short-story-writers-from-india

"Women are often harder on women than men are. They step into the shoes of men and adopt their own strategies to oppress women… like how senior convicts become supervisors of other convicts."

"If you were to build the world again, to create males and females again, do not be like an inexperienced potter. Come to earth as a woman, Prabhu! Be a woman once, oh Lord!"

"My stories are about women – how religion, society, and politics demand unquestioning obedience from them, and in doing so, inflict inhumane cruelty upon them, turning them into mere subordinates."

"Material things had become priceless, and human beings worthless. Behind those material possessions, people's feelings were on sale. Things decided the relationships between small people with big shadows. A fridge had the capacity to change the life of a young bride. The different colours it came in could play Holi on her young dreams. Such possessions held a prominent spot not only in the house, but also in making life decisions. People were running, having tossed their worthiness and their relationships into the air."

"In a world that often tries to divide us, literature remains one of the last sacred spaces where we can live inside each other's minds, if only for a few pages."

"Our culture teaches us, whether it be Hindu or Muslim or Christian or whether it may be Kannadiga or Tamil or Malayali, the culture of human beings, the culture of neighbourhood. So we are Muslims, and if there was a feast the female elders of the family would bring a plate of sweets, coconut, prawn, flowers, everything to share with our neighbours, who were vegetarian [...] And they would invite us for their feasts. And this culture of coexistence is there even today. The fabric seems to be tarnished, but it remains there. So, there is no question of othering. There is a question of only inclusiveness."

"I have also been writing about how the media often misrepresents Muslims. I once saw a misleading photo of an elderly man garlanded by a young girl, implying child marriage. But in reality, it was a photo of a Quran teacher and his student after she completed her Quranic studies―a tradition where the teacher is honoured with garlands and gifts. Misrepresentation like this damages perceptions deeply."

"Isn’t he a man? Whether he is there, not there, whether he carries responsibilities, whether he neglects them, who's going to ask? Who does he have to answer to? He is langoti yaar, after all, a man, everybody's best friend. His past does not rise up to dance in public. The present doesn't touch him. The future doesn't move him, nor is it a mystery. He does not have to remain shyly in the shadows. He does not have to say who he belongs to. He does not need to seek forgiveness, not ever at all, because nothing he does is a mistake."

"Shiva struggled out of Raje’s embrace and said, ‘Raje, there are many people who cry when someone dies. But very few who are willing to cry for a living person. Maharaj, you are shedding tears for someone like me. What more can I ask for? I am willing to give my life for each one of your tears. Don’t weep for me.’"

"Raje hugged Shiva tightly and did not say a word. His tears drenched Shiva’s shoulders. Raje said, ‘Shiva, I hate what I must do. I have to sacrifice people like you at each step. You are willing to embrace death for me, and here I am, putting earrings on you! What will I get finally? What an irony!’"

"Rice shouldn’t be such a luxury, should it? It shouldn’t even be something to ask for…But how do I…?"

"The Mississippi and its paddle boats, and the rivers of Bengal and their gleaming steamers evoked a similar atmosphere of romance, of long, song-filled voyages, high winds and lonely sunsets."

"How as a young girl, Ismat Chugtai convinced her father to excuse her from learning how to cook, and give her instead the opportunity to go to school and get an education: “Women cook food Ismat. When you go to your in-laws what will you feed them?” he asked gently after the crisis was explained to him. “If my husband is poor, then we will make khichdi and eat it and if he is rich, we will hire a cook,” I answered. My father realised his daughter was a terror and that there wasn’t a thing he could do about it."

"She sat quietly in one corner of the sofa, the end of her sari drawn modestly over her hair. Like the motionless illusion of a madly spinning top, she was staring vacantly into space."

"Come the rains and the beerbahutis appeared all over the green. From where do they emerge, so perfect in shape and colour, and where do they go?"

