Midnight at Malabar House (Malabar House #1)

by Vaseem Khan

The murder of a million Indians might pass with barely a raised eyebrow in the halls of power, but the death of an Englishman would raise a hue and cry to rouse the gods.

‘You’re an ambitious woman. But ambition has been known to sink whole nations.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘Is ambition a virtue in a man and a vice in a woman?’

‘Just because a cow stands in a field all day doesn’t make it a philosopher.’

Love this comment! Down with hierarchical "merit" :)

Persis knew that George Fernandes was a good policeman. He had only ended up at Malabar House because of the sort of tragic error that might have happened to any police officer. George Fernandes had shot the wrong man.

later, in August 1946, he announced a day of ‘direct action’, urging a general strike in support of his Muslim homeland. Three days of mayhem followed. By the time the killing ended, five thousand lay dead in Calcutta alone. The prospect of continued sectarian violence on such a scale shook even the British out of their torpor. That was the moment Partition became inevitable.

Re: Jinnah

The front door, as ever, was unlocked. Her father had always reasoned that if anyone was minded enough to steal books, either they were in dire need of them but could not afford them – in which case they were welcome to them – or, if they happened to be confused thieves, then it was better to have well-read thieves roaming the city than illiterate ones.

Another little gem.

If Partition had shown them anything, it was that India was a nation as liable to war with itself as with a common enemy.

She listened politely, then said, ‘It’s a lot of responsibility, isn’t it? Being a woman in a man’s world?’ Persis said nothing. ‘Do you know what the secret is?’ She arched an eyebrow. ‘Pretend that it isn’t their world. Pretend that it’s yours.’

While the world praised Churchill, in India many continued to think of him as a mass murderer.

And on the subject of crappers, even our European-style toilets are being replaced with the inferior Indian variety where one is forced to squat for the privilege of defecating into one’s own pyjama. How’s that for a perverted sense of nationalism?’

Blackfinch stuck out like a flamingo at a convention of crows.

For millennia, we have been told what our role must be: wife, mother, daughter. We are all those things, but we are so much more. Men like you think you can stop us. Go ahead and try. Have you ever tried to stop the monsoon?’