10. What passages strike you as insightful, even profound?

[John]

10. What passages strike you as insightful, even profound? Perhaps a bit of dialog that's funny or poignant or that encapsulates a character? Maybe there's a particular comment that states the book's thematic concerns?

[Pip]

“Please understand, Your Excellency, that India is two countries in one: an India of Light, and an India of Darkness. The ocean brings light to my country. Every place on the map of India near the ocean is well off. But the river brings darkness to India—the black river." He often countrast the India of the "haves" in the Light, with the India of the"have-nots" the Dark.
“This mud was holding her back: this big, swelling mound of black ooze. She was trying to fight the black mud; her toes were flexed and resisting; but the mud was sucking her in, sucking her in. It was so thick, and more of it was becoming created every moment as the river washed into the ghat. Soon she would become part of the black mound and the pale-skinned dog would start licking her. And then I understood: this was the real god of Benaras—this black mud of the Ganga into which everything died, and decomposed, and was reborn from, and died into again. The same would happen to me when I died and they brought me here. Nothing would get liberated here." This reminded me of my visit to Varanasi and the bodies on the ghats, although the ones I saw there and in Kolkata were burned rather than buried in the mud.