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Life has its ups and downs and periods of darkness, but now and then it springs a surprise, such as an encounter with an old friend, and makes us want to go on a little longer. I
Well, it often happens that people with good eyesight fail to see what is right in front of them. They have too much to take in, I suppose. Whereas people who cannot see (or see very little) have to take in only the essentials, whatever registers tellingly on their remaining senses.
Katyayni
And I reflected that a woman had to be jealous of something. If there wasn’t another woman, then it was a man’s work, or his hobby, or his best friend, or his favourite sweater, or his pet mongoose that made her resentful. There is a story in Kipling about a woman who grew insanely jealous of a horse’s saddle because her husband spent an hour every day polishing it with great care and loving kindness.
If dreams have any meaning at all, the meaning doesn’t come within our limited comprehension.
It was lonely under the peepul tree. It is said that only ghosts live in peepul trees. I do not blame them, for peepul trees are cool and shady and full of loneliness.
I may stop loving you, Sushila, but I will never stop loving the days I loved you.
Sometimes, for our own sakes, we have to think of the happiness of others. What happiness would we have living in hiding from everyone we once knew and cared for.
‘Ugly is just a word,’ I said. ‘Like beauty. They mean different things to different people. What did the poet say?—“Beauty is truth, truth is beauty.”
And that was the last I saw of Suresh, lying alone on the crowded platform, alone in the great grey darkness of the world, crooked and bent and twisted—the most beautiful boy in the world.
She wanted to cry, not for Grandmother, who could suffer no more, but for Grandfather, who looked so helpless and bewildered; she did not want him to be unhappy. She forced back her tears, took his gnarled and trembling hand, and led him down the crowded street. And she knew, then, that it would be on her shoulder that Grandfather would have to lean in the years to come.
Unlike the adults, the children didn’t have to pretend. They were full of praise for the umbrella.
The plainsman looks to the hills for the needs of his spirit but the hill man looks to the plains for a living.
‘Nothing is lucky if you put it away. If you want luck, you must put it to some use.’
riendship is all about doing things together. It may be climbing a mountain, fishing in a mountain stream, cycling along a country road, camping in a forest clearing, or simply travelling together and sharing the experiences that a new place can bring.
I dream of him sometimes, and in my dream he is always the same, caring for me and leading me by the hand along old familiar roads.
She laughed then. And her laughter was still the same—unforced, genuine. Some things don’t change.
