Cracking India (3) in Curbed (by the damn library) Annotations

"'Children are the Devil...They only know the truth'" (204).

"Sometimes her eyes fill and the tears roll down her cheeks. Once, when I smoothed her hair back, she suddenly started to weep, and noticing my consternation explained, 'When the eye is wounded, even a scented breeze hurts'" (205).

"He froze near the body of the mullah. How soon he had become accustomed to thinking of people he had known all his life as bodies. He felt on such easy terms with death" (214).

It's vile but I need to record it: "He saw a naked woman, her light Kashmiri skin bruised with purple splotches and cuts, hanging head down from a ceiling fan. And looked on with a child's boundless acceptance and curiosity as jeering men set her long hair on fire. He saw babies, snatched from their mothers, smashed against walls and their howling mothers brutally raped and killed" (218-219). All the time, in this liberal arts college, we students are told that Christianity is a singularly violent religion. Look, meanwhile, at this tangle of recent thorns.

"Over the years Godmother has established a network of espionage with a reach of which even she is not aware. It is in her nature to know things: to be aware of what's going on around her. The day-to-day commonplaces of our lives unravel to her undercurrents that are lost to less perceptive humans. No baby - not even a kitten - is delivered within the sphere of her influence without her becoming instantly aware of its existence.

And this is the source of her immense power, this reservoir of random knowledge, and her knowledge of ancient lore and wisdom and herbal remedy. You cannot bear to be near her without feeling her uncanny strength. People bring to her their joys and woes. Show her their sores and swollen joints. Distilling the right herbs, adroitly instilling the right word in the right ear, she secures wishes, smooths relationships, cures illnesses, battles wrongs, solaces grief and prevents mistakes. She has access to many ears. No one knows how many" (222-223).

"It surprises me how easily Ranna has accepted his loss; and adjusted to his new environment. So...one gets used to anything...If one must. The small bitternesses and grudges I tend to nurse make me feel ashamed of myself. Ranna's ability to forgive a past none of us could control keeps him whole" (223).

"My heart is wrung with pity and horror. I want to leap out of my bed and soothe the wailing woman and slay her tormentors. I've seen Ayah carried away - and it had less to do with fate than with the will of men" (226).

"I can't bear to hurt her: I'd rather bite my tongue than cause pain to her grief-wounded eye. But this resolve, too, goes the way of all resolutions" (227).

"I'm feeling despondent. When something upsets me this much I find it impossible to talk. It used not to be so. I wonder: am I growing up? At least I've stopped babbling all my thoughts. This idiocy of bottled-up emotions can't be a symptom of growing up, surely! More likely I'm reverting to infancy the way old people do. I feel so sorry for myself - and for Cousin - and for all the senile, lame and hurt people and fallen women - and the condition of the world - in which countries are broken, people slaughtered and cities burned - that I burst into tears. I feel I will never stop crying" (228-229).

"I look about me with new eyes. The world is athrob with men. As long as they have some pleasing attribute - height, width or beauty of face - no man is too old to attract me. Or too young" (230-231).

"I've admitted it before: I have a wayward heart. Weak. Susceptible and fickle. But why do I call it my heart? And blame my blameless heart? And not blame instead the incandescence of my womb" (232)?

"I have never cried this way before. It is how grown-ups cry when their hearts are breaking" (266).

"Ayah's face, with its demurely lowered lids and tinsel dust, blooms like a dusky rose in Godmother's hands. The rouge and glitter highlight the sweet contours of her features. She looks achingly lovely: as when she gazed at Masseur and inwardly glowed" (273).

"'That was fated, daughter. It can't be undone. But it can be forgiven...Worse things are forgiven. Life goes on and the business of living buries the debris of our pasts. Hurt, happiness...all fade impartially...to make way for fresh joy and new sorrow. That's the way of life'" (273-274). Unbearably sad.

"'And you would have been raped.'

'What's that?'

(I never learn, do I?)

'I'll show you someday,' says Cousin giving me a queer look'" (277-278). The most awful, chilling thing.

"'Bewitching faces don't remain buried / They reappear in the shapes of flowers'" (289).