Vivek Shanbhag > Quotes

“it’s not we who control money, it’s the money that controls us. When there’s only a little, it behaves meekly; when it grows, it becomes brash and has its way with us.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“When you have no choice, you have no discontent either.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“Words, after all, are nothing by themselves. They burst into meaning only in the minds they’ve entered.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“On that day I became convinced that it is the words of women that deeply wound other women.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“Language communicates in terms of what is already know; it chokes up when asked to deal with entirely unprecedented.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“The well-being of any household rests on selective acts of blindness and deafness.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“That single moment's intensity hasn't been matched in my life before or since. A woman I didn't know had chosen to accept me, in body and mind. Perhaps it is this instant that forms the basis of traditional marriage—a complete stranger is suddenly mine. And then, I am hers, too; I must offer her my all. I want her to wield her power over me as an acknowledgment of my love. The rush of those feelings all at once is too much to describe. Language communicates in terms of what is already known; it chokes up when asked to deal with the entirely unprecedented.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“Ours is a joint family. We live in the same house - my wife and I, my parents, my uncle and Malati. Malati is my older sister, back home now after having left her husband. It is natural to wonder, I suppose, why the six of us should want to live together. What can I say - it is one of the strengths of families to pretend that they desire what is unavoidable.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“Words after all are nothing by themselves. They burst into meaning only in the minds they’ve entered.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“Silence descended on the house. [....] Amma must have sensed that this was the sort of silence that, left unchallenged, could consume the family from within.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“I believe the essence of translation lies in taking what is unsaid in a work from one language to another. Words have memories, a history of their own. There are no two words with exactly the same meaning. To recreate the unspoken in another language, one needs to understand what went into making the original; then one must dismantle it and rebuild it in the other language.”
― Vivek Shanbhag

“Words after all are nothing by themselves.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“Amma and i went to each house to tell them we were leaving. They all said, 'Don't forget us. Keep visiting.' At the age I was then, this seemed absurd. i had grown up among them - how was it even possible to forget these people? Now I see what they meant.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“what agent of death is as discreet as words?”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“Cakes as good as the coins they cost.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“If we wanted new clothes, we knew exactly how much he could spare and what cuts would have to be made elsewhere. The result was that we simply did not desire what we couldn't afford. When you have no choice, you have no discontent, either.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“Appa enjoys our current prosperity with considerable hesitation, as if it were undeserved. He’s given to quoting a proverb that says wealth shouldn’t strike suddenly like a visitation, but instead grow gradually like a tree.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“the last strands of a relationship can break from a single glance or a moment of silence.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“the sword of insult seldom cuts on the surface. No, it lacerates from within and leaves wounds that reopen with remembrance.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“It’s true what they say – it’s not we who control money, it’s the money that controls us. When there’s only a little, it behaves meekly; when it grows, it becomes brash and has its way with us.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“We were thrown off balance by her love for one of us, and so we tore into her with such vengeance that she collapsed to the ground, sobbing.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“If we wanted new clothes, we knew exactly how much he could spare and what cuts would have robe made elsewhere. The result was that we simply did not desire what we couldn't afford. When you have no choice, you have no discontent, either.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“The result was that we simply did not desire what we couldn’t afford. When you have no choice, you have no discontent either.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“It's true what they say- it's not we who control money, it's the money that controls us. When there's only a little, it behaves meekly; when it grows, it becomes brash and has its way with us.
-Ghachar Ghochar”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“Now, unlike rats and cats, ants don't make things fall in the night and wake people up. I can only imagine the clamour they must have created in her mind.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“Sir, you may want to wash your hand. There's blood on it.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“We had no compunction toward our enemies [the ants] and took to increasingly desperate and violent means of dealing with them. If we noticed they'd laid siege to a snack, we might trap them in a circle drawn with water and take away whatever they were eating, then watch them scurry about in confusion before wiping them off the floor with a wet cloth. I took pleasure in seeing them shrivel into black points when burning coals were rolled over them. When they attacked an unwashed pan or cup they'd soon be mercilessly drowned. I suppose initially each of us did these things only when we were alone, but in time, we began to be openly cruel. We came around to Amma's view of them as demons come to swallow our home and became a family that took pleasure in their destruction. We might have changed houses since, but habits are harder to change.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“Now, let me not give the impression here that I believe in the supernatural - I don't. But then neither do I go hunting for a rational basis for everything that happens.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“Don’t forget us. Keep visiting.’ At the age I was then, this seemed absurd. I had grown up among them – how was it even possible to forget these people? Now I see what they meant.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

“On that day I became convinced that it is the words of women that wound other women most deeply.”
― Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar