Such A Long Journey Quotes
"The first light of morning barely illumined the sky as Gustad Noble faced eastward to offer his orisons to Ahura Mazda."
"Always, the sparrows were first; the cawing of crows came later."
"Flakes of dry dead skin fell from his fingers. The women blenched with disgust, but the tranquil hour and early light preserved the peace."
"Touch wood, Dilnavaz would say to herself, and look around for a suitable table or chair to make surreptitious contact with her fingers."
"Miss Kutpitia’s threats lacked any real conviction. She never bought the bhaiya's milk herself but firmly believed that periodic berating kept him in line."
"The women’s resigned and weary faces, in the undecided early light, were transformed fleetingly into visages of gentle dignity."
"You will never grow old, while there’s love in your heart."
"Time may silver your dark brown hair, as you dream in an old rocking chair."
"What had come over her this morning, she could not say, sitting and chatting away, wasting time like that."
"The clatter and chatter around the milkman seemed remote to Gustad Noble while he softly murmured his prayers under the neem tree."
"With his handsome white-clad figure favoured by the morning light."
"Lashing that sacred cord through the air, he would slice off the heads of behemoths, disembowel sabre-toothed tigers, lay waste to savage cannibal armies."
"The early morning news on government-controlled All-India Radio emerged softly, cautiously, from an open window."
"The clear mellifluence of its Hindi vocables tested the morning air."
"Scared by a noisy tap. He turned off the water, then rotated the handle slowly, just a little. It continued to gurgle threateningly."
"The rusted mounting pins still held a few thoraxes in place, but little else."
"Sleep was no longer a happy thing for him then, but a time when all anxieties intensified, and anger grew."
"Bless them all, bless them all, Bless my Sohrab and Darius and all."
"In bed for twelve weeks, with the broken hip between Madhiwalla Bonesetter’s sandbags."
"Hindi-Chinee bhai-bhai, insisting that Chou En-lai was a brother, the two nations were great friends."
"Gustad, however, left his blackout paper undisturbed. He said it helped the children to sleep better."
"‘I wonder what Major Bilimoria would have thought,’ she said, scooping in three spoons of Brooke Bond."
"‘A little air-conditioning does no harm,’ laughing away, as usual, the signs of their straitened circumstances."
"The thundering lorry pulled away, leaving a cloud of diesel fumes to linger at the gate."
"The municipal rats. GustadGustaddrowningswimmingratsdivingrats."
"Sometimes it made him wonder, though, if Malcolm was not making an amateurish, half-hearted attempt at proselytism."
"For Goover-Ni-Gaan from Ledgers Department did?’"
"I will see where your laughter goes when your silly Dinshawji arrives and the chicken is still uncooked."
"Golden Eagle beer. There were three tall bottles in the icebox."
"‘Roshan, you were this big—only one billus—when I last saw you,’ and he extended a hand with the thumb and little finger outstretched."
"I wiss you health, I wiss you wealth, I wiss you gold in store; I wiss you heaven on earth, What can I wiss you more?"
"Do not wait, or you'll be late, just fill your plate."
"Though dark is the night, please take no fright, we shall eat by candlelight. Or kerosene light."
"You must be blind if you cannot see my own example and learn from it."
"I never had my college fees paid for me, I had to earn them."
"Our wonderful Prime Minister uses RAW like a private police force, to do all her dirty work."
"Rumours and allegations all the time, and no proof!"
"Mockery of democracy is that people are willing to believe rumours. Without proper evidence."
"No one knew exactly how he did what he did—magical was his footwork, magical the passes with his hands."
"Every year at exam-time we fed him seven almonds at daybreak."
"It's all a family really needs. A small bookcaseful of the right books, and you are set for life."
"We had some good times then. It's all very different now, in RAW."
"What a wonderful way to augment my small collection. How fine they will look in the bookcase that Sohrab and I...that I will build."
"Sometimes it is safer to be just a taxi-driver and passenger."
"When government wants something, it gets it, one way or another."
"It was a hideous and pitiful sight to behold, certainly not for the faint of heart."
