Ashish Khetarpal

“A madman came to me and accused me of killing god. Killing god!
I told him gently that god cannot be killed. He came closer to me, hurling accusations, and I could smell alcohol on his breath. I then told him that the god he
spoke of was in the bottle that he had just emptied, that he had drank down his god, that his god was now inside him.
He was so struck by my words that his lips started to quiver, and his face changed its colour. He moved aside on the pavement and started to prod his uvula to induce vomiting. When he looked at the contents of his regurgitation, he was surprised to see that there was no god, not in the smallest morsels. As his saliva hung from his mouth, he started screaming: “It’s I who have killed god; woe be upon me,” and left the pavement in tears.”
― Ashish Khetarpal, The Watchdog and Other Stories

“Give of your love but let not others take it from you.”
“What is this kind of love?”
“It’s like filling a river and not caring who drinks from it because when need be you’ll fill it again.”
“And what if I wish to drink from someone else’s river?”
“Nazanin-am, my sweetest, we’re all like small rivers and streams, starting at a higher plane from behind the mountains of our desires to be with somebody, and we start alone. A stream, a river, aspires to become something more, and so it must bend, not only its way as it cuts into the land, but also its stature. Only then can it hope to join something bigger, grander. But forget not, azizam, not all rivers reach the ocean. The venerable might of the Indus River–the cradle of our civilization and the catafalque of our neighbours–no longer carries itself to the ocean at the Port of Karachi; the river no longer feeds as it once used to, all because it has fed too many, for too long; it has run dry from overuse. It can no longer take in any more lovers. Before anything else, it must first fill itself again. There’s always some water lying at the depths of the driest land, in the earth’s mantle. This water must come to the surface. The philosophy of all life, as an old Red Indian said, starts with water.”
― Ashish Khetarpal, The Watchdog and Other Stories

“If everything around us today is art, then we must either be blind or we ought to be so.”
― Ashish Khetarpal, The Watchdog and Other Stories

“Often a weak enemy, mindful of his incapacity to reason his way to a truce, starts off by giving a putative warning; and then, without waiting for a white flag, lights the canon. In this manner–and in his heart–he feels much righteous for having carried out things in the most honourable way.”
― Ashish Khetarpal, The Watchdog and Other Stories