More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
From the concrete jungle, from the flamboyant apartment buildings stacked like matchboxes to the sky, from the smoke-spewing, horn-blaring vehicles that were always moving, day and night, as if constant movement was the only goal in life, then from people, people, people – people with no love for one another, no mutual trust, no harmony, no smiles of recognition even – I had desperately wanted to be free from such a suffocating environment.
No matter which religion one belongs to, it is accepted that the wife is the husband’s most obedient servant, his bonded labourer.
But this is all very filmy, Bhai. If your mother dies, it is the death of your mother’s love too. You will not get that kind of love from anyone else. Huh. But if the wife dies, it is a different matter, because one can get another wife.’ I was shocked at what Mujahid was saying. A tiny smile flashed across Shaista’s face. She sprang up and said ‘Yes, my grandmother used to say that when a wife dies, it’s like an elbow injury for the husband. Do you know, Zeenat, if the elbow gets injured, the pain is extreme for one instant – it is intolerable. But it lasts only a few seconds, and after that
...more
‘Hakhdaar tarse toh angaar ka nuuh barse’… If the one who has rights is displeased, a rain of fire will fall.
not all blooms have the fortune of adorning a bride; some flowers bloom only for mausoleums.
Was it a Hindu corpse? Was it a Muslim corpse? The body was too rotten to be identified. Should it rot here, should it rot there?
He is langoti yaar, after all, a man, everybody’s best friend. His past does not rise up to dance in public. The present doesn’t touch him. The future doesn’t move him, nor is it a mystery. He does not have to remain shyly in the shadows. He does not have to say who he belongs to. He does not need to seek forgiveness, not ever at all, because nothing he does is a mistake.
Why don’t scholars tell women about the rights available to them? Because they only want to restrict women. The whole world is at a stage where everyone is saying something must be done for women and girl children. But these people, they have taken over the Qur’an and the Hadiths. Let them behave as per these texts at least! Let them educate girls, not just a madrasa education, but also in schools and colleges. The choice of a husband should be hers. Let them give that. These eunuchs, let them give meher and get married instead of licking leftovers by taking dowry. Let a girl’s maternal family
...more
After laying the egg of light at dawn, the black hen of ignorance exited, rushing into the darkness to peck at grains and sticks.
‘Khar ku Khuda ka yaar, gareeb ku parvardigaar’ – if there are people to help the rich, the poor have God.
As evening started to lose its light, lamps were lit around the house. But the lamp in Mehrun’s heart had been extinguished a long time ago.
She had never felt this lonely. She had no desires. She sat up on the bed. There was no one to ask after her. There was no one to tease her, hug, kiss her. The person who had done those things belonged to someone else now. There seemed no end to life. And even the loud noise from behind didn’t stir her. She knew that a framed photograph had fallen and the glass had shattered, and the frame had broken into pieces, and the photograph had fallen out, but a kind of anxiety had set up home in her and she had no desire to sort out the mess.
Material things had become priceless, and human beings worthless. Behind those material possessions, people’s feelings were on sale. Things decided the relationships between small people with big shadows.
Money from the pockets of poor people was, just like them, broken, shattered, crumpled, wrinkly, diminished in essence and form. She had at times felt that even if the poor were given crisp notes, the money would turn into something strange and ugly; now she became sure of it.
So I never talked back and I listened to everything Amma said. Let me say it: You should be obedient, she said, he is God to you, you should do whatever he tells you to, you should serve him loyally. These things were carved very deeply into my heart.
He was getting attached, while my identity was melting away. Even my name got lost. Do you know what my new name was? His wife. My body, my mind were not my own.
My body was his playground; my heart, a toy in his hand. This way, like this, I used to apply balm, to attempt to repair my heart, but he continued to break it at whim. Prabhu, why did I have to become a toy? I do not hate him, nor do I wish for him to be my plaything either. If only I had been his backbone and he the hands that would wipe my tears away…
I was scared of Amma’s loving kisses slipping away. My heart was attached to her; his was attached to having the last word.
Whether you have time for these small problems striking my limited thoughts, whether you feel my entire life is a three-hour play, whether I seem like an actor to you, keep one thing in mind: my happiness and sadness are not borrowed. They are not to be performed. They are to be experienced. You are just a detached director. When one of your own characters assaults my mind, have you no duties as a director? Grant me one solace at least. What is my fault in all this, tell me?
only you had told him, just once, about the difficulties of giving birth, he might not have uttered these words. As easily as clearing one’s throat, as easily as pissing to relieve pressure, you have created a simple being that is arrogant and happy, and now you are indifferent.
There was no limit to his happiness when, just as he wished, a boy was born. Although I was not happy, one thing gave me satisfaction. At least we had not created another helpless prisoner of life like me.
You gave me the strength to bear a lot of pain. But you should not have given him the cruelty to cause so much of it.
If you were to build the world again, to create males and females again, do not be like an inexperienced potter. Come to earth as a woman, Prabhu! Be a woman once, oh Lord!