"The joy of being a doctor comes not from success, but from struggle."
"What kind of world is this, and what kind of men, who can behave in such fashion?"
"If I could let the rotten world go by, spend the rest of life in this chair."
"The seductive rustle of turning pages, the timeless fragrance of fine paper."
"Time and the world stretched endlessly then, before the bad days came and everything shrank."
"We are dealing with heartless people—poisonous snakes."
"One bundle for deposit every day. Ten thousand rupees. More than that will be suspicious."
"I don’t understand this world any more. First, your son destroys our hopes. Now this rascal."
"The air-raid siren started its keening lament as Gustad got off the bus at Flora Fountain."
"It was a typical, lacklustre day: knocking, tapping, listening, peering, then signing his approval."
"Dr. Paymaster believed that politics, economics, religious problems, domestic strife, all could be dealt with methodically."
"Like children, you men are. Doing stupid things."
"Everyone knows what happens in hospital. Blunders and botches, wrong injections, medicine mix-ups."
"Go to a hospital when you are ready to die, is what I always say."
"With so many saints and prophets on the wall, one miracle should be easy."
"Always begins after the loss is complete, the remembering."
"Salt water from the eyes mixing with salt water from the ocean."
"If a person cried here, by the sea, he thought, then the tears would mix with the waves."
"Always, things look wonderful from afar. When the moment arrives, only disappointment."
"Who can I trust? You? The newspaper?"
"Not all patients were asleep. Some watched intently, keeping an eye on this healthy one visiting after hours."
"Others were peaceful, reassured, as if they knew now that it was the simplest of things, was dying."
"Dinshawji had been stripped of all the appurtenances with which he had clung to life."
"But after that? After the memory is lost? When I am gone, and all his friends are gone. What then?"
"Wish I had thought of that earlier. To tell Dinshu."
"‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,’ he whispered in Dinshawji’s ear, and smiled."
"His domestic vulture. He almost broke into a smile again as he recalled the favourite line."
"I phoned the Tower of Silence while Nusli was in the bathroom. They said the hearse will come in half an hour."
"The driver slowed by the prayer bungalows on the lower level and, receiving no instructions, continued to the upper level."
"Gustad spread his handkerchief and sat. The exhaustion he had kept at bay now overtook him."
"And there had never again been cornflakes as delicious as the ones he ate at breakfast in Matheran."
"Watching helplessly as the shelves were emptied and the books were loaded on lorries."
"But what pudding was it that night? Lemon? No, it was pineapple."
"The train rocked through the night. It was much cooler now. He dozed, his head knocking against the window."
"Mr. Rabadi was hurled back, tripping over Dimple."
"The lizard poked out its tongue-flicking snout."
"Dilnavaz blanched; like Tehmul, she watched in fascination."
"Dilnavaz immediately took a good look at Tehmul to see if there was any change."
"Instead of flies and mosquitoes buzzing, a thousand colours dancing in sunlight."
"Your idea was great, sir. This is the best location in the whole city."
"You never know when you will learn something new."
"As it is, life is difficult enough. Why to simply make it tougher?"
"That’s true. But this wall is the kind of miracle I like to see, useful and genuine."
"After all, who is to say what makes a miracle and what makes a coincidence?"
"Inside Miss Kutpitia’s flat, the damage was confined to the locked rooms."
"Once the grain of sand grows into a pearl, does it matter which was the grain and which the pearl?"
"So what work for you if the war has started? My husband will take a gun and go to fight?"
"What did it mean when a hammer like this was passed from generation to generation?"
"The debauched and alcoholic president of the enemy was said to be organizing unceasing bacchanals."
"Every scientist, local or foreign, who had examined the procedure, sang its praises."
"The neighbourhood’s demands were ignored long enough. Now the officials would have to reck the rod of the janata."
"Tehmul’s picture would fit right in among the others upon the black wall."
"The closer the Seventh Fleet came to the Bay of Bengal, the harder it was to find unadorned copies of the two pictures."
"Gustad’s departure was not the end, nor was it the beginning of the end. But it was the end of the beginning."