Neda

“A woman’s child died. She was very sad and crying, all the time. She went to the Buddha and said, “Buddha, Buddha, please bring my son back to life.” And she was crying, crying. So the Buddha said to her, “Go bring me some mustard seeds from a house in which there has been no death ever and I’ll bring your son alive.” So the woman went around from house to house, begging for mustard seeds, crying. But she couldn’t find a single house in which there hadn’t been a death. For days she went looking and crying but no one could give her those seeds. So she returned to the Buddha, fell at his feet and said, ‘I couldn’t find the mustard seeds. Every house I went to has had a death in it. What will happen now?’ The Buddha said, ‘I asked you to do the impossible. Every mortal is marked by death. No one can escape it. That is why you couldn’t find a death-free home. This was my lesson to you –death is universal, all of us have to die.”
― Neel Mukherjee, The Lives of Others

“In time-honoured fashion, this is really the eldest daughter-in-law’s investiture as the earthly, domestic symbol of the goddess. It is she who channels Lakshmi’s blessings on the family. In her is vested, by an understanding of priestly transference, the household’s economic prosperity, well-being and harmonious daily life. Beside it, her other daily chores as eldest daughter-in-law –supervising the cook and cleaners and servants and household accounts, caring for her elderly parents-in-law, looking after their meals and medication, deciding which tasks can be ceded to the wives of her three brothers-in-law, keeping a family of twenty (including the servants) ticking over without hiccups or mishaps –all these appear as milk-and-rice, as uncomplicated, bland and digestible as infant fare.”
― Neel Mukherjee, The Lives of Others

“اما انسان همین‌که عادت کرد، روزگارش بی‌دردسر می‌گذرد.”
― Albert Camus, The Plague

“دانایی گریز از تنهایی است.”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays