Hammad Hassan

“If you’ll pardon me for making this somewhat prosaic observation – maybe that’s what life is, or ends up being most of the time: a rehearsal for a performance that never eventually materializes.”
― Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

“She knew very well that she knew very well that she knew very well.”
― Arundhati Roy, Ministry of Utmost Happiness

“She could hear her hair growing. It sounded like something crumbling. A burnt thing crumbling. Coal. Toast. Moths crisped on a light bulb. She remembered reading somewhere that even after people died, their hair and nails kept growing. Like starlight, travelling through the universe long after the stars themselves had died. Like cities. Fizzy, effervescent, simulating the illusion of life while the planet they had plundered died around them.”
― Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

“She wondered how to un-know certain things, certain specific things that she knew but did not wish to know. How to un-know, for example, that when people died of stone-dust, their lungs refused to be cremated.”
― Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness