob when I think about how words have just dried up in my mind. But I have little else to do than to soldier on, praying that the words come back.

One evening, a cousin, the partner and I were lazing about, when an interesting question came up. What would you want to stay with you your entire life? I answered that I want books, music and writing to always move me as they do today. On a more cheerful note, let's hope this blog post, coming as it is after many months, marks renewed enthusiasm for writing. 
One month ago, on the dark, cold, wintry morning of 8th November, I reached Tehran. It's been three weeks since I returned to India, but even today, when I'm in the middle of something else, my mind flashes images of my trip to Iran.

Like the green cotton stole I used as a hijab to cover my head.

Those few days after returning to India when my hand would automatically reach the back of my head to pull my sliding hijab back up.

Walking around the bus stop in Yazd, wondering what to eat or drink: more sweet cake, more sweet tea, more sweet biscuits? More mandarin oranges, or chips?

The dread with which I'd wake up in the middle of the night to pee - because the toilets were almost always located outside the room, in the courtyard, and peeing meant walking in the freezing weather.

The smell of gas when the room heater was on. Room heaters were heated using LPG or CNG, I don't know which.

The many plates of brinjal-tomato gravy that I ate. The saffron rice with the packet of butter on it. The huge, cold, hard-to-tear naan that everyone eating together shared.

The way it feels natural to me to wrap my head with a scarf even in New Delhi to protect it against the cold.

The taste of black tea, which transports back to the many living rooms we were heartily welcomed into for many cups of chai.

How I didn't feel like I was missing anything being out of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for 13 days.

Resisting the impulse to shake the hand of Iranian men when introduced to; most don't do it, some do it when there are no other women around them.

The random German-Iranian stranger to talk with whom I was trying to get my rusty German back into use.

More on Iran soon, I hope, but this was a taste of what the 12 days felt like.


  • For how suddenly winter set in in Delhi. The smog, the chills, the fans being switched off. 
  • For the awkward coexistence of high-pitched excitement about Iran and the sense that it's still distant (although it's not!)
  • For being 30 for a month (and it doesn't feel any different) 
  • For discovering that the Mt. Fuji puzzle that I'd thought had gone for recycling with newspapers was, in fact, safe at home - enough to make me jump with joy 
  • For some promises that I will get to do something new that I'd been waiting for, at work  


After reading a tweet from @_curses mentioning Tu Bin Bataye, I suddenly craved to listen to Rang De Basanti. Searched on iTunes, wondering if I'd saved the songs on my system - they were on a CD that I'd bought at Landmark - my first with my own money from a research stipend or something. I dumped the CDs (Rang De Basanti, Yuvraaj and many others) last year after holding on to them for years, moving house to house - there is something dear to cassettes and CDs that mp3s just don't give. Anyway, the songs weren't on my system, but Apple Music, which I'd signed up for last week, was happy to give me the album.

For a moment, I was disoriented, gaping at the entire album that had loaded on iTunes. Where was this playing from? Were they streaming? In those few disoriented moments, my mind quickly played in a flash the ways I'd listened to music throughout my life so far. Cassettes, AIR, CDs, mp3, FM, iPod and now...it all rests in the ethereal air around, ready to be plucked and played at a moment's notice.

My mind played this scene etched in my memories: of sitting at the table having breakfast, as All India Radio announced 8 o' clock playing a clip from Raaku Mutthu Raaku, the lead-in music to 'Priya Vision-in Priyamaana Neram'. That meant I was running late, and I'd gulp down breakfast faster.

But AIR has more bad memories in my mind than good. It reminds me of the horrible-sounding kutcheris that would play - records from the 60s or older that would be played on a dry, still afternoon, that my family would insist on listening even as the violin screeched and the singer sang terribly at octaves the human ear cannot hear. They would make me want to burst into tears, all the more because I was learning vocal Carnatic music that days from a teacher who was eroding my confidence weekend after weekend even though I was a fairly good singer. Those horrid kutcheris would remind me of the agony that was to come with the upcoming music class.

