An Urdu couplet by one of his favorite poets, Mir Taqi Mir: Jis sar ko ghurur aaj hai yaan taj-vari ka Kal uss pe yahin shor hai phir nauhagari ka The head which today proudly flaunts a crown Will tomorrow, right here, in lamentation drown.
He had seen her through so much; he believed that if not he, then certainly music, would see her through this too.
A bee died in a coffin flower.
She remembered reading somewhere that even after people died, their hair and nails kept growing. Like starlight, travelling through the universe long after the stars themselves had died. Like cities. Fizzy, effervescent, simulating the illusion of life while the planet they had plundered died around them.
She speaks the most beautiful Urdu.
Of the four things that were Possible in Human Nature, Rahel thought that Infinnate Joy sounded the saddest.
A war that we have won and lost. The very worst sort of war. A war that captures dreams and re-dreams them. A war that has made us adore our conquerors and despise ourselves.
He looked cheerful, as though he was with an imaginary friend whose company he enjoyed.
The infinite tenderness of motherhood and the reckless rage of a suicide bomber. It was this that grew inside her, and eventually led her to love by night the man her children loved.
D’you know why God made Hijras? It was an experiment. He decided to create something, a living creature that is incapable of happiness. So he made us.
It was possible for Tilo and Musa to have this strange conversation about a third loved one, because they were concurrently sweethearts and ex-sweethearts, lovers and ex-lovers, siblings and ex-siblings, classmates and ex-classmates. Because they trusted each other so peculiarly that they knew, even if they were hurt by it, that whoever it was that the other person loved had to be worth loving. In matters of the heart, they had a virtual forest of safety nets.
She thought of Chacko’s laugh, and a smile stayed in her eyes for a long time.
History in live performance.
He made her feel as though the world belonged to them...
For one struck down by Cupid’s bow Life becomes burdensome, isn’t that so?
Oddly, neglect seemed to have resulted in an accidental release of the spirit.
He didn’t know that in some places, like the country that Rahel came from, various kinds of despair competed for primacy. And that personal despair could never be desperate enough.
India lives in several centuries at the same time.
Some things come with their own punishments. Like bedrooms with built-in cupboards. They would all learn more about punishments soon. That they came in different sizes. That some were so big they were like cupboards with built-in bedrooms.
Margaret Kochamma found herself drawn towards him like a plant in a dark room towards a wedge of light.
An unmixable mix. The infinite tenderness of motherhood and the reckless rage of a suicide bomber.