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I Grew Up, As Many Indians Do, In An Archipelago Of Tongues. My Maternal Grandfather, Who Was A Surgeon In The City Of Madras, Was Fluent In At Least Four Languages And Used Each Of Them Daily.

-Aravind Adiga

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I Grew Up, As

Aravind Adiga

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I Grew Up, As Many Indians Do, In An Archipelago Of Tongues. My Maternal Grandfather, Who Was A Surgeon In The City Of Madras, Was Fluent In At Least Four Languages And Used Each Of Them Daily.

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These Are The Three Main Diseases Of This Country, Sir: Typhoid, Cholera, And Election Fever. This Last One Is The Worst; It Makes People Talk And Talk About Things That They Have No Say In ... Would They Do It This Time? Would They Beat The Great Socialist And Win The Elections? Had They Raised Enough Money Of Their Own, And Bribed Enough Policemen, And Bought Enough Fingerprints Of Their Own, To Win? Like Eunuchs Discussing The Kama Sutra, The Voters Discuss The Elections In Laxmangarh.

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We Are Made Mysteries To Ourselves By The Rooster Coop We Are Locked In.

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...the Future Of The World Lies With The Yellow Man And The Brown Man Now That Our Erstwhile Master, The White-skinned Man, Has Wasted Himself Through Buggery, Cell Phone Usage, And Drug Abuse

India's Great Economic Boom, The Arrival Of The Internet And Outsourcing, Have Broken The Wall Between Provincial India And The World.

Like Most People Who Live In India, I Complain About Corruption, But Know That I Can Live With Corrupt Men. It Is The Honest Ones I Secretly Worry About.

Here's A Strange Fact: Murder A Man, And You Feel Responsible For His Life - ''possessive'', Even. You Know More About Him Than His Father And Mother; They Knew His Fetus, But You Know His Corpse. Only You Can Complete The Story Of His Life, Only You Know Why His Body Has To Be Pushed Into The Fire Before Its Time, And Why His Toes Curl Up And Fight For Another Hour On Earth.

I Am Not An Original Thinker-but I Am An Original Listener.)

I Grew Up, As Many Indians Do, In An Archipelago Of Tongues. My Maternal Grandfather, Who Was A Surgeon In The City Of Madras, Was Fluent In At Least Four Languages And Used Each Of Them Daily.

An Honest Politician Has No Goodies To Toss Around. This Limits His Effectiveness Profoundly, Because Political Power In India Is Dispersed Throughout A Multi-tiered Federal Structure; A Local Official Who Has Not Been Paid Off Can Sometimes Stop A Billion-dollar Project.

At A Time When India Is Going Through Great Changes And, With China, Is Likely To Inherit The World From The West, It Is Important That Writers Like Me Try To Highlight The Brutal Injustices Of Society.

But Isn't It Likely That Everyone In This World...has Killed Someone Or Other On Their Way To The Top?...all I Wanted Was A Chance To Be A Man--and For That, One Murder Is Enough.

Iqbal, That Great Poet, Was So Right. The Moment You Recognize What Is Beautiful In This World, You Stop Being A Slave. To Hell With The Naxals And Their Guns Shipped From China. If You Taught Every Poor Boy How To Paint, That Would Be The End Of The Rich In India.

A White Tiger Keeps No Friends. It's Too Dangerous.

In Terms Of Formal Education, I May Somewhat Lacking. I Never Finished School. I Am A Self-taught Entrepreneur, That's The Best Kind There Is, Trust Me

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Do We Loathe Our Masters Behind A Facade Of Love - Or Do We Love Them Behind A Facade Of Loathing?

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You Ask 'are You A Man Or A Demon?' Neither, I Say. I Have Woken Up, And The Rest Of You Are Sleeping, And That Is The Only Difference Between Us.

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Go To The Tea Shop Anywhere Along The Ganga, Sir, And Look At The Men Working In That Tea Shop - Men, I Say, But Better To Call Them Human Spiders That Go Crawling In Between And Under The Tables With Rags In Their Hands, Crushed Humans In Crushed Uniforms, Sluggish, Unshaven, In Their Thirties Or Forties Or Fifties But Still "boys." But That Is Your Fate If You Do Your Job Well - With Honesty, Dedication, And Sincerity, The Way Gandhi Would Have Done It, No Doubt.

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Strange Thoughts Brew In Your Heart When You Spend Too Much Time With Old Books

With Their Tinted Windows Up, The Cars Of The Rich Go Like Dark Eggs Down The Roads Of Delhi. Every Now And Then An Egg Will Crack Open A Woman's Hand, Dazzling With Gold Bangles, Stretches Out An Open Window, Flings An Empty Mineral Water Bottle Onto The Road And Then The Window Goes Up, And The Egg Is Resealed.

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