50 quotes
‘... the Bengali was the Marwari of the early nineteenth century.’
Calcutta: Two Years in The City (2013)
I love churches in Bombay...they make me think of shadow. Of footfall on stone. In England, churches preside over their habitat till they're gratuitous.
Friend of My Youth (2017)
‘Shaped by student life in England, my wife and I are aghast at this frenetic sociability before the new weeks begins, this almost philistine uncaringness for the idea of Monday morning.’
Calcutta: Two Years in The City (2013)
‘... the menu’s a delirious poem/on which the names of Moghlai and Punjabi and Parsi
dishes – chicken korma, bhuna meat, dhansak –/ are placed in a proximity they’ll never be in elsewhere.’
Real Time (2002)
There was a difference between his parents with regard to appliances; his father distrusted them as he would a rival; his mother had no confidence in using them, but none the less desired them.
A New World (2000)
It does like writers, but it's also Calcutta now, not the Calcutta of 25 or 30 or 100 years ago. They maybe haven't got over the idea of it, but the reality, the context that produced that, has disappeared.
Abhi, Babla and Sandeep slept like primeval creatures huddled on the island of the bed, close to the horizon, outwaiting the dawn that would bring the first thought to their heads. Their bodies slept with a pure detached love for every moment of sleep.
A Strange and Sublime Address (1991)
... the floor was a stone slab of coolness, an expanse of warm ice that would not melt.
A Strange and Sublime Address (1991)
She would sweep the floor – unending expanses, acres and acres of floor – with a short broom called the jhadu, swiping away the dust in an arc with its long tail, which reminded one of the drooping tail of some nameless, exotic bird.
A Strange and Sublime Address (1991)
People are much more aware of one another in England, super-aware. They are focused on others in a seemingly detached and abstract way. This was very different from India. In India you could do anything and people would see you but not see you, hear you but not hear you.