india

I fought to stay awake and keep the car on the road. And I thought back to texts I had read from the British Army in India, during the Raj, at the height of their empire. Young subalterns trapped in junior ranks had their own mess. They would dine together in splendid dress uniforms and talk about their chances of promotion. But they had none, unless a superior officer died. Dead men's shoes was the rule. So they would raise their crystal glasses of fine French wine and toast "bloody wars and dread diseases" because a casualty further up the chain of command was their only way to get ahead. Brutal, but that's how it's always been, in the military.

If you think of the world as a global village, a fight between India and Pakistan is like a fight between the poorest people in the poorest quarters - the Adivasis and the Dalits. And in the meantime, the zamindars are laying the oil pipelines and selling both parties weapons.

It is not our religion, still less the colour of our skin, that produces virtue; virtue must be practised. Therefore, let no one do to others what he would not have done to himself.

Uniform of a soldier and uniform of a student both are equally needed for the nation.

Civilians enjoy their time because soldiers sacrifice their time.

I do not need to understand words to know he is disappointed I am not a boy. Some things need no translation. And I know, because my body remembers without benefit of words, that men who do not welcome girl-babies will not treasure me as I grow to woman - though he call me princess just because the Guru told him to.I have come so far, I have borne so much pain and emptiness!But men have not yet changed.

In your name, the family name is at last because it's the family name that lasts.

You can take the Indian out of the family, but you cannot take the family out of the Indian.

State first, subject second, statesman last.

Love is a forest fire ignited by a firefly

What is it?" she asked. "I'm looking for your wings. You are my guardian angel, aren't you?" "I'm afraid not," she replied, her cheeks dimplingwith a wry smile. "There's too much of the devil in me for that." "Just how much devil," I grinned, "are we talking about here?

It feels as though it were just yesterday Grandfather exited my life like a bullet, leaving a bleeding hole behind.

Asif Ali maneuvers the gleaming Mercedes down the labyrinthine lanes of Old Kolkata with consummate skill, but his passengers do not notice how smoothly he avoids potholes, cows and beggars, how skilfully he sails through aging yellow lights to get the Bose family to their destination on time. This disappoints Asif only a little. In his six years of chauffeuring the rich and callous, he has realized that, to them, servants are invisible.

The biggest irony in the history of India is the term, "Muslim Personal Law."Law of the land could never be personal.

Enlightenment, and the death which comes before it, is the primary business of Varanasi.

In India there__ no modernism without barbarism. Strip away the young man__ face and you__l find an old man__ mind.

He looked at me with a smile that I still remember and ran a finger along his impeccably trimmed mustache. __ricket is about a lot more than playing by the rules, Mistry. It__ a gentleman__ game. Don__ you ever forget that.

What hurts me is the fact that in India, a good doctor is one whom you have to take an appointment with even before you fall sick. Else, you will die but not get treated. A good school is one that won't admit you even if you are in Lower Kindergarten. A good minister is one won't meet you till are some VIP. I want to change this in my lifetime by democratizing education and opportunities.