"He knew what his father thought: that immigration, so often presented as a heroic act, could just as easily be the opposite; that it was cowardice that led many to America; fear marked the journey, not bravery; a cockroachy desire to scuttle to where you never saw poverty, not really, never had to suffer a tug to your conscience; where you never heard the demands of servants, beggars, bankrupt relatives, and where your generosity would never be openly claimed; where by merely looking after your own wife-child-dog-yard you could feel virtuous. Experience the relief of being an unknown transplant to the locals and hide the perspective granted by journey."
Taken from Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai.
Showing posts with label Kiran Desai. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kiran Desai. Show all posts
Friday, January 22, 2010
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Memorable Quotes from "The Inheritance of Loss" By Kiran Desai - 3
"Romantically she decided that love must surely reside in the gap between desire and fulfillment, in the lack not contentment. Love was the ache, the anticipation, the retreat, everything around it but the emtion itself."
"In this life, he remembered again, you must stop your thoughts if you wished to remain intact, or guilt and pity would take everything from you, even yourself from yourself."
"Indians, yes, in Alaska; a desi owned the last general store in the last town before the North Pole, canned food mostly, fishing tackle, bags of salt and shovels;"
"In this life, he remembered again, you must stop your thoughts if you wished to remain intact, or guilt and pity would take everything from you, even yourself from yourself."
"Indians, yes, in Alaska; a desi owned the last general store in the last town before the North Pole, canned food mostly, fishing tackle, bags of salt and shovels;"
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Memorable Quotes from "Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard " by Kiran Desai - 3
"They refuse to have their liquor licenses revoked, and also we have received threats from all the surrounding towns saying if we revoke licenses, the monkeys will simply shift their focus and carry on being a nuisance in their vicinity."
Meanwhile, the police were luckier than the army men, for it had been generally agreed upon that they were incapable of taking an active part in something on such a great scale as this and hand been given the job of preparing the nets that were to be used to catch the monkeys.
"Arre chottu,' they called to the tea boy.' arre, over here,' to the sweet-potato seller, the peanut man and the cold-drink cart. Thus they made the most of this time and were content.
In the matter of few days' time, the Hungry Hop boy had been demoted from a life of self-imposed imprisonment to one of family-enforced detainment and he felt as if the his pride were being overlooked and insulted.
But Sampath sat in the guava tree, encased in absolute stillness like a forest captured within a quiet moment of amber.
There were ways of thinking about darkness. He could steel himself against it, Sampath thought, close his eyes tight, wrap himself up in his quilt. Or he could let all it's whisperings, all it's shades of violet, float into him. This impersonal darkness could be comforting as no human attention ever was.
He picked one. Perfect Buddha shape. Mulling on it's inside, unconcerned with the world.... beautiful, distant fruit, growing softer as the days went by, as the nights passed on; beautiful fruit filled with an undiscovered constellation of young stars.
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Meanwhile, the police were luckier than the army men, for it had been generally agreed upon that they were incapable of taking an active part in something on such a great scale as this and hand been given the job of preparing the nets that were to be used to catch the monkeys.
"Arre chottu,' they called to the tea boy.' arre, over here,' to the sweet-potato seller, the peanut man and the cold-drink cart. Thus they made the most of this time and were content.
In the matter of few days' time, the Hungry Hop boy had been demoted from a life of self-imposed imprisonment to one of family-enforced detainment and he felt as if the his pride were being overlooked and insulted.
But Sampath sat in the guava tree, encased in absolute stillness like a forest captured within a quiet moment of amber.
There were ways of thinking about darkness. He could steel himself against it, Sampath thought, close his eyes tight, wrap himself up in his quilt. Or he could let all it's whisperings, all it's shades of violet, float into him. This impersonal darkness could be comforting as no human attention ever was.
He picked one. Perfect Buddha shape. Mulling on it's inside, unconcerned with the world.... beautiful, distant fruit, growing softer as the days went by, as the nights passed on; beautiful fruit filled with an undiscovered constellation of young stars.
