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youth goes ever onward, it's the way of the world. it's the old people that are left behind, grandma Ida and Alice. and erich. and her.she is 52 years old, her youth is behind her. what is left from her to expect from the future? it doesn't matter, she will carry on the way she always has. and anyway, 52 isn't that old. who knows how many years she still has ahead of her? what is that Jews say on birthdays? may you live to be a hundred and twenty. decisively, she turns around.it's from Treasure from the attic by Mirjam Pressler. page 395
no one can possess the sunset like we saw that evening just as no one can possess the afternoon of rain beating against the window, or the serenity of a sleeping child, or the magical moment when waves break on the rocks. no one can possess beautiful things on earth but we can know them and love them. it is through such moments that God reveals himself to mankind.it is from Brida by Paulo Coelho. page 261
no one can possess the sunset like we saw that evening just as no one can possess the afternoon of rain beating against the window, or the serenity of a sleeping child, or the magical moment when waves break on the rocks. no one can possess beautiful things on earth but we can know them and love them. it is through such moments that God reveals himself to mankind.it is from Brida by Paulo Coelho. page 261
Mod
Thereare way too many passages and lines I love and i cant remember all of them clearly. But i found this in my liked quotes section:"Whoever said that love hurts was wrong. Love is excruciating, especially when you can feel it slipping through your fingers and there is nothing you can do about it. Like someone was playing tug-of-war with my limbs, ripping to shreds whatever was left behind. What it would feel like when love was lost...I wouldn't survive that" from Crow's Row
‘Why is life hard on some while being soft on others?’ Roopa contemplated after Sandhya had left. ‘The sastras would have us believe that it’s all owing to karma, while the philosophers stress that life is conditioned by a combination of circumstances. It could be true either way, but how does that help me anyway. For all that, does life play favorites? But that’s unlikely, for after all, why should life be partial to some when all bear its own patent. Yet, some like me get condemned, all the time, don’t they? But why is that so?’‘It’s as though life has an obligation for itself as a whole and not to the beings that make up that whole,’ she tried to probe into the proclivities of life as though to solve the puzzle of her state. ‘It would appear as if life feels a monotonous regimen would bore people to death, bringing the creation to an unintended end. Therefore, for the larger good of itself, life could have found it expedient to take recourse to individual inequities to keep the general interest in it alive for all. Wonder how life prepares the black list for the fate to act upon! As all are dear to it, were it possible that blindfolded, it would go in for random selection with a sinking heart! Once fate takes over the earmarked, won’t weddings come in handy for it to impart misery in many wrong permutations and provide bliss in a few right combinations! Then is there nothing left for me to do than to regret my fate, all my life?’
As though her pain infected nature itself, it opened the skies to shed its tears, and closing the windows to avoid the spatter, she felt melancholic, ‘So that’s how I’ve got the rough end of the married stick then. But why not grab the silken glove of liaison that is dangling before me now? Won’t that meet life’s need for variety as well? As it had imposed a husband of its choice on me, now let me choose the lover after my heart.’
When it stopped raining as though on cue, opening the windows, Roopa felt nature too desired her turbulence to end in Raja Rao’s arms.
‘Would it be fair to Sathyam?’ she tried to analyze as she was consumed by self-doubts all over again. ‘But then, what could be done when fidelity forces a loveless life on me? What’s this infidelity all about? Isn’t it man’s idea to negate woman’s amour. While male-female attraction is the cornerstone of creation, man seeks to blindfold woman with marital fidelity. Leaving that aside, what does a wife ought to give her man? Of course, she should keep an amiable home for him to recreate and procreate. As for love, woman needs it as much as man, doesn’t she? Is love something of a recipe that a woman could prepare at her husband’s bidding?
‘How can I help when he doesn’t inspire love in my heart,’ she wailed at her plight. ‘After all, was it not said that love is but a part of man’s life while it is a woman’s whole existence? Oh, it’s every bit true! Sathyam is merry in marriage, enjoying all that goes with it, while I’m miserable, despairing for love. I can’t be happy without Raja, that’s clear by now, isn’t it? After all, I owe something to my life, don’t I? What’s the contradiction, if while leading my love life with Raja, I look after Sathyam’s marital needs as well? It seems to be the only sensible way to go about life than feel deprived all my life.’
Having resolved to have Raja Rao for her lover, she was at peace with herself, ‘Of course, it would be unfair for woman to let the paramour father her child. Why, perhaps it’s the only thing unethical about adultery, isn’t it? A woman ought to take care that things don’t be mixed up at that end. I would need Raja for my fulfillment and Sathyam can have his child if he could.’ Having resolved on a liaison with her lover, Roopa slumbered in expectation.
Excerpted from mine own Benign Flame: Saga of Love
Śāntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra:"She is nothing but bones, independent and indifferent. Why do you not willingly cuddle them and find bliss? You saw that face before; you tried to lift it up when it was lowered in modesty; or maybe it was covered by a veil and you did not see. Now that face is stripped by vultures as if they can no longer bear your frustration. Look at it! Why do you recoil now?...Seeing this pile of meat being devoured by vultures and other scavengers, is what is food for others to be worshipped by garlands, sandalwood scent, and jewellery? Although it does not move, you are terrified of a skeleton when it is seen like this. Why have you no fear of it when it moves as if animated by a vampire?...If you have no passion for what is foul, why do you embrace another, a cage of bones bound by sinew, smeared with slime and flesh?"The Bodhicaryāvatāra
Indian Readers
Books mentioned in this topic
The Bodhicaryāvatāra (other topics)Crow's Row (other topics)
And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes — a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.
And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning ——
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.