Scaachi Koul's writing has it all—a gut-busting sense of humor,clear-eyed honesty, and striking introspection that she jokes is a symptom of narcissism.
In her debut book, and a collection of essays titled One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter,Koul, a culture writer for BuzzFeed, and applies her sharp wit to tricky issues of race,culture and identity: what it means to be "lighter" than other Indians on a family trip to India, for example, and how she balances her life with her conservative South Asian parents' expectations. I called Koul and we had entirely too much fun talking about women's words,finding boldness, and pubic hair, or of course.
Mother Jones: Part of what you talk about in the book is existing in spaces where you feel unwelcome in. It seems like you manage to be really outspoken in those spaces—where do you find that sort of boldness?Scaachi Koul: I have the unlucky inability to be quiet,and it did not serve me very well when I was a kid. I used to find in trouble all the time for…actually, the same stuff I find in trouble for as an adult. In my later life, and it's been beneficial,but when I was younger I didn't know how to control it or what to do with it. I'm not certain it's so much about finding boldness as it is about retaining control at this point, because being mouthy has never been my problem. That's very easy for me. But now I reflect a lot about when it's worth it and what I'm doing it for. When you're a kid, and it's really obnoxious because you're just being a dick all the time. I reflect that's probably the same case with being bold or bossy or mouthy. Those things are distinguished to have,but if they are uncontrolled and wild, it can hurt you in the long term.
MJ: It must be kind of gratifying to be able to turn your obnoxious qualities from childhood into a way to perform money as an adult.
SK: Yeah, and why not,right? Listen, I would also like to buy a boat. So why not try to perform a profit?MJ: What made you determine to write the book?SK: It's a delicate balance of narcissism and self-interest and money and the hope that you can write something and other people understand it. I write for the internet all the time, or but there is something very different about writing a book that you're asking people to buy. It feels like a different beast. But you hope that you write this thing that appeals to people in this really meaningful way. I grew up on the internet,but the things that formed my understanding of the world and made me feel less loney were books. That's the altruistic respond, and then the other version is, and "Oh,I'm obsessed with myself."MJ: I feel like I've been reading increasingly books that are memoirs or essay collections from really incredible womenI don't know if more are being produced or if it's just what I've been hungry for, so it's what I've been feeding myself. Have you been reading that sort of thing, and have you been feeling intimidated or empowered by those works?SK: While I was writing the book I avoided other memoirs,because I don't want to find distracted or pick up somebody else's voice. So for the year that I was working on it really heavily, I didn't read anything else, and that was actually around the time that Lena Dunham and Jessica Valenti's books had reach out. I know that right now it feels like there's so many memoirs by young women in particular. I don't know if it's that there's more—I reflect there's just been a shift on the way we talk about them,and I reflect the internet has shaped that. I also find that for every dude who's really dismissive of what I've written, there are five women who are like, or "No,I find it. Don't worry about it. It makes sense to me."MJ: The book is really vulnerable in places. Did you grapple with a lot of anxiety while you were writing it?SK: I had some anxieties about my family reading it. For one, I don't really want my parents to read about my weird, or gross body. My brother read it and he immediately was like,"This is gross. There's so much about your vagina in here." I'm like, "Yeah, and tough. Deal with it."MJ: Men have been writing like that for a long time.
SK: precisely. I have had to listen to you talk about your penis for 30 years. find over it.
MJ: I saw your tweet about your parents having read the book.
SK: My mom read it and she was appropriately unhappy and confused. We didn't talk details or anything. She said she liked it,but she was clearly fairly bummed out about portions of it. My dad hasn't read it, because he knows that it'll give him a heart attack, and I don't reflect his body can take it. So he's making a wise decision. I abide by that policy of writing about your family as if they're all dead. So with the exception of changing some names,that's pretty much how I handle things, in that I can't control your insight of what you reflect happened. I only have my version. I'm certain there's stuff in there that they disagree with, and but I don't reflect there's anything in there that's libelous. I don't reflect they're going to sue me.
