Mukul Bhatnagar

“If Pakistani cities were caricatures, most would be easy to draw. Lahore is corpulent and languid, stretched out in a shalwar kameez, twirling its moustache over a greasy breakfast. Islamabad cuts a more clipped figure, holding court in a gilded drawing room, proffering Scotch and political whispers. Peshawar wears a turban or a burka, scuttling among the stalls of an ancient bazaar. But Karachi is harder to sketch. It has too many faces: the shiny-shod businessman, rushing to the gym; the hardscrabble labourer who sends his wages to a distant village; the slinky young socialite, kicking off her heels as she bends over a line of cocaine.”
― Declan Walsh, The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State

“A government that has intelligence system that ensures a surprise does not become a surprise will be successful in securing its people and the nation.”
― Vikram Sood, The Unending Game: A Former R&AW Chief’s Insights into Espionage

“London is often confused with England. The English also live in London but they are only one of the communities which inhabit a true world city.”
― M.J. Akbar, Have Pen, Will Travel: Observations of a Globetrotter

“It hurts to see what civilization has done to reduce (within 100km) a princess to the status of a rag picker and make smiling nymph of nature a toothless old crone.”
― Bill Aitken, Seven Sacred Rivers