Aastha

“...in autobiography, as in all literature, what actually happened is less important than what the author can manage to persuade his audience to believe”
― Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children

“Sometime I wonder if I’m impersonating him all the time. The day he died I took over. I sat in his chair, I wore his slippers, I fell into his favoured mannerisms. I lay curled up on his side as he did. I began believing everything he believed. I even took on his style of failure. It was though I wished his responsibility for all his omissions and pay the price he would, imagining that this might subtract the from the sum of his failure.”
― Neelum Saran Gour, Winter Companions and Other Stories

“My friend, RD, is alone, Israr Mian, and has no one remember him or write to him. I propose to remember him, even if Allah in his wisdom should send me immediate intimation of promotion and transfer.”
― Neelum Saran Gour, Winter Companions and Other Stories

“If I seem a little bizarre, remember the wild profusion of my inheritance...perhaps, if one wishes to remain an individual in the midst of the teeming multitudes, one must make oneself grotesque.”
― Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children