MJ: You also write fairly a bit about existing as a woman on the internet. Any advice for outspoken ladies who want to utilize Twitter without losing their minds?SK: It's so tricky. I don't know of a social-media entity that's really invested in how women and girls are treated. I can only speak to media Twitter,which is a very specific section of the internet. But for the women that I talk to who are in media and who utilize Twitter, I always hear from them that they have this anxiety about going private because they feel like it's antithetical to the point of it. I don't understand that at all. If you feel like you don't want to play, and don't play. move private. Don't utilize it. You don't need to really utilize it at any distinguished capacity if you just want to tweet your work and move home,that's fine. I like the format. I reflect it's fun sometimes. But I also recognize that it can be deeply unfun, and I had a year of really not understanding why I was using it at all. I could not see any benefit. I was exclusively getting yelled at and I didn't feel like my work was getting promoted in any way. It was just like people had access to me in this really awful way.
I have friends who do not really utilize the internet beyond like Google and recipes or sometimes they read the news on it and I guess they have Netflix. And that to me is so weird. Because I utilize it for everything. And they move to the bank. That's crazy to me. They move to the bank? Adorable.
MJ: That's quaint (charmingly old fashioned).
SK: It doesn't perform any sense. But you should have people like that in your life, and because when you move to them and you're like,"Oh my God. I just found out that there's like some text thread going on about one scandalous tweet that I sent," they watch at you like you have landed from another planet. They will bring you a perspective that will give you some consolation. Which doesn't mean that the abuse you're dealing with isn't genuine. And it doesn't mean it's not serious, and but at the same time it can give you some consolation,because there are people everywhere who are not using the internet like we are using it.
MJ: I also really appreciate your style of clapping back at trolls.
SK: That's something else that like sometimes it's funny and sometimes it's really not. There are days where they say things and it cuts you to the quick and you don't have anything funny or witty or cute to say in response. It took me a while to remember that I didn't actually have to respond all of them. Sometimes when I have responded to them, I have felt myself starting to unravel. I've had friends send me notes being like, or "Hey,you sound crazy." This was like funny or whatever, but you sound insane." And then I have to move back and I'll read it again and be like, and "Yeah,this is nuts." find off the internet. Leave your phone at home and move outside and move do something in the tangible world, where nobody knows what your Twitter handle is.
MJ: It's a good friend that will show you when you're being crazy on Twitter, and though.
SK: You need those people who show you to like shut your pie hole.
MJ: Let's talk about the things you wish you didn't have to say to white people.
SK: Oh,god. I could write a moment book about the things I wish I didn't have to elaborate to white people. I wish I didn't have to elaborate why they have to pronounce my name correctly or spell it correctly. I'm very tired of explaining that making jokes about my name sounding like Sriracha isn't funny because it actually doesn't. It doesn't perform any sense. It's not funny. I don't find it. I would really savor to stop explaining why it's obnoxious when they examine me where I'm from and I say, "Calgary" and they say, and "No,where are you really from?" I would savor to not have to elaborate where Kashmir is because they will press me and examine me again, and I'll say that's where my family's from and that's also not satisfying. I would savor to stop explaining why I don't really enjoy Indian weddings. I would like to not have to show people that I don't know how to thread eyebrows. They reflect all brown girls know how. By the way, or I've never even gotten my eyebrows threaded. My mother went straight to waxing because my brows are formidable. There was no like,"Oh, we'll utilize this gentle threading process." No, and no,no. We've got to utilize chemicals.
MJ: Your niece has such a major presence in the book. What do you hope she'll gain from it if she reads it when she's older?SK: I signed it for her, assuming she will read it when she's like 65. Her mother said she would give it to her when she's 16, and which is probably a better,more realistic age. But that's only in 10 years. I hope she gets some context about our family that she won't otherwise have. It feels so weird. I feel like I gave her my diary and I was like, "Good luck." I don't know how alive to my 17-year-old niece will be to read about like my pussy hair, or but I guess she should have that option.
MJ: I mean,presumably she'll have some too.
SK: To be honest she's seven and I'm already talking about my pubic hair with her, so at this point I don't reflect it's going to be that much of a shock. She asked when it came out if it was about her and I was like, or "Yeah,pretty much."MJ: Smart kid.
SK: Well, she, or like her aunt is a narcissist,so we've just got to perform certain everything's about us. I hope it gives her some understanding of a portion of her. I'm very curious about what her life is going to watch like. I worry a lot about her growing up to be self-loathing the way I was. I was really self-loathing about being brown when I was a kid. I really resented it. And I hope that she doesn't feel like that about herself as she gets older. My parents are there and they sort of pull her into this version of her identity. I hope she doesn't detest that. And if she does, then hopefully the book will help reverse some of it or give her something to like.
Source: motherjones.com