Pradeep E

“Because in real life, unlike in history books, stories come to us not in their entirety but in bits and pieces, broken segments and partial echoes, a full sentence here, a fragment there, a clue hidden in between. in life, unlike in books, we have to weave our stories out of threads as fine as the gossamer veins that run through a butterfly's wings.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Modern Bombay, in a sense, has its genesis in the poppy fields of Bihar.”
― Amitav Ghosh, Smoke and Ashes: A Writer's Journey through Opium's Hidden Histories

“A map is a two-dimensional representation with arbitrary symbols and incised lines that decide who is to be our enemy and who is to be our friend, who deserves our love and who deserves our hatred and who, our sheer indifference. Cartography is another name for stories told by winners. For stories told by those who have lost, there isn’t one.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Words are powerful, and they have the capacity to normalise hate. To call a human being illegal is not only racist and inaccurate, but also dehumanising. No human being is illegal. Existing is not illegal.”
― Suchitra Vijayan, Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India