Truth, Love & A Little Malice Quotes

“Bombay, you will be told, is the only city India has, in the sense that the word city is understood in the West. Other Indian metropolises like Calcutta, Madras and Delhi are like oversized villages. It is true that Bombay has many more high-rise buildings than any other Indian city: when you approach it by the sea it looks like a miniature New York. It has other things to justify its city status: it is congested, it has traffic jams at all hours of the day, it is highly polluted and many parts of it stink.”
― Khushwant Singh, Truth, Love & A Little Malice

“In America, they make a lot of fuss over little things.”
― Khushwant Singh, Truth, Love & A Little Malice

“Voh waqt bhee deykha taareekh kee gharion nay Lamhon nay khataa kee thee Sadiyon nay sazaa paayee (The ages of history have recorded times when for an error made in a few seconds centuries had to pay the price.)”
― Khushwant Singh, Truth, Love & A Little Malice

“Jahaan mein ahle-eemaan soorat-e-khursheed jeetay hain, Idhar doobey, udhar nikley; udhar doobey, idhar niklay. In this world men of faith and self-confidence are    like the sun, They go down on one side to come up on the other.”
― Khushwant Singh, Truth, Love & A Little Malice

“I believe I did succeed in making Indian uslims look upon me as a friend: when I was nominated to be a member of the Rajya Sabha many said, "We have another Muslim in Parliament." Others who disliked my views called me an unpaid agent of Pakistan. I treated both views as compliments.”
― Khushwant Singh, Truth, Love & A Little Malice

“Indians abroad tend to stick together. They join Indian clubs, regularly visit mosques, temples and gurdwaras and eat Indian food at home or in Indian restaurants. Very rarely do they mix with the English on the same terms as they do with their own countrymen. This kind of island-ghetto existence feeds on stereotypes - the English are very reserved; they do not invite outsiders to their homes because they regard their homes as their castles; English women are frigid, etc. I discovered that none of this was true. In the years that followed, I made closer friends with English men and women than I did with Indians. I lived in dozens of English homes and shared their family problems. And I discovered to my delight that nothing was further from the truth that the canard that English women are frigid.”
― Khushwant Singh, Truth, Love & A Little Malice

“how much of what he told me of his past was true and how much he made up to hold my interest.”
― Khushwant Singh, Truth, Love & A Little Malice

“Dhoondta phirta hoon main, ai Iqbal, apney aap ko aap hee goya musaafir, aap hee manzil hoon main. (O Iqbal, I go about everywhere looking for myself As if I was the wayfarer as well as the destination.)”
― Khushwant Singh, Truth, Love & A Little Malice

“I said that before leaving Pakistan I would make an offering of an Urdu couplet to the Minister, which might come in handy when he next faced the thekedars of Islam. It ran: Mullah, gar asar hai dua mein To Masjid hila kay dikha Gar nahin, to do ghoont pee Aur Masjid ko hilta deykh (Mullah, if there is power in your prayer Let me see you shake the mosque! If not, take a couple of swigs of liquor And see the mosque shake on its own.)”
― Khushwant Singh, Truth, Love & A Little Malice

“Know him only as a man of God who feels the suffering of others. And”
― Khushwant Singh, Truth, Love & A Little Malice

“....they dressed for dinner and followed the strict discipline of upper class English families. The next morning they took me with them for the county fox hunt. Since I could not ride, I asked to be excused. But I did get to see the ritual of dress, the hierarchy observed among hunting types, the blowing of horns, the handling of beagles, a poor fox being run to death and having its tail (brush) cut off. Having achieved their object, glasses of sherry were passed round like prasad after a religious service.”
― Khushwant Singh, Truth, Love & A Little Malice

“Why Menon got where he did under the patronage of Pandit Nehru remains, and probably will remain, unexplained. Panditji had him elected to Parliament and sent to the United Nations to lead the Indian delegation. His marathon thirteen-hour speech on Kashmir won India a unanimous vote against it. He was then made Defence Minister against the wishes of almost all the members of the Cabinet. He wrecked army discipline by promoting favourites over the heads of senior officers. He was vindictive against those who stood up to him. More than anyone else he was responsible for the humiliating defeat of our army at the hands of the Chinese in 1962. Pandit Nehru stuck by him to the last.”
― Khushwant Singh, Truth, Love & A Little Malice