Game of Big Numbers Quotes

“The minds of men intoxicated with power are fickle.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“For the first time then I recognized that supremacy in our society came from one’s proximity to gold, not from mere excellence - 'If you come with me, what do you bring? If I come to you, what can you give me?”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“Flowers – so beautiful – they seemed like they were smiling.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“With her blazing fire she came to me and consumed fully the fluttering insect of frenzied love residing inside me.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“Everywhere he went, he met people belittling him, maligning his knowledge, each imitating the behavior of the other in the manner of ants, till he felt a tide building up around him, threatening to tear him down. They doubted his learning, many of them not even qualified to make any form of judgment on his work, or without having examined the charges they were throwing at him, all hankering after a notion floated around by Malavika’s father himself, that his son-in-law was a fraud.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“The mellow flame of their love was prepared to turn to a raging fire. Separation was not an option for them.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“It is said that haughtiness in either the poor or the unlearned is a wasted quality. On the other hand, this vice is becoming in the rich and the men of power.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“Fortune is imagination’s whim, still must be pursued if one is to live his life’s worth.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“Books talk about the tortuous nature of a woman’s mind. Why must this charming one be different?”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“Gopal here tells me of your plans to go abroad. This wanderlust in the bright young men of our land is a curse for the rest of us.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“Son, a fine figure, youth, charm, courtesy and high learning - these are the ornaments of a man and you have all of them.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“A host of tutelary deities must be waiting upon her on all sides, for her performance displayed perfection. Her appearance had thrown magic upon us. Her dance held us all in thrall.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“We danced for a long time. The trees towered into the sky, the moon hid behind the leaves and the sky seemed like a forest burnt in a fire – dark with its empire of smoldering stars. It was charming. I felt I was dancing with the presiding deity of darkness.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“Ah … woman! Always the same story. Why is it that your eyes are open, yet you see nothing?”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“Their sixteen year old daughters followed meekly behind, their ornaments tinkling at every step they took, they turned their eyes on all sides in nervousness as if they were deer fearful of being petted – their unquiet eyes wandering hither and thither”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“In the paved path of friendship that Gopal and I had walked together for so long, we were led astray from each other when finally Yamini made her shining appearance. But I feel no regret at my loss - no. My gains were much loftier.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“Weeds spring up where they are not even sown. So it is with love too. Love takes its own time to bloom in a man’s life. It does not work on his schedule. It feels no need to take into account his situation or his means or state of mind, just ‘happens’ when it has found its right time and when the flower of love springs up, it makes sure the man is coerced to alter the course of his life.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“People walked holding hands. Arms twined around waists, locked at elbows, fingers clasped together in knots - love surrounded us.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“If, then, I had a pen at hand, I could capture that moment in two lines in the Vasantatilaka meter – my meter of preference. But scenes such as these have an ephemeral quality. You capture them as you experience them after which they are gone.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“The undertakings of the rich are grandiose”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“Men – merchants, kings – from far and wide have made this city their home. Someday, they will call our land Kashmir, theirs, Gopal and I often joke.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“The air had borrowed wind from the wildernesses of our hills. It had stolen the fragrance from the jasmines and was blowing it around as its own. It carried the scent of crushed grapes from the surrounding grapevines and released it in occasional whiffs. The saffron fields were in full bloom, it was spring.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“I had known always that he was in love with her. Why did he just not say he loved her? He could have; to me. Was I not his best friend? Perhaps he knew that he was not worthy of her.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“Desire leads a man to action – thus not her who robbed me of reason, who made me falter in my steps I regret.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“A man like me does not languish in the memories of the pleasures of his past. Moreover, the life of a gaunt and wizened age, of a wretched state in which yearnings and life breaths all slowly recede, holds no charm to me. So if end must come, may it be now.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“I have squandered in one unintended jerk the string of pearls that was handed to me. And each pearl is lost in a dark corner that I knew not existed.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“These days of internment are long. I do miss the falling blossoms, the manifold seasons of life, the thousand glances from the grand seductress – the world. But now all is uncertain.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“I have been thrown in this dark room. Shall I blame unruly fate or the haughtiness of the rich for plucking me from my place in the summit to be left to wither for the remaining days of my curtailed life?”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers

“The bars of the window of this little cell have given me new knowledge that no land, rivers, forests - not mountains, no matter how beloved, can belong to any one. I had simply been foolish. Henceforward, even the number of breaths that I inhale is measured by another.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, Game of Big Numbers