Indian American Quotes

“I don't put much stock in remembering things. Being able to forget is a superior skill.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Before We Visit the Goddess

“What is the nature of life?
Life is lines of dominoes falling.
One thing leads to another, and then another, just like you'd planned. But suddenly a Domino gets skewed, events change direction, people dig in their heels, and you're faced with a situation that you didn't see coming, you who thought you were so clever.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Before We Visit the Goddess

“Ebb and flow, ebb and flow, our lives. Is that why we're fascinated by the steadfastness of stars? The water reaches my calves. I begin the story of the Pleiades, women transformed into birds so Swift and bright that no man could snare them.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Before We Visit the Goddess

“She lifts her eyes, and there is Death in the corner, but not like a king with his iron crown, as the epics claimed. Why, it is a giant brush loaded with white paint. It descends upon her with gentle suddenness, obliterating the shape of the world.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Before We Visit the Goddess

“Bela had thought she knew what love felt like, but when she saw Sanjay at the airport after six long months, her heart gave a great, hurtful lurch, as though it were trying to leap out of her body to meet him. This, she thought. This is it. But it was only part of the truth. She would learn over the next years that love can feel a lot of different ways, and sometimes it can hurt a lot more.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Before We Visit the Goddess

“My mother clutches at the collar of my shirt. I rub her back and feel her tears on my neck. It's been decades since our bodies have been this close. It's an odd sensation, like a torn ligament knitting itself back, lumpy and imperfect, usable as long as we know not to push it too hard.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Before We Visit the Goddess

“But inside loss there can be gain, too,like the small silver spider Bela had discovered one dewy morning, curled asleep at the center of a rose.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Before We Visit the Goddess

“....though he hated to admit it, they were all Anglophiles. They were a family of Anglophiles. Pointed in the wrong direction, trapped outside their own history and unable to retrace their steps because their footprints had been swept away. He explained to them that history was like an old house at night. With all the lamps lit. And ancestors whispering inside.

"To understand history," Chacko said, "we have to go inside and listen to what they're saying. And look at the books and the pictures on the wall. And smell the smells."...

..."But we can't go in," Chacko explained, "because we've been locked out. And when we look in through the windows, all we see are shadows. And when we try and listen, all we hear is a whispering. And we cannot understand the whispering, because our minds have been invaded by war. A war that we have won and lost. The very worst sort of war. A war that captures dreams and re-dreams them. A war that has made us adore our conquerors and despise ourselves.”
― Arundhati Roy

“As the conference continued it occurred to me finally that it wasn't really about Indian history as it was written, but really about rewriting it by taking a fresh look at race, ethnicity, gender, and a mix of sociocultural questions...

I just couldn't believe how far along the desi scene was, not just socially but intellectually, how many people were out there thinking about it. This whole event so far rocked my world, muddled me still more, and delivered a series of tiny epiphanies, all at the same time. To be honest, I was quite intimidated by the dialogue going on, as well as by the passion and conviction of these people on so many subjects which I, frankly, had never really even thought about.

...A history of a people in transit -- what could that be card catalogued under? And the history of the ABCD. Everyone seemed to know about this ABCD thing -- that didn't seem very confused to me! And it was a relatively new phenomenon; it had never occurred to me that things going on now could have a history already. The moments that made up my life in the present tense seemed so fleetingly urgent and self-contained to me: I'd always felt my life had very little to do with my parents' and especially their parents' histories...and that it would have very little effect on anything to come.

But the way these people were talking -- about desis in Hollywood; South Asian Studies departments; the relatively new Asian Indian slot on the census -- was hummingly sculpting the air, as if they were making history as they spoke. Making it, messily but surely, even simply by speaking. I was feeling it, too -- a sense of history in the making. But where did I fit in to any of it?

And how come no one had told me?”
― Tanuja Desai Hidier, Born Confused

“American Born Confused Desi Emigrated From Gujarat House In Jersey Keeping Lotsa Motels Named Omkarnath Patel Quickly Reaching Success Through Underhanded Vicious Ways Xenophobic Yet Zestful.

or

American Born Confused Desi Emigrated from Gujarat House In Jersey Kids Learning Medicine Now Owning Property Quite Reasonable Salary Two Uncles Visiting White Xenophobia Yet Zestful

Now you know your ABCDs.”
― Tanuja Desai Hidier, Born Confused

“You see,' Gwyn said slowly...'With an Indian boy maybe you can, you know, explore all that stuff. Go kamasutronic, so to speak.'

I nodded, but I was feeling battle fatigue and was now thinking the tip of another thought: Or maybe an Indian boy would get that most of us don't know that stuff. That it was a lot of hype. It was the bindi blondes who were all over this scene, not the holelessly nosed Indian girls.”
― Tanuja Desai Hidier, Born Confused

“I knew they were my people, but it didn't feel like it. I was pushing against any first-generation narrative, while all the people in that area were seemingly proud of it. Aunties wore salwars to go grocery shopping, and little kids had those silver or gold bangles we were all given at birth...We were different from them, and I was determined to keep us different. Every piece of gold jewelry ever given to me was hidden in my dresser; I refused to wear any of it, because it made me feel I was being marked as an Other. (I now wear all of it, sometimes at the same time, a signal to other Others that I'm an Other too.)”
― Scaachi Koul, One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter

“If India fails in diversity, so will the world.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Amantes Assemble: 100 Sonnets of Servant Sultans