Month: February 2019

2019: Thirty-Four

Tejas RaoLeave a comment

The premise with which arguments start is something I find quite fascinating. Most arguments, for example, begin on contradictions which rely on first principles – a concept we learn while debating at University. Identifying these first principles is a great way to see where two differing sides clash.

But when you read a judgment, or some form of a final decision: whether that’s a review, or an opinion piece – all of these start off with premises. Assumptions they make to be fundamentally correct. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about how these premises also need questioning sometimes, and how sometimes, decision-makers fail to lay out these premises clearly, or fail to offer justification about how their premise is true.

This reading list is a great example: https://www.epw.in/engage/article/why-aadhaar-judgment-flawed-reading-list?0=ip_login_no_cache%3D48e70aea2b0036df81d5e6821b11e4f5

Sadie | Courtney Summers

Tejas RaoLeave a comment

Sadie
by Courtney Summers
Published by Wednesday Books (2018)
Rating: **** 

This is an atypical read for me largely because it isn’t a book that I would buy off of shelves if I merely read the blurb. The reason I chose to read this book is that one of my friends absolutely loved it, and recommended that I give it a try, which is never something I’m averse to. This is a fast-read, but there’s a couple of warnings I’d like to put at the start of my review, so you can stop reading in case you get triggered. The book isn’t happy in any sense. It is not a book that builds up to a happy ending, and there is no moment where I caught myself smiling while reading it. It’s an incredibly serious read. It discusses several themes that are difficult to speak about in society. Rather, it highlights experiences that contain social stigma attached to them, and lead to victim-shaming culture. My trigger warnings include: murder, suicide, child prostitution, paedophilia, sexual abuse, and drug abuse.

With that being said, let’s examine the text.

Sadie follows the story of one dead girl, one missing girl, and a quest for revenge. Nineteen-year-old Sadie is determined to find who she believes to be her younger sister Maddie’s killer. With few clues to go on, she decides to embark on a journey to find him and make him pay for what he did. This is what the overarching plot is.

It seems pretty straightforward, and perhaps a story that could simply be described as a mystery – with Sadie acting as detective. But Summers manages to achieve a lot more with her writing. The novel is told in two distinct time-periods, and distinct points of view, which help with how the plot is built. The first is Sadie’s point of view, told in the past tense, with her tracking down her sister’s killer – a man who knows how to disappear better than most. The second is West McCray’s true crime radio show transcript called The Girls, where he attempts to find Sadie by following the little information the police offer him. These are very, very unique points of view, which help draw a very human connection to everything that transpires – something that stuck with me at the end of the book. Society reports events like these very narrative-like and with a victim-blaming angle to most of the reportage around it. By choosing to give the “victim” here a voice, and providing the voice of somebody trying to find her, desperately, Summers is able to portray nuances in emotion, and engage the reader in a way that makes you question every character’s motive and motivation. This sense of anticipation and suspense is really heightened in the last 20 pages, which I think could have been published separately – they’re the most logical (albeit dreadful) conclusion to a story of this kind.

The conclusion of the book is worth the read because of how realistic it is. It’s the only thing that makes sense in a world like ours. And you’ll hate yourself for knowing how Sadie’s story ends, but Summers’ manages to draw you in, page after page.

What I’m most impressed by is Summers’ ability to write a podcast transcript. I like true crime podcasts and shows as much as anybody – and most media houses seem to thrive on the market. Very few are any good. Writing a podcast transcript is an art that this author really nails down. The idea of a podcast like narrative really set the tone for West McCray’s voice. I often found myself reading the narrative the way I’d narrate a true crime podcast – which added a new layer of engagement to the reading experience. McCray is an underappreciated character on Goodreads – and I would’ve appreciated a bit more about him in the book. I also docked a star because in places, Summers’ writing style can lead to a frustratingly slow pace and a lot of artificially manufactured tension.

Overall, I think it’s worth reading because it forces you to think about society. It’s also a book that’ll make you pray that we become better as a world – because it seems ridiculous that we’ve got so much nonsense going down. The book is raw, which means that it forces you to accept the truth – no matter how uncomfortable that may make you feel.

2019: Thirty-Three

Tejas Rao1 Comment

It’s February, woohoo! I think it’s a great sign that the month has started off with a weekend. Hopefully this means the month passes by really quickly. I’m starting to find that there’s a lot less happening in my life that I like reporting on my blog – it’s tough to find content. Which is why I’m very grateful that my grandmother calls me once a week. There’s always some content there.

As a child I fought a lot with my grandmother. I don’t know what it was – I do really love her to bits, but man, my maternal grandmother used to set off something in me that made me fight with her everytime I was on holiday. I think it was largely because she wanted me to stop watching as much TV as I did, or actually wear clothes different to the clothes I was donning at the time. I also fought with her over mundane things that spoilt NRI kids fought about: the curd was sour, the rasam didn’t have floating tomatoes, the water was too hot and not lukewarm for bathing, the toilets were dirty, cockroaches were everywhere, I was scared of the dark, the list is endless.

She once laughed at me when I fell on my butt because I thought there was a chair when I was trying to sit. Turns out, there was no chair, and I went flat onto the ground. Once, I was rocking a Paragon plastic chair back and forth, and fell, hitting my head against the wooden railing of the sofa in the house. Both times, she laughed. I was crying, and amidst my tears, remember yelling “What is there to laugh?” – something both my grandparents sing out everytime I laugh at something.

Man, but each time I yelled at her, she took with some grace. As if she knew all of this was me just being bratty. As I grew up, I stopped fighting with her, and I started using humour as a response to her very mundane questions. Every time we speak for example, she asks me about the weather, and offers a fashion tip based on the weather. So, today, the conversation was:

Is it still cold there?

Yeah, it’s pretty cold. The weather isn’t improving.

Oh, that’s sad. I hope you have enough warm clothes.

Yeah, I do.

Wear those warm clothes okay? Ensure you drink only warm drinks.

No, I’m roaming around in shorts and will drink Coca-Cola, thank you for your blessings.

Why I do this?

I’m uncertain. But it’s largely because she tells me the same thing every single time we talk.

She also enquires about whether I’ve started studying for my midterms, which are one month away. (I have not)

And this gets to me really fast – so I always respond with humour.

But I know she comes from a good place. The concern in her voice and the kindness of her heart is something I’ll admire forever.

Also, get this. She’s been telling my mom to tell me to write about her. Because she’s one of the only relatives who reads this blog religiously who doesn’t have her own post.

Here’s your post, Ajji. Hope you liked it.

I’ll go back to wearing shorts now.

 

2019: Thirty-One

Tejas RaoLeave a comment

It’s the end of what’s felt like a very long month. It almost felt longer than 2018 had felt in parts. Which made me wonder, what makes time feel so subjective as an experience to each of us? What makes us experience fast pace, and slow pace?

As I thought this, I was speaking to someone about Padmavat, the movie, and discovered that was released just one year ago – yet somehow, the controversy surrounding the movie feels like it took place way before that.