The Thugs & a Courtesan Quotes

“Like a thief, the image of her taut, well-formed body crept into his mind next. His hair swept backwards, shot up like long needles in the rush of the air and his thoughts grew bolder. He marveled how beautifully her body arched as she stood and gave commands. Vishwakarma, the god of all craftsmen, in an exalting moment had threaded a wire through it to give it that elegant curve. From that instant, the memories of a wife, of dear daughters waiting back in the village seemed hazy as in a dream. Inhibitions became soft barriers. He remembered the gestures of Chanda Bai’s two hands as she talked; her palms like delicate seashells; her elegant fingers. Flashes of her jewel studded ears, another pair of shells; and her long hair lovingly braided by her servants with thick strands of white and yellow jasmine flowers interlaced in them. He wanted to caress those flowers with his finger.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“I am not a fool. I have just loved with an honest heart. Ask the moon and the night sky and these jungles, they will bear the testimony. But the world – that is a different matter.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“He felt no shame in their love. It was great, honest and high. He had never in his life seen a woman like her. He admired her like he had no one before. If she were to go away, he would abandon everyone and everything that he ever cared for and follow her like a dog. He would lose his mind otherwise.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“I hold loyalty above everything. Anything that causes a man to betray his friends, country and his calling is cheap – low class - in my eyes.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“I cannot explain how it all happened, Father. I know only that now I want to be with her.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“How often he had felt that living life is nothing more than writing on the surface of the lake! So fleeting! Ephemeral! Although each day when it arrives seems like the day that has just passed, it does hold well the power to bring something new or to take away someone dear.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“Slid into the folds of all my tales, in furtive whispers, would also be my highest, most esteemed thoughts. History will be kinder to me then, kinder than you have ever been to me.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“One day, when my face and my name are forgotten – for the wheel of life involves everyone thrown into this world in its revolving circle and mixes them finally with the dust – then I would perhaps become transparent as a breeze. And if one looks for the heroes of our times and of the past, all then just heaps of insignificant dust, they would be found blowing by the force of my currents, in my stories.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“You could not love me for I am a man with a hideous face, but what baffles me is that you cared nought for the fact that my thoughts are not inelegant?”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“A life of madness I have been living for fifteen years. I have thrown away everything I had, my devoted wife, two lovely children, my family, my wealth on a hopeless passion. My love that once glowed like a warm flame is gone. A fire burns inside me now. My love, instead of being upheld has been cast aside like dirt. I can weep all I want out of rage and self-loathing but the world will only laugh at the sight of me.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“People like you and I would have long been crushed by this world. We are saved because we believed in something.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“Despair is a bad thing, friend. The world moves on through hope. We will be home soon. You will feel better then.” But the darkness around him embraced him like stormy waves do a drowning man. He felt he was sinking in the sea of hopelessness.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“The starved beast, sensing the prey, was restless.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“Before the trip he would be a dispirited person and when after a period of half a year he would return home he returned a completely invigorated man; a pleasing sight, much like the parched earthen pitcher after being dunked into the waters of happiness rising up from the well.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“Do you know I have lost my heart to you?” His voice rustled like starched silk when trampled upon. “I am losing my sleep as well. And when sleep does come, I dream only of you.” He murmured.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“What is there to tell? She kept rolling out words and I kept listening.”
“What did she say? What did you say?”
“I could hear not a single word that she uttered. What did I say? I could say nothing. Friend! My senses and judgement, self-restraint, peace, my entire strength - all deserted me. I ran to her and stood before her with folded arms like a slave. O Jitaji, like the moth that flutters around the candle I offered my life as a sacrifice to her.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“Waves after waves broke on the boulder-lined banks, lashing and hollering, making a colossal display of restlessness and rage and resignation. He had dropped on his knees and prayed for a long time.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“His body was shriveled like a leaf that has left its tree and that has been curled by time about its natural lines.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“He wrote about the five nobles who had returned to fight a thousand enemy soldiers. He, himself, had cut down one of them, “a young prince, even on the battlefield, his face showed the first blush of love … But there is no room for the lament. This is a warring land - the entire country, forever at war, its wealth strewn around for whoever is strong enough to grab it. Isn’t that why I too am here?”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“Like hungry lions, the nobles waited to molest the shameful enemy, but as they waited, they endeavored to take a brief reprieve from their unsightly world by throwing the veil of opium dreams upon themselves; briefly, just briefly! Sweet languor crept over their tensed limbs and a delicious lightness spread into their bodies. An invisible ally with one thick finger slowed the motion of the clock and the waxing crescent of the moon in the night-sky turned the color of honey, transforming itself into a blushing face, a form and then a beckoning hand. Thus, the lions were ignorant of the truth that the enemy under cover of the dark was assembling in front of their camp.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“Like a pernicious disease, suspicion devoured him and he looked at one and all with wide-eyed horror, trembling violently when anyone spoke to him or touched him.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“It is an old custom. Men of good-intentions and goodwill who have the means stud the land around forlorn villages with fine groves and wells for the general comfort of travelers, and also so people from posterity while resting in the shade and refreshing themselves would think of them and would think kindly.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“From what I am learning of you, you know only to use others to push your plans. But you forget those plans are not even yours to push. They are God’s plans. Every man has to die, how he dies, God decides.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“Why should I fear God? All your gods misbehave. Besides, do you suggest that God does not know the truth Himself? Do you think He needs us to display the actual truth to Him? You are a bigger fool than I thought! The reality is that we are placed on this world for His amusement. And I will give Him a great show!”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“He had often wondered if the sea that incessantly broke its many heads against the boulders without doing them any injury was in effect trying to convey something to man. Why it was an insinuation of the same charge – the message that the succession of sunshine and shade of the jungle carried and in a matter of a few moments it had become all too clear to him: Truth, deceit! Truth, deceit! the chant to which this world of ours whirls.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“But why must we talk of the death of a beloved when we know that life in togetherness itself comprises of many a copious springs and death is just one dark moment.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“Our days will pass in singing songs. We will roam the jungles and I will teach you the language of all animals. You will fear them no more and will pick flowers instead after you have tired of gazing at the beauty that would surround us. During the day I will turn the wheel and make pots and you will string flowers together and make garlands for gods and men. We will sell them at the temple in the evening and by nights you will cradle in my arms and listen to a new story every night before shutting your eyes to the long beautiful day. And when all my stories are exhausted we will together make new ones. This is the way queens must live”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“Mehak, I know of a place where the king is great and in his reign the peasant is happy, the treasury full, the army satisfied and the poor content. There is such peace and plenty in that place, when you visit the people in their homes, the decorated doorways arch around you like a beautiful embrace. There are no doors at the entrances of the homes of these welcoming people, Mehak, my dearest! Every day there feels like a day of festival. And, day or night, wayfarers clink their gold playfully in their hands as they walk, be it over the plains or through woods. We can rule that kingdom, if you come with me. The only thing that is different there is the currency of the land. It is not gold. It is flowers.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“I know that I am born low and that my misfortunes were written in my destiny. I, born to be a slave, walk a path alongside the path of a queen and our two paths do never cross. The lines of fate cannot be effaced for anyone, everyone knows that.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“Do you even realize what you are asking me to do, you idle man? Do you know how much I am needed here? It really surprises me that you could think of asking me to just walk away with you.”
“You are just a slave here, Mehak. If you come with me you will be a queen.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan