I inherited this blog almost nine years ago, and since then, I've had the privilege of connecting with more unique, thoughtful, diverse individuals than I ever thought possible. I believe in celebrity gossip with a conscience. I've tried to always follow my conscience in the running of this blog, for better or worse, and now my head and heart are telling me that there are bigger, better things on the horizon and it's time to let this one go. To everyone who has supported me throughout the years, I am eternally grateful. To those who have criticized, you've helped me learn and grow, and even the worst of you have toughened my skin. I hope to create a space within pop culture that allows all of us to engage with one another on multiple levels, but in order to do that, I need to amass all the positive energy and focus I can get my hands on. While this blog may no longer work in service of that goal, it's a snapshot of a time, a place, and an industry that has impacted all our lives. I hope it will be remembered as such. In the meantime, I have a lot of work to do, literally and figuratively, and I hope to see you all one day soon on the platform I dream of building. You can always find me on my personal blog (@aish-rai) or on Twitter (@ammacrelllin). I hope you'll say hello, because this is certainly not goodbye. 

hahaha it’s okay, anon...it’s an important conversation to have! And let me to some really sad/interesting reading materials: https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/why-is-the-condition-of-domestic-workers-seldom-discussed-in-india-118060800193_1.html

It’s possible? His type has been really all over the place. Kareena, Vidya, Priyanka, Mira.....

Not just you, they’re definitely cut from the same cloth! 

If you wanna take a gander at older celeb talk shows, Rendezvous with Simi is the best, and I also remember liking On the Couch with Koel, especially because she’d write up blog posts after and be pretty honest about what the interview was like even if it wasn’t flattering to the star (not sure if those blog posts are still around now).

There’s a lot going on now though, there’s Niranjan’s show, there’s Bebo’s web series, Vogue BFFs...I know there’s more but that’s all I can think of off the top of my head lol 

All of this has already been addressed, but speaking of educating yourself.....

While I do really, really appreciate the messages of support and while they contain a lot of valuable information on conditions for domestic works, please don’t take me not publishing them personally. I said I was dropping the topic and I don’t want to take that back just to post positive messages, mainly because this is first and foremost a pop culture blog and I want to get back to that. There’s a time and place for these discussions, and they are important, but I don’t think this is the right place, nor am I the right person, to host those discussions.

One day I’d like to create a platform for those discussions to take place amongst yourselves without an intermediary, but as previously mentioned, I’m not ready for that just yet. So if you have a question about pop culture, I’ll try to answer it as best I can, and in the meantime I will work toward creating something way more conducive to these topics than a koffee with karan blog lol

i hope you’re all keeping safe and well,

I mean....we all know Tumblr is a dying platform so I don’t see any reason to change it. I would still very much like to start a website but outside of Quarantine Hell, I don’t have time to do it justice. I have a project I’d really like to work on that would be similar to this blog but with more voices that cover more industries and topics, but...I don’t want to do it until I can do it right. So this will have to suffice for now, until I can expand in a way that makes sense and is fair to other people who want to contribute. 

We are all benefiting from the exploitation of the poor, just like upper classes are benefiting from us! That’s the way this whole system works! It’s incredible to me that you feel so comfortable coming in here and telling me the ways in which I’m privileged (as if I don’t already know) while defending a way of life that allows you to have employees in your home to make your life easier, based almost entirely on socioeconomic disparity. I don’t claim moral superiority because I don’t have hired help. I’m simply willing to recognize that I simultaneously benefit from and am myself exploited by the capitalist system, which inculcates the idea within the lower and middle classes that those services are not meant for us. And I have not seen one message where anyone has done the same. Saying “having a maid is a luxury” is not a controversial statement. And I do not judge people for having them, but I do judge people who can’t admit that they are fortunate to even have that option to begin with. 

Rajeev Masand’s column mentions all the videos celebs are making of themselves doing “chores” and kind of makes a dig about how they’re surviving without help, so it sounds to me like those living in a flat at least aren’t having people come in and out, but I have no idea if they’re still paying their staff or not. They’re in a position to do so, so I hope that’s the case.

Yikes McYikes. Look, I’m sorry that I wasn’t clearer but going from an environment where you are solely responsible for running your home to one where you have help you feel guilty about because you’ve always performed those tasks yourself is wildly uncomfortable. I was speaking to my OWN discomfort and how I felt like I was doing something wrong by letting a maid do things I could do to myself, because we just aren’t raised that way. That is the entire point. There’s a huge cultural divide when it comes to our attitudes toward having domestic help. My feelings on the topic do NOT invalidate your way of life, and it’s not fair to say that’s what’s happening here. I said, from the very beginning, that I cannot personally relate to the concept of having domestic help, not that everyone who has help is sitting around and eating bon bons. Having a maid do things for me goes against how I was raised, what an American middle class upbringing is like, and feels shameful because we are taught to take care of ourselves without the inclination toward hiring or the financial ability to hire domestic help.

Long story short, I definitely could have worded it differently to indicate that I was talking about how badly I personally felt in the short time I had a maid, but I’m not going to apologize for saying I can’t relate to something because it’s not part of my culture. Especially when the question is about what’s happening to stars’ staff during social distancing, because that’s not something I would ever have to personally consider. Having hired help as a middle class person is a luxury created by wealth disparity and I don’t blame anyone for giving honest work to people, but it’s not a luxury I’ve had or will probably ever have.

I have to say though...a couple sentences in there sound like they’re straight out of Parasite. It’s easy to be nice when you have the money to do so, but you can’t look at the social hierarchy and not see that the people you pay to do things for you, as fond of them as you may be, are still not part of your family. You’re their employer, you pay them to be there, and if you stopped paying them they’d leave. You’re talking about making false assumptions but I wouldn’t assume that if you asked domestic helpers, they’re agree that they’re treated like part of the family. That’s really patronizing. 

It’s funny you think this is exclusive to South Asian cultures because it’s not. There are many, MANY places around the world where domestic help, even for the middle class, is completely normal and I know because a lot of my international friends grew up with maids and drivers and cooks. 

I don’t know why you think pointing out that there’s a cultural difference between middle classes and our relative comfort with domestic help in any way negates the other privileges that comes with being a white American, but I assure you that I can both acknowledge those privileges and tell you I was taught to clean up after myself at the same time. Those are not mutually exclusive concepts.

haha oh god....I know that in many places around the world, having household help is the norm, but it is absolutely not typical in America. Janice Sequeira tweeted something about making sure to thank your maids, thank your cooks, thank your drivers....and I just had this bizarre reaction where I couldn’t stop laughing. I know she meant well, but I have never read anything I could relate to less in my life.

And you guys can correct me if this is wrong, but doesn’t household help live separately? When we were in Mumbai, the maid came from her house daily and would sometimes bring her daughter. Most Bollywood actors seem to live in flats, and even the bigger ones usually aren’t set up to accommodate a full staff. So how is maintaining household help in an epidemic NOT dangerous? They have to go back out into the world every day and even taking precautions, there’s a big risk of contamination when people are constantly in and out. My apartment complex won’t even let non-residents through to front gate, let alone in the buildings. So I guess I’m curious how these stars are navigating that issue. The humane thing to do would be to continue to pay their staff wages (because we know they can afford it), but allow them to stay home and quarantine while the employer *gasp!* cooks their own meals and cleans their own home. No one is working so it’s not like they have a fuck ton else going on that they can’t get by without help.