Gondwana Quotes

“In India an explanation is often more confusing than what prompted it.”
― Tahir Shah, Beyond the Devil's Teeth : Journeys in Gondwanaland

“The ancient paused for a moment, as if his strength were failing. Yet I sensed that there was more to tell. Looking deep into my eyes, he whispered:
'The Gond kingdoms have fallen, their people live dispersed in poverty: the teak trees and the jungles have been cleared... but the importance of the Gonds must not be forgotten!”
― Tahir Shah, Beyond the Devil's Teeth : Journeys in Gondwanaland

“Back at the Chateau Windsor there was a rat-like scratching at the door of my room. Vinod, the youngest servant, came in with a soda water. He placed it next to the bag of toffees. Then he watched me read. I was used to being observed reading. Sometimes the room would fill like a railway station at rush hour and I would be expected to cure widespread boredom.”
― Tahir Shah, Beyond the Devil's Teeth : Journeys in Gondwanaland

“Foras Road has a sordid reputation (…) Old crones sat in doorways, while their daughters were pushed out to earn money. It is intriguing that a society which is very covert with sexuality should be so straightforward about prostitution.”
― Tahir Shah, Beyond the Devil's Teeth : Journeys in Gondwanaland

“Osman and Prideep had been in my employment for some weeks. Every Friday I would take the to lunch. It was the high point of their calender. During the meal I would harangue them as a reminder of what they had been hired for: but my orations never seemed to increase their output. I realised later that, in the East, a commitment to produce does not automatically accompany employment.”
― Tahir Shah, Beyond the Devil's Teeth : Journeys in Gondwanaland

“Prideep pointed to the flames of paraffin lamps as they came alive in the distance and cackled in awe at the experience. (…) I was to discover that making tasty soup with one carrot, ten peas and a little dishwater, was his greatest skill. One wondered what the man would be capable of creating with a blender and a non-stick frying-pan.”
― Tahir Shah, Beyond the Devil's Teeth : Journeys in Gondwanaland

“There are lands of the imagination that cannot exist, but seem real; and there are lands that once existed that somehow seem remote and hard to credit. Perhaps their comparative solidity depends on the hand of a skilled writer. Who can doubt the reality of the countries beyond the sea that Jonathan Swift peopled so skilfully for his hero Lemuel Gulliver to visit, not merely to stimulate the imagination, but as a ruse to illustrate human frailties: puffed up and monstrous in Brobdignag, or shrunk in Lilliput to petty proportions to match the triviality of their concerns? Yet to travel back in time to the land of the Gonds - Gondwana - or to try to grasp the reality of Pangaea 250 million years ago seems to require a greater leap of imagination. But these places existed, as solid as Africa is today.”
― Richard Fortey, Earth: An Intimate History