The Dream Builders Quotes

“One person had burned to a crisp. The father had been summoned to identify him. People guessed he was a Muslim chap. You could never trust those guys.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“The only thing he had failed to take into account was his accomplice’s inexperience, not with electrical wiring, on which subject he had been trained for weeks, but with a life of subterfuge and crime.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“When amid them, Salil found himself yearning for his childhood friends more than ever, that gang of loud, crude Punjabi men singing and laughing over stupid jokes.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“All those people who had gone and acquired degrees in psychology or social welfare or whatever it was they studied now needed customers and were in cahoots with the drug companies who made antidepressants and anti-anxiety pills.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“Someone who had no money to feed her and was probably not even married. Look at her, look how dark she is, look how she eats when she is hungry as if she has never been fed. Yes, yes, now she has money pouring in from rich men in the city, she dresses up fine and goes to a fancy school and is learning to speak English and eating cakes with a spoon. Does not change where she came from.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“Look, Jeevan, first go and find a job, a respectable one, and then come back for Chaya,” he said. “If you continue here, it will not be safe. Not only for you but also for your family. For your sisters.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“You are going to go back for the cow?” The man’s voice now sounded shrill. “Are you insane? In this city full of crazy Hindu bhakts? Where beef is banned? With all the Kanwariyas on their way to Haridwar? Do you realize what they will do to you if they learn you hurt a precious cow?”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“Rajesh could not understand how anyone would actually enjoy the experience of shopping there. He had wished he had not entered the mall. His fantasy of it had been more interesting.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“A little baby girl, the incarnation of Lakshmi, the goddess of good fortune. Daughters did more for their parents these days anyway. Look at Madam’s friend from America. Unlike Madam, she always smiled at him and asked how he was. And her tips had grown in amount since the first time.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“Sometimes Rajesh imagined that she was made of glass, that if he touched her, all he would feel was the cold surface of some immovable thing.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“He didn’t bother looking up at Rajesh, who could sense his disapproval. Who ordered one chapati? A bloody villager who had no business coming to this place full of pampered kids playing at being down to earth.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“He scanned the right side quickly. The cheapest item on the menu was a plain chapati, for thirty rupees. He could afford one. Nothing to go with it. Just one chapati. No ghee, no sugar. He debated going somewhere else, but the saliva in his mouth had turned sour.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“Rajesh recognized that look. He had seen it in his village among the young men who failed to find jobs and gave up looking. They wandered around listlessly, high on ganja or drunk on paddy liquor.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“Fired him for what reason? Because he got hungry. Because he got tired of serving overpriced food to fat people who eat and drink all day. Because he took a few bites out of their precious korma. If he had enough money to keep his stomach full, would he have done it? If they offered him a meal once in a while, would he have done it?”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“They want to make this a Hindu town, Rajesh. Maybe it is best that I lost my job. Now I can go somewhere else to try my luck. Like Mumbai.” “I heard of someone who went to Qatar,” said Rajesh. “They make lots of money there.” “Maybe they will send us all to Qatar.” “Ahmad mian does not have to leave his own country.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“It was an iPhone 5s with a weak camera. It struck him as ridiculous that she had brought this old-fashioned phone with her from America while everyone in Hrishipur had the latest releases. Even Gopal the electrician had a newer iPhone.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“They sell land without acquiring the licenses they need. Sometimes that land is purchased illegally from farmers. The previous government allowed the developers to do whatever they wanted. In exchange for cash of course. And now The Party wants revenge and wants to demonstrate how active they are in stopping corruption,”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“What degree of commitment does it take to make this journey every year in temperatures this high just for water with which to bathe the penis of a stone god? What benediction do they receive from it beyond the satisfaction of a task completed?”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“the epitome of everything awful about Hrishipur. Vulgar displays of wealth by a generation that had come into it suddenly and found it overwhelming.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“How do you know all this?” Jessica was impressed. “When you don’t have children or a career, you have time to do research.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“She wanted to suggest that Ramona think about adoption. But the thought of Her Elegance with a brown, skinny child from an orphanage made her laugh out loud.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“None of this ethnic shit. This was the influence of the saffron brigade, The Party’s concerted effort to force everyone to return to their Hindu roots, even those who had none. An absurd attempt at Indianizing students in a missionary school run by Jesuit nuns inside an uber-Westernized town.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“Why would someone give up the comforts of a home with an air-conditioned bedroom, a maid, a TV, a mother who cooked all her favorite meals, a father who never shouted at her, and people she had known her whole life? Where Didi lived, there was no servant, no husband, no parents.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“Unlike Samiran, now rendered useless to society, with no aim other than watching yet another movie or cricket match on TV.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“The truth was that if a week went by without any fish on the table, he began to crave it. You could take a man out of Bengal and so on.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“You all start your projects without acquiring the approvals and permissions necessary. You take money from these poor people, lie to them, and then buy more land and start more projects. All without even getting the proper titles.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“Investigations revealed that the money collected from buyers in the form of various development fees had never been deposited with the government. Bhatia, the owner of the company, was said to have diverted the funds to other projects.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“How long would it take her to learn that this city, with its shiny buildings and glamorous people, was all fake, just like the plants inside Diva?”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“I’m sorry. There’s no other way. I am not firing you, Pinky. You are one of our oldest and you’re very valuable. And I, we, are not inhumane. You need rest, fine. Get rest. Take three months off and come back when your shoulder is healed. With a doctor’s note.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders

“Leave it on for ten minutes before your shower,” she said. “It will get the tan off.” Maneka laughed. “I don’t share the Indian obsession with fair skin.”
― Oindrila Mukherjee, The Dream Builders