Raja Rao > Quotes

“Fortunately there are wars. And rationing is one of the grandest inventions of man. You stamp paper with figures and you feed stomachs on numbers.”
― Raja Rao, The Cat and Shakespeare

“Then the wind comes so swift and dashing that it takes the autumn leaves with it, and they rise into the juggling air, while the trees bleat and blubber. Then drops fall, big as the thumb … the earth itself seems to heave up and cheep in the monsoon rains. It churns and splashes, beats against the treetops, reckless and wilful, and suddenly floating forwards, it bucks back and spits forward and pours down upon the green, weak coffee leaves, thumping them down to the earth.”
― Raja Rao, Kanthapura

“There is but one force in life and that is Truth, and there is but one love in life and that is love of mankind, and there is but one God in life and that is the God of all”
― Raja Rao, Kanthapura

“Velayudhan Nair says: 'Man, we go to the doctor.' Velayudhan Nair always began every sentence with Man, for he had been to Bombay. In Colaba every De Souza says: Man. This they learned from the P & O ships. And P & O ships touch Plymouth. Do they say 'Man' there, one wonders.

'So, man, we go to the doctor,' he repeated.

'Mr Man, I come,' said Govindan Nair. He sometimes used Mister to show he too could be elegant. He called his son Mr Shridhar. ('Mr Shridhar, go and get me a chew,' 'Mr Shridhar, the thing that father puffs is wanted,' etc. etc. Mr Shridhar therefore brought the chew tobacco or that which father puffs, according to orders.)”
― Raja Rao, The Cat and Shakespeare: A Tale of Modern India

“KANTHAPURA”
― Raja Rao, Kanthapura

“And the police got nervous and they began to kick us in our backs and stomachs, and the crowd shouted 'Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!' and someone took a kerosene tin and began to beat it, and someone took a cattle-bell and began to ring it, and they cried, 'With them, brothers, with them!' and they leaped and they ducked and they came down to lie beside us, and we shouted 'Mahatma Gandhi ki jai! Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!”
― Raja Rao, Kanthapura

“O fire, O soul
Give us the spark of God-eternal,
That friend to friend and friend to foe,
One shall we stand before HIM.

And the flame of Jatin,
And the fire of Bhagath,
And the love of the Mahatma in all,
O, lift the flag high,
Lift the flag high,
This is the flag of the Revolution.”
― Raja Rao, Kanthapura

“Seenu rang the gong, and the eyes shut themselves in silence, and the brahmin heart and the weaver heart and pariah heart seemed to beat the one beat of Siva dancing”
― Raja Rao, Kanthapura