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Monday, October 05, 2009
Memorable Quotes from "Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard " by Kiran Desai - 2
He was cross and grumpy. The guava was cool and green and calm-looking. He stared at the fruit, wished he could absorb all it's coolness, all it's quiet and stillness into him.
He hit is forehead with the flat of his palm, for drama has a way of overriding ths embarrassment of a situation that should be privately experienced.
'And you, sir, that secret oil you got from the doctor in Side Gully. Clearly, it is not working. Try a good massage with mustard oil and your hair will sprout as thick and as plentiful as grass in Cherrapunjee rain.
Post office clerk climbs tree. Fleeing duties at the Shahkot post office, a clerk has been reported to have settled in a large guava tree. According to popular speculations, he is one or an unusual spiritual nature, his child-like ways being coupled with unfathomable wisdom.
Prices had risen so high, nobody would buy the scraggy chickens sitting in the cages outside the meat shop. Finally the poor butcher had to eat them himself, and after the last one, he was forced to turn vegetarian like the rest of the town.
Not one truthful politiciAn in the whole country. Yes our politicians are thieves, each one answerable to the prime minister, who is the biggest thief of them all. Look how well he's doing. With each new photograph he is fatter than before.
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He hit is forehead with the flat of his palm, for drama has a way of overriding ths embarrassment of a situation that should be privately experienced.
'And you, sir, that secret oil you got from the doctor in Side Gully. Clearly, it is not working. Try a good massage with mustard oil and your hair will sprout as thick and as plentiful as grass in Cherrapunjee rain.
Post office clerk climbs tree. Fleeing duties at the Shahkot post office, a clerk has been reported to have settled in a large guava tree. According to popular speculations, he is one or an unusual spiritual nature, his child-like ways being coupled with unfathomable wisdom.
Prices had risen so high, nobody would buy the scraggy chickens sitting in the cages outside the meat shop. Finally the poor butcher had to eat them himself, and after the last one, he was forced to turn vegetarian like the rest of the town.
Not one truthful politiciAn in the whole country. Yes our politicians are thieves, each one answerable to the prime minister, who is the biggest thief of them all. Look how well he's doing. With each new photograph he is fatter than before.
Sent from my iPhone
Memorable Quotes from "Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard " by Kiran Desai - 1
well you know, liberation, as I comprehend it, comes from freeing yourself from the tawdry grasp of superstition. This is not simple matter, you understand, for it is embroiled in historical issues, in issues of poverty and illiteracy.
She was producing meals so intricate, they were cooked sometimes with a hundred ingredients, balanced precariously within a complicated and delicate mesh of spices - marvelous triumphs of the complex and delicate seasonings.
Isn't he the same person,' said Mr.Chawla,'who set baits filled with sleeping pills to contain the problem at Ranchi? They did not catch even a single monkey. These animals are very street-smart.They have learned all sort of tricks in the bazaar.'
The monkeys had not eaten a bite of the sleeping-pill-laden food; hungry street urchins had gobbled it down instead, and then promptly fallen into a deep sleep that lasted, in one case, up to 48 hours.
Turning sour, his stomach revolted and fired up in a terrible indigestion as if it contained a rolling mass of serpents, venomous and hissing in volcanic heat.
The cook is left over from the Raj, sir, and wanted to make you cutlets with caramel custard. I said:"Nothing doing.What did we get rid of British for? To continue eating cutlets and custard?"
She was producing meals so intricate, they were cooked sometimes with a hundred ingredients, balanced precariously within a complicated and delicate mesh of spices - marvelous triumphs of the complex and delicate seasonings.
Isn't he the same person,' said Mr.Chawla,'who set baits filled with sleeping pills to contain the problem at Ranchi? They did not catch even a single monkey. These animals are very street-smart.They have learned all sort of tricks in the bazaar.'
The monkeys had not eaten a bite of the sleeping-pill-laden food; hungry street urchins had gobbled it down instead, and then promptly fallen into a deep sleep that lasted, in one case, up to 48 hours.
