Tarquin Hall > Quotes

“Sir, with due respect and all, my mummy-ji told me not to speak with strangers,” said Puri, conscious that Naga was now standing directly behind him.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Love Commandos

“per hour. Handbrake knew that he could keep up with the best of them. Ambassadors might look old-fashioned and slow, but the latest models had Japanese engines. But he soon learned to keep it under seventy. Time and again, as his competitors raced up behind him and made their impatience known by the use of their horns and flashing high beams, he grudgingly gave way, pulling into the slow lane among the trucks, tractors and bullock carts. Soon, the lush mustard and sugarcane fields of Haryana gave way to the scrub and desert of Rajasthan. Four hours later, they reached the rocky hills surrounding the Pink City, passing in the shadow of the Amber Fort with its soaring ramparts and towering gatehouse. The road led past the Jal Mahal palace, beached on a sandy lake bed, into Jaipur’s ancient quarter. It was almost noon and the bazaars along the city’s crenellated walls were stirring into life. Beneath faded, dusty awnings, cobblers crouched, sewing sequins and gold thread onto leather slippers with curled-up toes. Spice merchants sat surrounded by heaps of lal mirch, haldi and ground jeera, their colours as clean and sharp as new watercolor paints. Sweets sellers lit the gas under blackened woks of oil and prepared sticky jalebis. Lassi vendors chipped away at great blocks of ice delivered by camel cart. In front of a few of the shops, small boys, who by law should have been at school, swept the pavements, sprinkling them with water to keep down the dust. One dragged a doormat into the road where the wheels of passing vehicles ran over it, doing the job of carpet beaters. Handbrake honked his way through the light traffic as they neared the Ajmeri Gate, watching the faces that passed by his window: skinny bicycle rickshaw drivers, straining against the weight of fat aunties; wild-eyed Rajasthani men with long handlebar moustaches and sun-baked faces almost as bright as their turbans; sinewy peasant women wearing gold nose rings and red glass bangles on their arms; a couple of pink-faced goras straining under their backpacks; a naked sadhu, his body half covered in ash like a caveman. Handbrake turned into the old British Civil Lines, where the roads were wide and straight and the houses and gardens were set well apart. Ajay Kasliwal’s residence was number”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Missing Servant

“These included the top of Mount Everest and up the chief’s rear passage.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Love Commandos

“Fortunately, getting hold of people’s garbage was a cinch. Indian detectives were much luckier than their counterparts in, say, America, who were forever rooting around in people’s dustbins down dark, seedy alleyways. In India, one could simply purchase an individual’s trash on the open market. All you had to do was befriend the right rag picker. Tens of thousands of untouchables of all ages still worked as unofficial dustmen and women across the country. Every morning, they came pushing their barrows, calling, “Kooray Wallah!” and took away all the household rubbish. In the colony’s open rubbish dump, surrounded by cows, goats, dogs and crows, they would sift through piles of stinking muck by hand, separating biodegradable waste from the plastic wrappers, aluminium foil, tin cans and glass bottles.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Missing Servant

“Handbrake found the drive to Jaipur that morning particularly frustrating. The new tarmac-surfaced toll road, which was part of India’s proliferating highway system, had four lanes running in both directions, and although it presented all manner of hazards, including the occasional herd of goats, a few overturned trucks and the odd gaping pothole, it held out an irresistible invitation to speed. Indeed, many of the other cars travelled as fast as 100 miles”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Missing Servant

“agents shall be recruited from orphans. They shall be trained in the following techniques: interpretation of signs and marks, palmistry and similar techniques of interpreting body marks, magic and illusions, the duties of the ashramas, the stages of life, and the science of omens and augury. Alternatively, they can be trained in physiology and sociology, the art of men and society.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Missing Servant

“Given the Beemer's Brahminical status at the top of India's vehicular caste system (bicyclists being the Dalits of the road), few cars dared to cut in front of it or venture too close lest they contaminate its uncorrupted, venerated bodywork.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Missing Servant

“By the time Puri went to bed, he felt positively homesick. Lying under the weight of thick blankets, he found the pin-drop silence eerie and unnerving. In the absence of the distant hum of traffic and honking from the highway, the barking of street dogs, the tap of the guards’ lathis on the road as they made their rounds through the colony, the strains of Lag Jaa Gale coming from the chowkidar’s radio, he found it impossible to sleep.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Elusive Bombay Duck

“Never forget I am old,” she said. “What does that mean, Mummy-ji?” “Didn’t you know? Old is gold, na.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Love Commandos

“the”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Missing Servant

“All the more reason why we need you – not some gora police officer who doesn’t know his dosa from his dhokla.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Elusive Bombay Duck

“The whole place reeked of tharra.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Love Commandos

“Mummy had then appeared, telling the press that her son needed his daily dose of iron tonic.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Love Commandos

“Bad news and dark secrets can be kept under wraps effectively in an Indian household, but never good news.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Elusive Bombay Duck

“How can he eat at a time like this?” she asked Tubelight. The operative shrugged. “One time, Boss ate a chicken frankie after watching a hanging,”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Love Commandos

“Puri found the walls bare, his secretary having put away all his accolades, including his signed and personalized Kenny G album cover”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Love Commandos

“The similarities between India's legal system and the Court of Chancery as described in Dickens's 'Bleak House' were startling.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Missing Servant

“Part of him admired their resilience”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing

“The “salla bhangi,” as he referred to the Dalit, lived on the other side of the village.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Love Commandos

“Bollywood’s Govinda was gyrating his hips in front of a Swiss Alpine landscape.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Love Commandos

“Since becoming chief minister four years ago, Baba Dhobi had sought to consolidate his cult standing by using state funds to build lavish monuments and statues to the leaders of the Dalit movement, himself included.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Love Commandos

“Those who did that thing were human beings, na. We should ask ourselves why human beings behave in such a way. Otherwise nothing can change.
(Mommy-Ji)”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken

“The two men’s stomachs pressed together like a couple of beach balls. For a moment, Puri felt like he was going to get stuck.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Love Commandos

“As Puri savoured the perfect blend of cardamon, clove and cinnamon in his chai, as well as the familiar sounds of home – the cawing of crows, the buzz of scooters on the road, devotional songs coming from a distant Gurdwara – he was in no doubt where he belonged and was grateful for it.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Elusive Bombay Duck

“They were bright, confident and fervently dedicated to the cause. Rationalism had become something of a religion to them. It provided purpose, structure and philosophy without all the bells and incense or blood turned to wine.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing

“Guru-ji, I am the winner of the Super Sleuth World Federation of Detectives award for 1999. Also, I was on the cover of India Today magazine. It’s a distinction no other”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Missing Servant

“And there was a new notification from Col. PVS Gill (Retd), pointing out the hard shoes were to be worn in the building at all times.

RUBBER SOULS CAUSE SQUEEKING AND ANNOYANCE, it stated.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Missing Servant

“It had often struck Facecream how cults, whether of a political or religious nature, always preached equality and happiness while fostering fear. It had been the same with the Maoists, who relied so heavily on women and children to fill their ranks. Party propaganda spoke endlessly about the Communist ideal of equality, while hierarchy maintained strict discipline and unquestioning allegiance.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing

“Inspector, believe me, I am one man who believes in miracles. Unlike Dr. Jha, I know such things can and do occur. But because gold exists, it does not mean there is not fool's gold, also.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing

“Puri spotted some Indian tourists, too, including one family who he summed up as ‘second-tier metro, new money’, meaning they were small-town India nouveau riche.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Elusive Bombay Duck