Suketu Mehta Quotes

A hit man's character is defined above all by narcissism, that complex mix of egotism and self-hatred.

The stacks of pav have been sprinkled with chutney -
the top half of the inside of the bun is bathed in green chutney, the bottom with red garlic chutney -
and the assistant reaches out with one hand, in one continuous arc of his arm opening the pav, scooping up two of the vadas, one in each nest of pav, and delivering it to the hungry customer. I walk away from the stall and crush the vada by pressing down on it with the pav; little cracks appear in the crispy surface, and the vada oozes out its potato-and-pea mixture. I eat. The crispy batter, the mouthful of sweet-soft pav tempering the heat of the chutney, the spices of the vada mixture - dark with garam masala and studded with whole cloves of garlic that look like cashews - get masticated into a good mouthful, a good mouth-feel. My stomach is getting filled, and I feel I am eating something nourishing after a long spell of sobbing. Borkar has done his dharma.

Each person's life is dominated by a central event, which shapes and distorts everything that comes after it and, in retrospect, everything that came before.

Before you ask other people to respect the borders of the West, ask yourself if the West has ever respected anybody else's border.

It was when I realised I had a new nationality: I was in exile. I am an adulterous resident: when I am in one city, I am dreaming of the other. I am an exile; citizen of the country of longing.

The gang war will never end. Because at it's core , it is not the gangsters against the police or the gangster against another. It is a young man with a Mauser against history personal and political, it is revolution one murder at a time.

We lived in Bombay and we lived in Mumbai and sometimes, I lived in both of them at the same time.

I asked Raghav, as we were looking over the wasteland, if the Muslims they burnt would beg for their lives. "Yes they would say, Have mercy on us. But we were filled with such hate; we had Radhabi Chawl on our minds. And even if there was one who said, Let him go, there would be ten others saying, No kill him. And so we had to kill him.

"But what if he was innocent?"

Raghav looked at me. "His biggest crime was that he was Muslim.

The man who comes to fix the cable approaches her when she is alone in the house. 'Is there anything to eat?' he asks. 'There are some chapatis,' she replies. 'Can I get something to eat?' he repeats.

Love exposes you, makes you vulnerable and kills the personas you built on top of your true self.

This is the true meaning of exile : some insurmountable force that keeps you from going back.

A city like Bombay, like New York, that is a recent creation on the planet and does not have a substantial indigenous population, is full of restless people. Those who have come here have not been at ease somewhere else. And unlike others who may have been equally uncomfortable wherever they came from, these people got up and moved. As I have discovered, having once moved, it is difficult to stop moving.

It is the sexual frenzy of a closed society, and the women of Golpitha are the gutters for these men's emissions.