Turning sour, his stomach revolted and fired up in a terrible indigestion as if it contained a rolling mass of serpents, venomous and hissing in volcanic heat.
The cook is left over from the Raj, sir, and wanted to make you cutlets with caramel custard. I said:"Nothing doing.What did we get rid of British for? To continue eating cutlets and custard?"
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Memorable Quotes 2 - "The Inheritance of Loss" by Kiran Desai
Year by year, his life wasn't mounting to anything at all; in a space that should have included family, friends, he was the only one displacing the air.
Shouldn't he return to a life where he might slice his own importance, to where he might relinquish this overrated control over his own destiny and perhaps be subtracted from it's determination altogether? He might even experience that greatest luxury of not noticing himself at all.
All the NRIs holding their green cards and passports, looked complacent and civilized. that's just how it was, wasn't it? Fortune piled on more good fortune.
And they couldn't wait for the shopping-"Shopping ke liye jaayengey, bhel puri khaenge... dollars mein kamaenge, pum pum pum. Only eight rupees to the tailor, only twenty-two cents!" they would say, triumphantly translating everything to American currency;and while the shopping was converted into dollars, tips to the servants would be calculated in local currency:"Fifteen hundred rupees, is he mad? Give him one hundred, even that's too much."
A Calcutta sister accompanying a Chicago sister "getting value for her daaller, getting value for her daaller," discovering the first germ of leprous, all-consuming hatred that would in time rot the families irreversibly from within.
He knew what his father thought: that immigration, so often presented as a heroic act, could just as easily be the opposite; that it was cowardice that led many to America; fear marked the journey not bravery; a cockroachy desire to scuttle to where you never saw poverty, not really, never had to suffer a tug of conscience; where you never heard the demands of servants, beggars, bankrupt relatives, and where your generosity would never be openly claimed; where by merely looking after your own wife-child-dog-yard you could feel virtuous.
One true thing Jemubhai learned: a human heart can be transformed into anything. It was possible to forget if not essential to do so.
She felt grateful for the greatness of this landscape, walked on trying to recover the horizon-for it felt as if the space bequeathed her at the end of a romance that had promised a wide vista-well it was nonexistent. Sadness was claustrophobic.,
What could his father have known? This way of leaving your family for work had condemned them over several generations to hav their hearts always in other places, their minds thinking about people elsewhere; they could never be in a single existence at one time. How wonderful it was going to be to have things otherwise?
The five peaks of Kanchenjunga turned golden with the kind of luminous light that made you feel, if briefly, that truth was apparent. All you needed to do was to reach out and pluck it.
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Memorable Quotes 1 - "The Inheritance of Loss" by Kiran Desai
In this life, he remembered again, you must stop your thoughts if you wished to remain intact, or guilt and pity would take everything from you, even yourself from yourself.
Give this people a bit and one could find supporting the whole family forever after, a constantly multiplying family, no doubt, because they might have no food, the husbAnd might be blind with broken legs, and the woman might be anemic and bent, but they'd still pop out an infant every nine month.
If you let such people get an inch, they'd take everything you had- the families yoked together because of guilt on one side and an unending greed and capacity for dependence on the other-and if they knew you were susceptible, everyone handed their guilt along so as to augment yours: old guilt, new guilt, any passed-on guilt whatever.
What was India to these people? How many lived in the fake versions of their countries, in fake versions of other people's countries? Did their lives feel unreal to them as his own did to him?
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Give this people a bit and one could find supporting the whole family forever after, a constantly multiplying family, no doubt, because they might have no food, the husbAnd might be blind with broken legs, and the woman might be anemic and bent, but they'd still pop out an infant every nine month.
If you let such people get an inch, they'd take everything you had- the families yoked together because of guilt on one side and an unending greed and capacity for dependence on the other-and if they knew you were susceptible, everyone handed their guilt along so as to augment yours: old guilt, new guilt, any passed-on guilt whatever.
What was India to these people? How many lived in the fake versions of their countries, in fake versions of other people's countries? Did their lives feel unreal to them as his own did to him?
Sent from my iPhone
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