“India, the new myth – a collective fiction in which anything was possible, a fable rivalled only by the two other mighty fantasies: money and God.” ―Salman Rushdie
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2. "In India even the most mundane inquiries have a habit of ending this way. There may be two answers, there may be five, a dozen or a hundred; the only thing that is certain is that all will be different."
―Eric Newby, "Slowly Down the Ganges"
3. "India, the new myth – a collective fiction in which anything was possible, a fable rivalled only by the two other mighty fantasies: money and God."
―Salman Rushdie, "Midnight's Children"
4. "Becoming attached to a country involves pressing, uncomfortable questions about justice and opportunity for its least powerful citizens."
― Katherine Boo, "Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity"
5. "How can the mind take hold of such a country? Generations of invaders have tried, but they remain in exile. The important towns they build are only retreats, their quarrels the malaise of men who cannot find their way home. India knows of their trouble. She knows of the whole world's trouble, to its uttermost depth. She calls "Come" through her hundred mouths, through objects ridiculous and august. But come to what? She has never defined. She is not a promise, only an appeal."
― E.M. Forster, "A Passage to India"
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7. "India, she now knew, would not be content staying in the background, was nobody's wallpaper, insisted in interjecting itself into everyone's life, meddling with it, twisting it, moulding it beyond recognition.
―Thrity Umrigar, "The Weight of Heaven"
8. "India, she had found out, was a place of political intrigue and economic corruption, a place occupied by real people with their incessantly human needs, desires, ambitions, and aspirations, and not the exotic, spiritual, mysterious entity that was a creation of the Western imagination."
―Thrity Umrigar, "The Weight of Heaven"
9. "No people whose word for 'yesterday' is the same as their wordf or 'tomorrow' can be said to have a firm grip on the time."
—Salman Rushdie, "Midnight's Children"
10. "Calcutta's the only city I know where you are actively encouraged to stop strangers at random for a quick chat."
―Tahir Shah, "Sorcerer's Apprentice"
11. "In India we're fighting to retain a wilderness that we have. Whereas in the west, it's gone. Every person that's walking down the street is a walking bar code. You can tell where their clothes are from, how much they cost, which designer made which shoe, which shop you bought each item from. Everything is civilized and tagged and valued and numbered and put in it's place. Whereas in India, the wilderness still exists-the unindoctrinated wilderness of the mind, full of untold secrets and wild imaginings."
―Arundhati Roy
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29 Stunning Passages From Literature That Capture The Essence Of India