"All round me are words, and words and words, They grow on me like leaves, they never Seem to stop their slow growing From within... But I tell my self, words Are a nuisance, beware of them, they Can be so many things, a Chasm where running feet must pause, to Look, a sea with paralyzing waves, A blast of burning air or, A knife most willing to cut your best Friend's throat... Words are a nuisance, but. They grow on me like leaves on a tree, They never seem to stop their coming, From a silence, somewhere deep within..."

"Getting a man to love you is easy Only be honest about your wants as Woman. Stand nude before the glass with him So that he sees himself the stronger one And believes it so, and you so much more Softer, younger, lovelier. Admit your Admiration. Gift him all, Gift him what makes you woman, the scent of Long hair, the musk of sweat between the breasts, The warm shock of menstrual blood, and all your Endless female hungers. Oh yes, getting A man to love is easy, but living Without him afterwards may have to be Faced."

"I am fed up with the Congress. I am beginning to prefer the BJP to the Congress, because the Congress is now more communal than the BJP, despite Ram Janmabhoomi. It is the Congress which evolved the Muslim votebank. ... In comparison, I prefer the BJP as an alternative, because it is less corrupt. The BJP at least loves the country. But I wish the BJP does not stress redundant issues like the Ram Janmabhoomi or other places of worship."

"It is I who drink lonely Drinks at twelve, midnight, in hotels of strange towns, It is I who laugh, it is I who make love And then, feel shame, it is I who lie dying With a rattle in my throat. I am sinner, I am saint. I am the beloved and the Betrayed. I have no joys that are not yours, no Aches which are not yours. I too call myself I."

"You didn't ever love him, but you were sentimental about him."

"Like other women writers of my class, I am expected to tame my talent to suit the comfort of my family."

"If wrappings of cloth can impart respectability, the most respectable persons are the Egyptian mummies, all wrapped in layers and layers of gauze."

"I fell in love with a Muslim after my husband's death. He was kind and generous in the beginning. But I now feel one shouldn't change one's religion. It is not worth it. Also, I have been accused of being feminist. I am not a feminist, as it is understood. I don't hate men. I feel a woman is most attractive when she surrenders to her man. She is incomplete without a man."

"At sunset, on the river ban, Krishna Loved her for the last time and left. . . That night in her husband's arms, Radha felt So dead that he asked, What is wrong, Do you mind my kisses, love? And she said, Not not at all, but thought, What is It to the corpse if the maggots nip?"

"I am sinner, I am saint. I am the beloved and the betrayed. I have no joys that are not yours, no aches which are not yours. I too call myself I."

"A book is a good substitute for a man. Fiction, preferably."

"Wipe out the paints, unmould the clay, Let nothing remain of that yesterday."

"Love knows everything."

"Sri Seshadri has cited the advice which Sarat Chandra Chatterjee had tendered to his people. He had written as follows in October, 1926: “Hindustan is the land of the Hindus. It is, therefore, the duty of the Hindus alone to liberate it from the shackles of foreign domination. Muslims are sitting with their faces turned towards Arabia or Turkey. Their heart is not in the land of Hindustan. But when it is not there, it is no use lamenting over it. We need not be unnerved by counting the heads of Muslims. Numbers are not the supreme truth in the world… In freedom’s battle in any country, do all the people of that country take part? When the Americans fought for their freedom, more than half the people of that country were with the British. In the Irish freedom struggle, how many were actually involved in it?… Right or wrong is not decided by the counting of heads. It is decided by the intensity of tapasya or the single-minded devotion to the cause. The problem before the Hindus is not to devise ways and means of bringing about an artificial unity. The problem before them in how to organise themselves.”"

"They [Muslims] were not satisfied merely with looting, they destroyed temples, they demolished idols, they raped women.... ‘All that we [the passive Hindu] do is compile lists of all instances of their cruelty, oppressiveness and hostility towards us and all we ever say is this: “You have killed us, you have broken our idols and kidnapped our women. In this you have been very unjust, and have caused us great pain. We cannot continue to live like this.” Do we ever say more than this, or do more than this?’ .... ‘I ask you this – can our country be freed by fraud?"

