On Femininity, Role Models and Kristen Stewart

“I have realized that you can close yourself off to life if you put walls up, but it’s a difficult thing. You can’t see over, people can’t see in, and you also can’t see out. So I’ve gotten quite comfortable with just being unafraid. I keep saying the same thing: it’s not about being fearless but really just embracing the fears and using them.”

-Kristen Stewart

Being a jeans and sneakers kind of a girl, even in 2014 and especially in you are in your 20’s, is considered as unfeminine and you get called a tomboy, more than a few thousand times. I have always been extremely shy and un-opinionated which makes me come across as a bit aloof. My friends grew into extroverted girly-girls and I waited patiently for that latent feminine gene in me to kick-start. I was the only girl left in my entire group who continued to dress outside the confines of stereotypical feminine style. While my friends were happily slapping on makeup and walking around in stilettos, I was still trying to figure out how to apply eyeliner without taking my eye out. Then a couple of years ago, all of that changed. I stopped trying to be what everyone else expected me to be and decided to be myself. Très cheesy, I know. What had caused that change? Kristen Stewart.

Poirot's Little Grey Cells

Hello everyone!

My first Agatha Cristie novel was the very famous, "Murder of Roger Ackroyd" which made me feel extremely naive and dippy. Anyone who has read that book will understand my feelings of being left out in the cold and subsequent trust issues related to other Agatha Christie novels. I have always loved mysteries and thrillers, although my love for the former almost eclipses other genres.

During my preteen and early teens, I was obsessed with reading Nancy Drew, and Hardy Boys. I have bought and borrowed many other thrillers, crime and mystery books by authors such as John Grisham, Robert Crais, Dan Brown, etc (very basic, I know) but it was Agatha Christie's novels that remained my favourite in this category. To me, the only close contender is JK Rowling's "The Cuckoo's Calling" and "The Silkworm".

Two Weeks of Nothing

Hello everyone!

Enthusiastic, outgoing, social, charming are just some of the adjectives that no one will ever use to describe me. If one does use such adjectives, he or she is either insane or has uncovered new depths of sarcasm. After an exceptionally long and dull fortnight, I stepped out of my house. I was kind of impressed with my short- term self imprisonment in the name of "won't-go-out-and-you-can't-make-me".

No, I am not depressed or miserable. Being alone isn't a scary thought for me because I find myself particularly delightful. I strongly believe that if you don't like your own company, you can't expect people to like you either.

This is what a bored girl does when her social life is lacking because she can't be bothered to put on pants:

Cayman Islands

The Caribbean Sea is a glittering beauty that takes you by surprise, leaving you gasping for breath. And pretty much in the middle of it is Grand Cayman, the largest of the three islands. It is a quaint little place- it is humid, expensive, has salty air, the restaurants are beyond lovely and every building has a unobstructed view of the expansive blue sea.

I went far out in the ocean on a boat to see bio-luminescence,  giggled as my sister tried to pick up a turtle at the turtle farm, saw different varieties of orchids at the botanic park and the sea... Oh! The sea. The best part was this- sea facing condo. I would wake up and there it was, the sea in all it's glory with the one funny little wave bobbing in the distance where it got stopped by the reef.

Bodden Town

On Feeling Like a Dumpling

Hello everyone!

When we are in our adolescence, we look and feel awkward and lumpy. A lucky few escape this stage and go straight from adorable to attractive. Let us ignore that particularly infuriating group. No, I mean the general human population, the sort that still hides their photographs from the age of 11 to 17.

Slight confusion, annoyance and an epiphany

A while back, I wrote an article for my college magazine (which I mentioned in one of my earlier posts). I thought it wasn't completely horrifying so I am sharing it here.

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“She'd become an English major for the purest and dullest of reasons: because she loved to read.” 
― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot

From the time my father handed me Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield when I was ten years old, I have loved reading. I read everything. It didn’t matter whether Dickens was talking about the rampant industrialization or the moral degradation of England. I read it for the sake of reading. I liked how the characters felt like my friends and family. I liked that even though I had never been to England, I could clearly see the streets. I especially liked the fact that through a book, a mere novel, I could feel the pain of young David.

By the time I reached high school, I had read two of Chetan Bhagat’s novels which made me wonder- does today’s youth know the first thing about writing novels? After reading ridiculous “novels” churned out on a daily basis by IIT and IIM students I finally gave up on modern Indian novel. And I am not talking about writers like Arundhati Roy, I am talking about these young “novelists” who write God knows what and use long words and even longer sentences. Unfortunately, they come off as pretentious rather than artistic or clever.

On Long Distance Relationships

Long distance relationship, or as I like to call it- long distance perpetual headache, is a bitch. I happen to be in one right now so I know what I am on about. One can always spot those poor creatures, notice one or more of the following common habits or signs:

Welcome to my blog!

Hello everyone, and thank you for visiting my new blog!

This is the obligatory “get to know me” post. I am Gayatri Mulay, twenty-one years old and I have nothing better to do right now. I am doing my Masters in English Literature but you might notice my grammar is terrible. To the Grammar Nazis- I’m sorry. No one is probably even reading it. So basically, I am talking to myself.

Very busy and important