So you wanna watch something...

Hometown Cha Cha Cha: This is the latest addition to the extremely binge-worthy and feel good K-dramas—and a remake of the 2004 movie ‘Mr Handy, Mr Hong’. Set in a quaint seaside village, it’s a classic ‘opposites attract’ story of the city girl who meets a local boy, the village handyman. This is the perfect light-hearted and fun weekend watch. South China Morning Post offers four good reasons to tune in.

Post Mortem: This mix of Nordic noir and vampire horror centres on a woman who wakes up from the dead—with an uncontrollable thirst for blood. Her brother runs the family funeral home which is on the brink of closing down—in a town where no one seems to die. Forbes warns that the series mixes dark humour with brutal violence—but calls it  “a refreshing take” on the horror genre. Gizmodo says it’s 'ghoulishly great'.

The Empire: Touted as India’s biggest TV production and filmed at an epic Sanjay Leela Bhansali-scale, this series is based on Alex Rutherford’s ‘Empire of the Moghul’ novels. The opening season is based on the first book and traces the journey of Babur—played by Kunal Kapoor—from the valley of Ferghana to Samarkand and on to the conquest of the northern Indian subcontinent. The series also features Shabana Azmi, Dino Morea and Rahul Dev in key roles. Based on the trailer, Indian Express called it India’s answer to Game of Thrones—“a visual extravaganza packed with a gripping narrative.” We’ll have to see if it lives up to all the hype. Streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.

A list of good reads

• Why are more women becoming landowners in Gujarat? Scroll shows how patriarchy can manifest itself in the most unexpected ways.
• Vox has an excellent piece on the comeback of preppy fashion thanks to TikTok—and calls out the inherent racism and elitism of this ‘old money’ aesthetic. 
• Psychologist Dean Burnett in BBC Science Focus challenges the myths surrounding loneliness—and who is likely to be lonely. 
• The Conversation offers an illuminating essay tracing the historical roots of the Taliban’s religious ideology to colonial India. 
• The New Yorker has a riveting essay on Simone De Beauvoir’s passion for a childhood friend—as revealed by a previously unpublished novel ‘Les Inséparables’, which is being touted in France as a “a tragic lesbian love story,” that was “too intimate” to be published during Beauvoir’s lifetime. 
• The News Minute reports on the real cost of the promise of super-quick deliveries—and the workers who pay the price. 
• For the culturally and ecologically inclined, The Guardian rounds up designers and artists who are redefining how we “repair” what we use—rather than discard and buy something new. 
• Ipsita Chkravarty pens a very important piece on the gagging of the Kashmiri press. 
• The News Minute profiles Big Fat Bao—the Instagram series that reflects how caste influences the food we consume.
• Bloomberg has a very smart and curious read on ‘Konikore’, a sensory detector for ‘smell’—and the tech battle to create a ‘digital nose’.
• A very good Twitter thread: Krishnendu Ray on the orientalist myth that spices were used by Europeans to cover up the stench of rotting meat. FYI: this kind of bad history writing is the equivalent of something that is hilariously called the ChortleMuffin Effect.
• Vinayakk Mohanarangan in Scroll calls out the media circus surrounding Neeraj Chopra—and the burden it places on him.