"If we go by the lessons of history we have to accept that the goal of Hindu-Muslim unity is a mirage. When Muslims first entered India, they looted the country, destroyed the temples, broke the idols, raped the women and heaped innumberable indignities on the people of this country. Today it appears that such noxious behaviour has entered the bone-marrow of Muslims. Unity can be achieved among equals. In view of the big gap between the cultural level of Hindus and Muslims which can hardly be bridged, I am of the view that Hindu-Muslim unity which could not be achieved during the last thousand years will not materialise during the ensuing thousand years. If we are to drive away the English people depending upon this elusive capital of Hindu-Muslim unity, I would rather advise its postponement."

"Love that is not madness is not love."

"The most authentic and penetrating of Premchand’s portrayals center around village life. This was a life he knew intimately , since he had grown up in a village. Then as a teacher, and later an inspector of schools, he travelled extensively through the villages of eastern Uttar Pradesh."

"Through his writings he attacked and exposed many social evils of his time. In one of his earlier published in 1907 in Hindi, Prema, he describes the plight of child widows ostracized by Hindu society. The hero of the novel marries the child-widow Prema . Premchand himself flouted tradition, when at about this time he chose to marry a child widow. Shivrani devi, refusing the dowry he could easily have asked and obtained."

"Like the great Indian writers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as Rabindrnath Tagore and Bankin Chandra Chatterjee in Bengal, and Subramanya Bharati in Tamil nadu, premchand’s work was fired by a sense of intense nationalism, but he did not live long enough to see his country gain freedom."

"Premchand wanted more than just political freedom for his country. he wanted greater social and economic justice. He wrote in one of his short stories, he said, “We are fighting for more than freedom- to reduce oppression, to raise culture, clean homes, smiling children, enlightened universities, honest law courts."

"If ever anyone did something which might provoke communal sentiments, Premchand not only put down the incident but endeavoured to eradicate the very basis of such differences. Considerations of high and low, Hindu and Muslim, and untouchability were all anathema to him."

"Premachnad was always man of the people, a man of the soil. He spoke for country’s poor, not just the poor of his native state.With his powerful pen, he painted picture after picture of rural India, its largely static societt, its caste clashes as well its communal harmony, its poverty and its exploitation, as well as richness of character of so many of its people."

"Premchand’s stories have a mixed legacy. Seen from a contemporary view point it is easy to see his ideal of womanhood the basis for women’s continued subordination withing the patriarchal family."

"A man's worth is not measured by his wealth but by his character and deeds."

"Also Premchand can not be seen in isolation. He has to be placed in the colonial dispensation (that aimed, besides political subjugation at cultural conquest as part of its imperialist design) was integral in Premchand’s writings. Any viable reaction to this confrontation had to have a differential mix of both the new and the old."

"Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right?"

"Does being a man make all things forgivable and being a woman all things unforgivable?"

"It is the duty of a writer to protect and argue in favour of those who are oppressed, sufferers, whether an individual or a group deprived."

"The rich never go hungry, but the poor are always starving. This is the real tragedy of our society."

"Nervous like a knife, he cuts clear through hypocrisy and falsehood."

"The future belongs to the peasants and workers...India cannot remain unaffected by these winds of change...Who had suspected before the Resolution the tremendous might of the exploited peoples of Russia."

"In another novel titled Suhag ka Shav quoted in page=93"

"If a woman does not get love in her life, it is better for her to die."

"What greatness do I have that I have to tell anyone about? I live just like millions of people in this country; I am ordinary. My life is also ordinary. I am a poor school teacher suffering family travails. During my whole lifetime, I have been grinding away with the hope that I could become free of my sufferings. But I have not been able to free myself from suffering. What is so special about this life that needs to be told to anybody?"