BG

“Our gods are too busy to hear our prayers, but ghosts - ghosts have nothing to do but wait and wander, wander and wait, and they are always listening to our words because they are bored and that‘s one way to pass the time.”
― Deepa Anappara, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line

“You can'ŧ get to know people after they're gone. All you have are memories, moments, and that doesn't make a whole person.”
― Catriona Ward, Looking Glass Sound

“We believe djinns moved into this palace around the time our las kings died, their hearts broken by the crooked victories of white men who claimed to be our rulers. No one knows where the djinns came from, if Allah-Ta'ala sent them, or if they were summoned here by the feverish utterances of the devout. They have been here for so long, they must watched the walls of this palace crumble, the pillars soften with moss and creepers, and pythons slither over cracked stones like dreams wavering in the light of dawn. Every year they must feel the wind trembling the champa trees in the garden, shearing flowers as fragrant as vials of attar.”
― Deepa Anappara, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line

“The poem wants to know why the moon is sliced in half on some days and why it‘s a circle in other days. The worst thing about the poem is that it doesn‘t answer it‘s own question.”
― Deepa Anappara, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line