Quotes from Sujata Massey

Remember this! It is never an entire people who is cruel; it is merely individuals who exert their will on others.

Crockery broke and fabric frayed. The delicate things I cared about perished, while the hard things like swords survived.

We worship differently, but we are not so far apart in our hearts

She had been meant to die, yet she'd cut her way out of that fate and back to the world she loved.

She turned her attention from Maharani Putlabai to Mirabai. Why was the younger queen on a chair and not a cushion? Perhaps it was a statement of her middling position—that she was not high enough for the zenana throne, but she was respected enough not to be somewhat elevated.

The boundaries communities drew around themselves seemed to narrow their lives—whether it was women and men, Hindus and Muslims, or Parsis and everyone else.

But before the friends settled on a wrought-iron bench with distance from others, they stopped to buy their kulfi. Alice took pistachio, and Perveen had plain cardamom. There was a brief squabble about paying the vendor, which Perveen won. The cold, sweet ice cream was a most comforting taste after all the tension of the day.

It was an odd habit, I thought, this insistence on driving a car in cities with public transportation.

Is this idea of yours to help the Cuttingmasters, or is it really to advance your career?" With a knowing smile, she said, "Is there any reason I can't do both? That is what you have been doing all your life. Ambition is not a dirty word for men.

No. I am retired from the post office for the last ten years. Most afternoons, it is my daily routine to arrive at three and leave at six." "Your routine seems very pleasant." Perveen imagined what her life might be like when she was alone and in her seventies.

She was taking her own liberties with him. Was this liberation?

She'd started out the morning hating all young men. Then she'd become so angry with her law professor that she'd quit school. Finally, she'd gone to eat rice with a man she didn't know.

There was a rhythm to the process. First, a pot of equal parts water and milk was put on the hob. To this, Camellia added a few spoons of Assamese tea, two slices of ginger, and a fistful of fresh lemongrass leaves and mint. After arriving at a gentle boil, a tablespoon of sugar went in, and the brew cooked for five minutes.

I don't think much of such plants as medicine. Dr. Andrews's face was disapproving. Every plant grows differently. One cannot control for strength of dosage.

don't know that word you use. Your body is shedding the dirtiest blood and dead eggs. This attracts Ahriman.

But her sweet-tooth daughter isn't as lucky. She drank falooda mixed with morphine.

Perveen's voice shook at the indignity. Ever since she'd arrived in Calcutta, all kinds of sly comments had been made about decadent, rich Parsis of Bombay. Any question about her family made her react violently.

The Sodawallas had allowed Cyrus to marry her not because they recognized his love—but because of her family's money.

But she and Cyrus had had a love for the ages. They had connected so beautifully, with both understanding and passion. But now what did she have to show for the marriage? A husband who thought she was shrewish. The gonorrhea infection

the Indian-born Zoroastrians. Although Parsis accounted for just 6 percent of Bombay's total inhabitants, they constituted one-third of its lawyers.

Her father had thought it too much to throw in the faces of clients who needed a gentle introduction to the prospect of female representation.

They believe to stay in the same bungalow with her would soil them. That is why we've had very few social callers in the last year. Our husband made a choice that has affected this house forever.

Despite what her father had said about the client's good character, she felt squeamish about polygyny, which was still practiced by many Muslims and a smaller number of elite Hindus. In truth, there was surely polygyny in her own parents' family histories. Parsis hadn't made it a crime until 1865.

But when we work with numbers and abstract reasoning, the benefit to our society is infinite.