Sandhya Mary > Quotes

“Besides, where is the fairness in what you say? If a man has a good job, he is considered accomplished, even if he doesn't have any children. But for a woman to be considered accomplished, she just has to produce some children. She can go to Pluto and back, and still you won't acknowledge her accomplishment unless she has popped out a few children. Truly, Ammachi, I don't understand your world or its standards!”
― Sandhya Mary

“Anna never knew a man but, right from her youth, she knew her own body. She partook in its pleasures, immersed herself in its possibilities, with a passion that a man could never have satisfied. For Anna, her body was an instrument that would take her to the heights of intoxication. In its depths, she came to know a level of joy that women like Mathiri, Shoshamma, Mariyamma and a million others who had known men would never experience.”
― Sandhya Mary, Maria, Just Maria

“Besides, things are much easier these days. People believe whatever you tell them”
― Sandhya Mary, Maria, Just Maria

“Mariyamma's 'garden' is an example of the fine balance between tradition and modernity. Traditional plants like pichi, mulla, chembakam, the four-o-clock plant, hibiscus and pavizhamalli bob their heads right alongside modern varieties like orchid, gerbera, petunia and chrysanthemum. Roses of both kinds traditional and modern - although with the arrival of newcomers in yellow, orange and magenta, the old roses in red and pink have lost their lustre. Still, they hold their heads high, saying, We too are roses.' Kottarathil Veedu had flowering plants even before Mariyamma's arrival. But pichi, mulla, chembakam and hibiscus did not a 'garden' make - they only made a yard with flowers.”
― Sandhya Mary, Maria, Just Maria

“This is the problem with adults- they take everything way too seriously and make problems out of them.”
― Sandhya Mary, Maria, Just Maria

“What I am trying to say is that everyone here has a reason for their madness- everyone except me. I became mad without a clear and concise reason. My madness is the result of a careless mind, and because if it, I see myself as beneath everyone else here.”
― Sandhya Mary, Maria, Just Maria

“Who was it, I wonder, that discovered time was a thing to be used…”
― Sandhya Mary, Maria, Just Maria

“The fact is that his normal state of being is what others call madness, and when he realized this fact, he embraced it. This is true of ninety per cent of mad people. It is when they adapt to a state of being that is most suited to who they are that we start calling them mad. I don't know about people who become violent when mad - I don't usually understand anything to do with violence.”
― Sandhya Mary, Maria, Just Maria

“The Ramayanam and the Mahabharatham were written by people who had creative sensibilities, but the Bible lacks such artistic flair,' she would declare. Perhaps that was the reason she decided to rewrite the Bible.”
― Sandhya Mary, Maria, Just Maria

“Now, if you ask me what I do, I don’t like that question either. Is it necessary that everyone should be doing something?”
― Sandhya Mary, Maria, Just Maria

“She, too, felt a deep love for Geevarghese, not a simple love that a woman felt for a man, but the specific love that Kali felt for Geevarghese. And despite this abiding love within her, she slept with other men.”
― Sandhya mary , Maria, Just Maria

“Death is 'the ultimate loss' to the person dying, but it is inconsequential to the rest of the world. This is true of madness too. There are so many stories and films about people confined in psychiatric hospitals. Madness is often an easy solution for writers to conclude a story, especially stories with a hero or heroine in the grip of an existential crisis. And in comedy films, with some added exaggeration, it provides material to make the audience laugh. This, in short, is the world's relationship with madness. In real life, though, madness is boring. No, actually real life is boring and madness might add a bit of interest to it.”
― Sandhya Mary, Maria, Just Maria

“At that point, Maria asks Karthav Eesho Mishiha something that questions the very existence of all gods.

Tell me, do you gods really have the kind of power that humans believe you have?'

Maria genuinely hopes that gods exist, desires it with all her heart, except that they should be gods who know how to do their jobs properly. What is the point in having gods who can't even stop humans killing each other”
― Sandhya Mary, Maria, Just Maria

“I am amazed when I hear people wax nostalgia about ‘mother’s womb’. I think it is a masculine thing- this nostalgia. I don’t think women spend time thinking about their mother’s womb. Poor things, men! Tender as touch-me-nots!”
― Sandhya Mary, Maria, Just Maria

“Politics and illicit sexual relationships were their favourite topics of discussion.”
― Sandhya Mary, Maria, Just Maria

“I was convinced that the only reason children were born was to suffer sorrow, and that there was a huge difference between the sorrows of a child and those of adults.”
― Sandhya Mary, Maria, Just Maria

“They were great patriots. They stood at attention whenever they heard the national anthem. On Independence Day and on Republic Day, they decorated their vehicles with the national flag and watched the film Gandhi as though it was an age-old ritual.

Their children spoke English as though it was their mother tongue, and their parents listened, their skin covered in joyous goosebumps. They swallowed English medicines by the handful even when they had the common cold, and boasted that their quality of life was equal to that in America.”
― Sandhya mary , Maria, Just Maria

“Those who behave totally normally - some of them are mad. In fact, they are the ones who are properly mad.”
― Sandhya Mary, Maria, Just Maria

“Soft-hearted Hari used English only when he had to say something difficult or sad because, according to him, as a language, English was less emotional than Malayalam.”
― Sandhya Mary, Maria, Just Maria

“I don't know what it is,' he would say, 'but the food at home does not seem to agree with me.' Here too, by 'home' he meant not just his home but the idea of home itself.”
― Sandhya Mary, Maria, Just Maria

“I did not know then that life was a series of moments when one held back one’s tears.”
― Sandhya Mary, Maria, Just Maria

“Take note when people respond to questions with ‘I don’t know’, that is an important sign of madness, the inability to be decisive.”
― Sandhya Mary, Maria, Just Maria

“I bet now you feel we humans should have remained monkeys.

'But humans were never monkeys! I created humans as humans and monkeys as monkeys. I see this all the time! Humans do hundreds of years of research and come up with some utter crap. Just think about it, will you? Do I need to create monkeys and then wait for centuries to create humans out of them? Could I not create monkeys and humans at the same time? If I can create monkeys, why wouldn't I be able to create humans? Such foolishness!”
― Sandhya Mary, Maria, Just Maria

“I did not know then that the little mistakes we make at an age when we don’t know any better have such significant impacts on the rest of our lives.”
― Sandhya Mary, Maria, Just Maria