A must-watch on Netflix
We missed recommending this on Friday. ‘Paava Kadhaigal’ is billed as the Tamil version of ‘Lust Stories’ but this anthology is far more powerful, gut-wrenching and compelling. Each asks who gets to define what is ‘sinful’ in sex and love. Reviews here and here.
A list of good reads
- The Atlantic has an excellent essay on Indian Americans’ sense of ‘exceptionalism’—and their discomfort with anything that might connect them to other non-white minorities.
- Vivek Menezes in Scroll explains why watching ‘The Mandalorian’ with his sons made him cry.
- Bloomberg News’ (via Mint) Shruti Rajagopalan explains why the pandemic has been a disaster for Indian working women—and why it will not be easy to recover lost ground.
- In Wired UK: Amal Clooney, Sundar Pichai and other leading luminaries nominate the innovators who will shape our future. A great way to learn of the amazing work being done around the world by these less-known changemakers.
- Also in Wired UK: 20 things in 2020 that made the world a better place.
- In this hilarious, must-read Twitter thread, Mohammed Hussain offers an outsider’s perspective of Christmas madness that descends on the West around this time of the year.
- Mint Lounge has a lovely interview with Miss TransQueen India.
- Tabir Khaish in The Hindu examines the tepid literary response to the pandemic —which has produced many literary gems, be it in fiction or nonfiction.
- Elemental talked to three sexologists who describe how the pandemic has changed our sex lives.
- The Hindu has a good read on what we learned from the Covid outbreak in IIT Madras.
- The always amazing Maria Popova of Brain Pickings lists her favourite books of 2020.
- LA Times has a frightening but essential read of ‘fume events’ on planes—where toxic vapors enter the air inside the cabin.
- The poet Sappho’s erotic poems have given us the word ‘sapphic’—which literally means ‘related to lesbianism’. But was she lesbian herself? New Yorker investigates.
- Mashable explains six ways in which you are breathing wrong, and how to fix it.
