Kari Quotes

“I guess everyone has a bird urge when they look down heights, a desire to jump, without wing or buoyant sail. Fear of heights is fear of a desire to jump.”
― Amruta Patil, Kari

“Girl from the fifth floor, who feeds the birds every day, climbs up to the water tank and jumps off.

I see her body on the road below, and feel absolutely nothing. Maybe because I expect her to get up and walk off. In a story, the birds would have joined forces in a show of gratitude and broken her fall, carried her to a faraway land of safety. As it is, they just gurgle foolishly and confer about the no-show of breakfast.

I imagine myself in Pigeon girl's place - a split open bag of skin on tar.”
― Amruta Patil, Kari

“In a faraway city where the palette was pure and bright, Ruth stirred in her sleep, and smiled”
― Amruta Patil, Kari

“On my bedside table is a snow globe with a winterscape inside.
Church, park bench, girl standing shin-deep in snow. Tip the snow globe over and a blizzard of slow snow falls over church and bench and girl. What is it about snow globes that makes them fascinating and terrifying at once?

My heart lurches at the thought of the snow-globe girl waiting endlessly, with only the hope of a new snow blizzard to settle on her mantle when the next person tips her snow-globe world over. Not a gust of breeze may ruffle her skirt, not a bird may perch atop the steeple. The only way out of a snow globe is by shattering the glass dome that is its sky.”
― Amruta Patil, Kari

“Whatever love laws have to be broken, the first few seconds suffice. After that everything is a matter of time and incident.”
― Amruta Patil, Kari

“There are settling girls, and there are unsettling girls. The ones who seem to have it in them to be flyers are the ones who want to snuggle into settling. The ones who look as settled as old housedogs want to twist their way into flying. Necessarily, you must be defensive about being a settling sort of girl.”
― Amruta Patil, Kari

“The Airlines lady who travels in the same compartment as us day after day, has bruises on her arms and face today and her eyes keep welling, but no one asks her why. Our eyes dart towards her, but we go back to travelling in too much proximity. Two inches from one another and expressionless.”
― Amruta Patil, Kari

“She wasn't my kind of woman and that's why, that night she was. This wine is the Blood of Christ. Brings the truth out of a woman sooner than any confession box does. Makes you trust a stranger with your life, your car keys, your best-guarded secret.”
― Amruta Patil, Kari

“On a slightly unconnected note, I am sorry to report that babies, as a collective species, are largely oblivious to my charms.”
― Amruta Patil, Kari

“In this city, no one talks. Everyone guards their sanity against the grief of strangers.”
― Amruta Patil, Kari

“Smog city looks even more anaemic in the sun. Left to itself long enough, everything in the world withers, wastes, fades away to brown and grey. Tarpaulin and trash. Cinders and ash. Vegetables turn to potty. Red curtains colourless, add to this, streams of women and women, like roots and slaves, in equally tired colours. We are scared of too much colour.”
― Amruta Patil, Kari

“Can palmists read the grooves on a formaldehyde baby’s palm?”
― Amruta Patil, Kari

“I wait to watch their train leave just as I waited to watch their train pull in. I wait till they have disappeared. Until the next train pulls in. I have temporarily regressed to being a guilt ridden and miserable child.”
― Amruta Patil, Kari

“There are so many ways to exit towards the Light, but with my luck, I'd be the one electrocuted by Diwali lights. Or the one who cracks her head falling off a footstool. I'd still be a jester, leaving the audience with a stitch in their sides.”
― Amruta Patil, Kari