While India muddles through its own uniquely unique problems – the economy has fallen around the country’s ankles like pants without a belt; Modi won’t see his barber; nobody will tell us how Sushant died; and, get me my glasses, what’s written on Rhea’s T-shirt? – it hasn’t been smooth sailing for the rest of the world either. As COVID continues to tap-dance on our heads and Christmas seems to be a couple of years away, here are some of the intrigues that kept the globe going since last Sunday.
So, the Kardashians have called it quits. Or they’ve been shooed off the TV owing to low TRPs. Either way, they are going. How will they manage without the camera on them, how will we? Twenty seasons of their pouts, plastic surgery, psoriasis, photo-shop fails. Of weddings, divorces, surrogates and Scott’s on-off affair with Sofia… End of an era, even if it was a ‘can’t take my eye off this car crash’ era.
The Diary of an MP’s Wife, the newly published memoir by politician Hugo Swire’s wife Sasha, has the British snoot circles go, ‘oh oh oh’ into their porridge. Apart from her scent having once affected former PM David Cameron’s pheromones, she predicted that Markle will be ‘'eating the redhead for breakfast' as he is 'clearly not as clever as she is’ when Harry got engaged to Meghan. Boris Johnson is 'His Blondness', and a clergyman looked at her ‘as if he is working out if I’m shaggable’.
Then actor Chris Evans chose to flash us on social media! An accidental nude that had him trending on twitter. Naturally, no one lodged a police complaint.
I Hate Men (Moi les hommes, je les déteste), the book by French activist Pauline Harmange, became a bestseller from the moment someone in their government tried to ban it. She argues that 'anger towards men is actually a joyful and emancipatory path, if it is allowed to be expressed'. She is right, we do allow men to walk alone and unmolested at night. And yes, misandry is a word, look it up. It’s in an open marriage with misogyny.
After A Suitable Boy got what we politely call ‘mixed reviews’ on British TV comes Des, a new mini-series about Scottish serial killer Dennis Nilsen. He was arrested in 1983 for killing a dozen gay men and trying to flush their remains down the toilet, then calling up plumbers to clear up the drains because, you know, something is stuck! He also, er, romanced his victims after offing them. Actor David Tennant is getting rave reviews in the wake of this casual-killer role.
And across in America, Al Gore says Trump is trying to gaslight the virus, ha ha.
So, put away those dull desi questions – who is baby penguin? what does weed look like? is Bollywood on ventilator? – and mull on matters more international. We all want to know when a vaccine will be available and wish medical scientists would work on this without lunch breaks... But let's take two minutes to think of Kim and Chris and their private assets, okay?
Shinie Antony is a writer and editor based in Bangalore. Her books include The Girl Who Couldn't Love, Barefoot and Pregnant, Planet Polygamous, and the anthologies Why We Don’t Talk, An Unsuitable Woman, Boo. Winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Asia Prize for her story A Dog’s Death in 2003, she is the co-founder of the Bangalore Literature Festival and director of the Bengaluru Poetry Festival.
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