Arun > Recent Status Updates

So far it seems like a much better account of the partition, taking only the side of the people who suffered instead of expressing a clear bias for or against leaders, compared to Freedom at Midnight which appeared like a paean to the poor Mountbatten (and other Britishers, including Radcliffe) who only had good intentions and had no responsibility for the carnage that followed the British haste.

“Purpose, then, may be called either a reason that desires or a desire that reasons; and this faculty of originating actions constitutes a man.” Brilliant!

Alternating between "ah this is an original and timeless way to think about something truly fundamental that we take for granted" and "what random ramble is this dude going on about", fortunately tilted towards the former.

“What you say is true, that if there are no papers, there’s no person. I have no papers, so there’s precisely no me.”

"I cannot escape from here, not because it's high up, but because I have nowhere to escape to... So, here we sit."

How much can a simple sentence sometimes convey!

Delhi in the 18th century appears to have had a terrible fortune with multiple rounds of destruction and plunder, starting with Nader Shah's invasion. Somehow the city remained resilient.

This is beautifully written. If Gabriel Garcia Marquez were to write a travel memoir, this is what it would perhaps look like.