Nishit

“And then Em too would die and I would be alone and the whole world would be different. I had no idea how, but it would, because I would finally have space to myself and then I could exercise the choice to do as I pleased and when I pleased instead of waiting for a stolen moment in the busy life of this 1BHK.
And now the world expanded as people left the flat. As we opened the door together, I discovered departures make the world smaller, slighter, less significant.”
― Jerry Pinto, Em and The Big Hoom

“At this point I realised what it meant to be a man in India. It meant knowing what one could do and knowing what one could only get done. It meant being able to hold onto two patterns simultaneously. One was methodical, hierarchical, regulated and the outcome depended on fate, chance, kings and desperate men. The other was intuitive, illicit and guaranteed. The trick was to know when to shift between the patterns, to peel the file off a table and give it to a peon, to speak easily of one's cousin the minister or archbishop. I did not think I would ever know what these shifts entailed, and that meant, in essence, that I was never going to grow up.”
― Jerry Pinto, Em and The Big Hoom

“And yet it seems so full of comfort and of strength, the night. In its great presence, our small sorrows creep away, ashamed. The day has been so full of fret and care, and our hearts have been so full of evil and bitter thoughts, and the world has seemed so hard and wrong to us. Then Night, like some great loving mother, gently lays her hand upon our fevered head, and turns our little tear-stained faced up to hers, and smiles; and, though she does not speak, we know what she would say, and lay our hot flushed cheek against her bosom, and the pain is gone.”
― Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat

“She loved Em and she thought that should be enough. It wasn't. Love is never enough. Madness is enough. It is complete, sufficient unto itself. You can only stand outside it, as a woman might stand outside a prison in which her lover is locked up. From time to time, a well-loved face will peer out and love floods back. A scrap of cloth flutters and it becomes a sign and a code and a message and all that you want it to be. Then it vanishes and you are outside the dark tower again. At times, when I was young, I wanted to be inside the tower so I could understand what it was like. But I knew, even then, that I did not want to be a permanent resident of the tower. I wanted to visit and even visiting meant nothing because you could always leave. You're a tourist; she's a resident.”
― Jerry Pinto, Em and The Big Hoom