Valli Quotes

“There must come a time when each of us is able to hear the forest weep, a time when the languages of the forest and the humans will become one, a time when the axe and the chainsaw will disappear from the face of the earth. When the time comes, human beings will learn to love the earth and one another. In that time, the forest will bloom to the sound of human laughter, and it tell us that every life, however small or delicate as the touch-me-not, is divine.”
― Sheela Tomy, Valli

“Honour...what was it? Something that men valued and protected, and used against women to break them, to destroy them.”
― Sheela Tomy, Valli

“For a piece of yam, a knot of tobacco
You can't scam us any more
Not for Valli, not for paddy
You can't work us any more
Ours this soil, ours alone”
― Sheela Tomy, Valli

“Thus, she begin her own journey. Along the way, she will transform into Unniyachi, the aboriginal mother, into Kanchana Seetha and Sree Kurumba; into Vanadurga, the goddess of the forest, and Jaladurga, the goddess of the water; and into Kali, the primordial power.

She will ride the waves between life and myth into the darkness of stories that are brighter than light.

Through fields of marigolds to the slope of Kannanthalikunnu...

To forest verges where the chempakam blooms...
To screw-pine-scented canal banks...
To riverbanks red with the blood of revolution...

Through it all, Manjadikunnu will keep her company, silently, as the night of stories unfolds.”
― Sheela Tomy, Valli