Quotes by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

In the white marble hall of the hotel, Im waltzing with Rajat. The music is a river and were dancing in it. It winds against our bodies, muscular as a serpent.

But Krishna was a chameleon.

No, Ashok. Love is not a tap. It flows and flows like blood from a wound, and you can die of it.

After the fire, when Id tried to express my gratitude for their kindness to our customers, theyd been awkward, uncomfortable. My father had had to explain to me that giving thanks is not a common practice in India.Then how do you know if people appreciated what you did? Id asked.Do you really need to know? my father had asked back.

My mother clutches at the collar of my shirt. I rub her back and feel her tears on my neck. Its been decades since our bodies have been this close. Its 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.

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.

The story hangs in the night air between them. It is very latem, and if father or daugther stepped to the window, tehyw ould see the Suktara, star of the impending dawn, hanging low in the sky. But they keep sitting at the table, each thinking of the story differently, as teller and listener always must. In the mind of each, different images swirl up and fall away, and each holds on to a different part of the story, thinking it the most important. And if each were to speak what it meant, they would say things so different you would not know it wa sthe same story they were speaking of.

Danger will come upon us when it will. We cant stop it. We can only try to be prepared. Theres no point in looking ahead to that danger and suffering its effects even before it comes to us.

It feels as though it were just yesterday Grandfather exited my life like a bullet, leaving a bleeding hole behind.

Asif Ali maneuvers the gleaming Mercedes down the labyrinthine lanes of Old Kolkata with consummate skill, but his passengers do not notice how smoothly he avoids potholes, cows and beggars, how skilfully he sails through aging yellow lights to get the Bose family to their destination on time. This disappoints Asif only a little. In his six years of chauffeuring the rich and callous, he has realized that, to them, servants are invisible.

Monday is the day of silence, day of the whole white mung bean, which is sacred to the moon.

Fenugreek, Tuesdays spice, when the air is green like mosses after rain.

Each spice has a special day to it. For turmeric it is Sunday, when light drips fat and butter-colored into the bins to be soaked up glowing, when you pray to the nine planets for love and luck.

Truth, like diamond, has many facets.

Each day has a color, a smell.

Ive been interested in dreams myself for a long time, and its a big part of the Indian tradition, especially where I was brought up in Calcutta in my family, which is quite traditional.

My favorite part was when my grandfather and I would make a special trip to Firpos Bakery for red and green Christmas cookies and fruitcake studded with the sweetest cherries Ive ever tasted. Usually Firpos was too expensive for our slim budget, but Christmas mornings they gave a discount to any children who came in.

As I remember my grandfather and those Christmas mornings he gave for a little girls pleasure, I know that often a big life starts with doing small things.

We even had a different word for Christmas in my language, Bengali: Baradin, which literally meant big day.

I came from a traditional family, and it was an exciting but challenging transition to move to America and live on my own. The world around me was suddenly so different.