Appa would buy, on the day of release, cassettes of AR Rahman movies. Only Rahman movies had the privilege, as other songs would usually be recorded by some music shop guy as a mix tape with other songs. My sister and I would pore over the cover, for they would contain clues of the movie, and read the names of every singer and instrumentalist. Those were the days when I knew who had sung every song Rahman had ever composed. Swapna Awasthi in Chaiyya Chaiyya, but Rehaanaa for Thaiyya Thaiyya. Minmini, Malgudi Subha and Sujatha in the early years of Rahman. These days, I don't know most singers. The cassettes would sometimes have the bonus tiny, folded booklet with the lyrics. My speed of reading Tamil as a child surprises me today, when I increasingly struggle to speak it coherently. It used to take me all of two or three days to know all the lyrics by heart.

Soon, cassettes were replaced by CDs, and within a year or so, with mp3 collections. Some guy would religiously compile songs from 20 odd recent movies, which Appa would bring home. P!racy only :( I took these compilations with me to Singapore, and would know exactly which CD contained songs from any particular movie. These CDs also found their way out last year.

By the time I spent two years in Singapore, there was an explosion in the range of music I listened to, and these CDs could no longer help. I'd freely take songs from others who'd willingly shared their computers on the university LAN. Sometimes, I'd take an entire lot of songs from someone whose taste in music I thought aligned with mine, in the process discover more songs, and cementing my love for music from the 70s.

From when I reached Singapore in 2004, I'd look longingly at iPods that, it seemed, every Singaporean teenager/university student had. There was nothing I wanted more, but I had my financial constraints. I couldn't use Appa's money to buy myself an iPod when there were tuition and boarding fees to pay. Although by second year I'd started earning some dollars doing research, the money went into funding my flight tickets back home or to pay hostel fees. The iPod was a luxury and it had to wait.

I got my chance in my final year. After a six-month internship that paid a stipend, which I'd saved to pay some fees and flight tickets, I decided I could spare $250 for an iPod. On my birthday, with my closest friends around me, I ordered an iPod Nano on the Apple website, as they cheered. It came through five days later, on Oct 9, 2007, and my thrill knew no bounds. The iPod was my own, engraved with 'Life at its resplendent best!'. It was my loyal companion through my everydays at work, during my post-graduation and the difficult pre-wedding months in Delhi. 4 GB seemed less but I used it day in and day out. I lost it in 2014 along with my purse, which was grabbed by two men when I was in an auto. That night, before I went to bed, tears streamed down my cheeks; not for the money or phone I lost, but for losing my beloved musical companion of seven years. Until last year, if I ever saw an old-generation silver iPod Nano, I would quietly take it and turn it to see if it had my engraving.

Today, I have an iPod Nano that's got a touch-screen and no click wheel. There's a phone with Apple Music that plays songs I know and helps me discover stuff from genres I like, and I buy music from iTunes. The radio is relegated to Uber rides, and I don't have a cassette even for nostalgia's sakes. I'm really curious to know what's next in my journey of listening to music. 
Out of sheer nostalgia, I played 'Poovukkul Olinthirukkum' from Jeans on YouTube while having dinner. I nearly choked on the dry roti when I realised I remembered every step, every outfit, every change of scene in the song. And then went on to 'Hai Ra Hai Rabba'. Repeat. By the time I came to 'Anbe Anbe Kollathey', I knew I wouldn't be surprised. Of course I remembered it all - her clothes, the colours, the steps, the way Prashanth bloody lip-syncs along.

It was hilarious... and embarrassing. How was it that I had so much time on my hands - and why was my memory working overtime as a child?! Yes, I was going through a phase of Ash-crazy and Shankar made her look gorgeous in the songs (thankfully compensating for the ridiculous clothes she wore in her regular scenes)... but this was just unreasonable.

