Coming soon

The Wasteland is a century-old poem by the Anglican poet, TS Eliot. This author sleepwalked and speedread through that poem multiple times, memorized its several haunting metaphors and chilling allegories, only half-understanding their meaning but with a firmer grasp on its implications. The Wasteland, to me, is the single most accurate imagination of our times, with the many ‘mechanical hands’ dictated by algorithms or the ‘stony rubbish’ in the food we eat. As a woman, the Wasteland is that place where ethics go to die.

But no, this substack is not about what’s wrong with the world or how to fix it. Smarter people have written about it. My personal manifesto is less ambitious - I seek to write about movies, books and poems that I like and love (or hate) - aspects of our culture that I believe make this Wasteland worth living in. Because Eliot, in his wisdom, not only describes the Wasteland to us but hopes too - Wasteland is also a place where the ‘limp leaves//Waited for rain, while the black clouds//Gathered far distant, over Himavant.’ As much as I write about the doom and the gloom, I also write in hope.

This is Woman in The Wasteland.