Karan Mahajan
Novelist
1984-04-24
Quotes by Karan Mahajan
-
To ask a child to feel sympathy for the poor is harder than getting him to feel sympathy for a chicken or a goat— at least you can see a goat being slaughtered.
Read quote -
Every child is a packet of disappointments, hurts, dangers.
Read quote -
What if I've died a long time ago and come here? he wondered. What if the defining characteristic of hell is that you're locked in an endless, blind battle to reform it?
Read quote -
The roots of shame run deep.
Read quote -
And you know what happens when a bomb goes off? The truth about people comes out. Men leave their children and run away. Shopkeepers push aside wives and try to save their cash. People come and loot the shops. A blast reveals the truth about places. Don't forget what you're doing is noble.
Read quote -
Most of the people in the audience were white and old. They had the gaunt look of people who have seen all the important movies and can now only look forward to reruns.
Read quote -
And you know what happens when a bomb goes off? The truth about people comes out. Men leave their children and run away. Shopkeepers push aside wives and try to save their cash. People come and loot the shops. A blast reveals the truth about places. Don't forget what you're doing is noble.
Read quote -
Every child is a packet of disappointments, hurts, dangers.
Read quote -
To ask a child to feel sympathy for the poor is harder than getting him to feel sympathy for a chicken or a goat— at least you can see a goat being slaughtered.
Read quote -
The roots of shame run deep.
Read quote -
What if I've died a long time ago and come here? he wondered. What if the defining characteristic of hell is that you're locked in an endless, blind battle to reform it?
Read quote -
Most of the people in the audience were white and old. They had the gaunt look of people who have seen all the important movies and can now only look forward to reruns.
Read quote -
American life is based on a reassurance that we like one another but won't violate one another's privacies. This makes it a land of small talk.
Read quote -
Reading galleys on the subway is the closest the publishing industry comes to having a standardized mating call.
Read quote -
It's getting worse under Prime Minister Modi. The economic miracle has failed, to a degree, and people are reaching back to a kind of imagined Hindu past for a feeling of pride. And that feeling of pride necessarily comes from denying any kind of Muslim heritage. People my age seem to be becoming illiberal in a way that I'm surprised by.
Read quote -
I met a number of young, striving, enterprising people in cities like Aligarh and Hubli. But the mental landscape of these towns is out of sync with their reality. Many of these towns are hellholes.
Read quote -
If Asian America exists, it is because of systemic racism.
Read quote -
There is not one New York but thousands - mixed-up conurbations and microclimates with their own internal logics and charms, dreams and juxtapositions, faces and tongues.
Read quote -
The Hindu nationalists see a religion near perfection save for the tampering of Muslims and Christians. So they fall upon these groups, rather than try to reform their own practices by drawing on India's sophisticated philosophical traditions.
Read quote -
In Delhi, where I grew up, commerce is brusque. You don't ask each other how your day has been. You might not even smile. I'm not saying this is ideal - it's how it is. You're tied together by a transaction. The customer doesn't tremble before complaining about how cold his food is.
Read quote