I went through a series of Shankar's movie songs, and realised that until Mudhalvan I could broadly remember all. Watching 'Akkada' from Indian, then my 'favourite' song (for two months probably!) i realised Urmila was hot. And I liked her even then, compared to the boring beauty that Manisha Koirala was in the movie. I remembered this scene in which Manisha draws a blue 'plus' on her palm, to indicate she's a Blue Cross member; it's the scene where this little bit from 'Maya Machindra' plays as background score, a tune that I love. As for Kadhalan, I remember when Sun TV played the video of 'Ennavale' all the way until the end of the first stanza, and I ran up to my sister and boasted that I got to see it first, not she.

By the time Boys released, class 12 had taken over, and while I can still dutifully sing the songs with all the correct lyrics even if you wake me up from deep sleep, the steps in the songs aren't etched in my mind. And ever since, it's been downhill. I recollected songs from recent movies that I really enjoyed - a few after 2004 but practically nothing after 2008, and I barely remember the lyrics, much less the scenes, steps, or the clothes.

Song videos mean nothing these days, and the fact that they are readily available makes them so... uninteresting. I can't think of a new song, even from a Mani Ratnam movie, that I would run out of my room to watch, like I did as a teenager, for Pacchai Nirame or Chaiyya Chaiyya or Yaro Yarodi. Funnily enough, despite them being on YouTube, it would be all malarum-ninaivugal for me if I caught any of these songs online, than any of the newer ones. I do miss the role that fate, chance and probability had in my favourite song being played on TV. Despite watching a song a few times - and once (or twice!) on the cinema screen - I'd know enough to secretly dance to them as a kid (for I was a bad dancer).

Sadly, this seems to be the theme for life. I derive hardly any excitement from a Rahman release (have barely listened to Mohenjo Daro tracks and heard not one song from 24 or 'I'). I do long for those times when these simple things could make me want to go on long walks and forget silly troubles like assignments and project teammates. 

 During my university years, someone said “Beauty X brains is a constant.” That is, you (a woman) can’t be both exceedingly beautiful and super intelligent.

While we can get into discussions on what these two terms mean, I can tell the person who made this statement that beauty – at least in the sense of dressing up – requires intelligence. A LOT of it.

Having spent the last twenty minutes of my time trying to force a stud into one of my ear piercings (only to realize I was turning the screw in the opposite direction), I can say with certainty that my beauty-related intelligence is not quite as much as I’d like it to be.

I’ll unabashedly state that I like dressing up. That applies mostly for clothes, sometimes with a minimalist accessory. In my mind, my dressing style is understated, with lots of blacks, but with a dash of hippie, with some floral and bold block prints.

Where I fail is I have less patience. If enough time went into figuring out the best clothes for the occasion, I can’t bring myself to wear the best accessories, shoes, get my hair pretty, wear light makeup, etc. My attention span lasts only for one part of the dressing up – sometimes I force fit that necklace (because I feel like it, not because it flatters the dress), and other times I struggle in wedge shoes because I saw it gathering dust in the shoe rack and felt pangs of guilt.

It’s alright if I were at peace with this. The problem is I sway between frustration at my lack of patience and pride at my ability to not fall into the societal “trap” of “looking good.” This ambivalence is most manifest when I look back at my wedding pictures and feel that I could have looked so much better if I had taken the pains to follow up with the tailor, picked better accessories, and not been afraid to tell the makeup artist that I didn’t like what she was doing to my face.

Which is why I think it takes brains to be good looking, defined purely as what makes you happy – either by societal standards or your own. It needs confidence, an understanding of market trends (if you like going by what’s in), a sense of colour combinations and most importantly, the ability to see into the future – whether this is the best design in which to tailor the fabric and whether this lip colour would look okay given the colour of my skin.

On the other hand, it needs intelligence to show the finger to conventional or trendy ideas of beauty. It takes courage and brains to simply do what you want and feel good in your own skin, the clothes you like and the colours you want on your face and hair.

So while I struggle to figure out which side I’m on (and whether I do need to take sides at all), here’s to the wonderful, intelligent women who have figured out the equation either ways. And to the guy who proudly explained the “beauty x brains” equation, may you please learn the lesson soon.