Cracking India (2) in Curbed (by the damn library) Annotations

Cracking India reference #1: p.101 (the canal)

"And I become aware of religious differences. It is sudden. One day everybody is themselves - and the next day they are Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian. People shrink, dwindling into symbols" (101).

Breaking India: p.124

"his eyes, full of honey, shower her with his maddening dreams" (128).

"Ayah looks startled. So do I. This is the first time he has openly expressed jealousy of Masseur. Although we have been conscious of the undercurrent of hostility between them, neither Ayah nor I realized its development into the acrimony Ice-candy-man's bitter voice has just expressed. It changes the complexion of the evening. i become aware of the dusk that has gathered in shadows on the dung-plastered veranda and is thick behind the open door of Ayah's quarters" (134).

"I close my eyes. I can't bear to open them: they will open on a suddenly changed world" (138).

"I try not to inhale, but I must; the charged air about our table distills poisonous insights. Blue envy: green avidity: the gray and black stirrings of predators and the incipient distillation of fear in their prey. A slimy gray-green balloon forms behind my shut lids. There is something so dangerous about the tangible colors the passions around me have assumed that I blink open my eyes and sit up" (141).

Good God. It's so sudden: "A naked child, twitching on a spear struck between her shoulders, is waved like a flag: her screamless mouth agape, she is staring straight up at me. A crimson fury blinds me. I want to dive into the bestial creature clawing entrails, plucking eyes, tearing limbs, smashing brains: but the creature has too many stony hearts, too many sightless eyes, deaf ears, mindless brains and tons of entwined entrails" (144). Horror.

The beautiful brother, moral at age three. "I hold one leg out to Adi. 'Here,' I say, 'pull it.'

'Why?' asks Adi looking confused.

"Pull, damn it!" I scream, so close to hysteria that Adi blanches and hastily grabs the proffered leg. (He is one of the few people I know who is fair enough to blance - or blush noticeably.) Adi and I pull the doll's legs, stretching it in a fierce tug-of-war, until making a wrenching sound it suddenly splits. We stagger off balance. The cloth skin is ripped right up to its armpits spilling chunks of grayish cotton and coiled brown coir and the innards that make its eyes blink and make it squawk 'Ma-ma.' I examine the doll's spilled insides and, holding them in my hands, collapse on the bed sobbing.

Adi crouches close to me. I can't bear the disillusioned and contemptuous look in his eyes.

'Why were you so cruel if you couldn't stand it?' he asks at last, infuriated by the pointless brutality" (148).

To be fair, seven year old Lenny's just seen a man drawn and quartered by jeeps.

"Despite the residue of passion and regret, and loss of those who have in panic fled - the fire could not have burned for...Despite all the ruptured dreams, broken lives, buried gold, bricked-in rupees, secreted jewelry, lingering hopes...the fire could not have burned for months and months...But in my memory it is branded over an inordinate length of time: memory demands poetic license" (149).

"And then, very seriously, like in the films, he cautiously holds me by my shoulders and puckers his mouth. I read the intent in his eyes and, being theatrically inclined myself, I close my eyes and readily bunch my lips. I feel Cousin's wet, puckered mouth on my bunched-up lips. I know I'm supposed to feel a thrill, so, I muster a little thrill.

The thrill comes and goes but Cousin's mouth remains in exactly the same position, exerting exactly the same pressure as at the moment of impact. The muscles of my mouth begin to ache. I open my eyes and discover Cousin's bewildered eyes gazing directly into mine. He doesn't know if he's doing it right. Or when to stop. The kissing scenes in the films go on much longer. But I can tell at that alarming proximity that the muscles in Cousin's jaws are trembling. My neck, too, is beginning to ache at that awkward angle. Kissing, I'm convinced, is overrated" (153). I'm ashamed to laugh five pages after death, but there it is.

Oh God. p. 159.

"It's lovely to have someone fight your battles for you. Specially when you're little" (175).

"'Another set of green eyes gone!' laments the doctor, sadly shaking his head, 'I'd follow them to the ends of the earth!'

If one keeps his single track in mind the doctor is not so hard to follow after all. The woolly ruminative silence that succeeds the doctor's soulful sighs is abruptly shattered by Oldhusband.

'What's all this business about eyes! eyes! eyes!' he explodes. 'You can't poke the damn thing into their eyes!'" (180).

P. 185 - Masseur, horrific, in a sack, chopped, dead.

"Ayah has stopped receiving visitors. Her closest friends have fled Lahore. She trusts no one. And Masseur's death has left in her the great empty ache I know sometimes when the muscles of my stomach retract around hungry spaces within me...but I know there is an added dimension to her loss I cannot comprehend. I know at least that my lover lives somewhere in the distant and possible future: I have hope" (188).

P. 195 - Ayah taken by the Muslim men.