Tejas Harad

“Gardizi mentions the seven divisions of Indian society, almost echoing Megasthenes who had visited India in the fourth century BC in the Mauryan period. Unlike Megasthenes, this account refers to two divisions at the lowest social level, that of the Chandala and the Domb. And, echoing the description of Fa Hsien who came to India in Gupta times, he states that the Chandala have to announce their presence by striking wooden clappers, so that the ‘pure’ castes could keep at a distance from them. In the description of religion, apart from the names of various deities, there is some attempt to describe avataras, the doctrine of karma, and the nature of the divine.”
― Romila Thapar, Somanatha

“You can cry in public as long as you don not sob. Tears are transparent. If you’re walking fast, if the sun’s too strong, no one notices. Sobs intrude. They push their way into people’s consciousness. They feel duty-bound to ask what has happened.”
― Jerry Pinto, Em and The Big Hoom

“When we were young, we understood all sweet things; and we could detect the sweets of a fairy story by an unerring science of our own. We never cared for such useless things as knowledge. We only cared for truth.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore

“There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.”
― Arundhati Roy