“One hand continued to hold her hands overhead, ensuring the deepening sensation of feminine weakness built inside her. That sense of feminine hunger to be sensually dominated, to lay aside the demand for strength, and in this part of her life, to just belong to a man whose inner strength exceeded hers, whose physical strength overwhelmed hers.”

“He holds her with the strength of a million-man army, but with all the tenderness of her heart lying naked in the palms of his hands.”

“Now, her mother lifts Kavita’s head up out of her lap and holds her face, hot with tears, in her cool hands. “I am glad it is you who is going,” her mother whispers. Kavita looks up at her with shock.“I won’t worry about you, Kavita. You have strength. Fortitude. Shakti. Bombay will bring you hardship. But you, beti, have the strength to endure it.”And through her mother’s words and her hands, Kavita feels it—shakti, the sacred feminine force that flows from the Divine Mother to all those who have come after her.”

“Femininity is depicted as weakness, the sapping of strength, yet masculinity is so fragile that apparently even the slightest brush with the feminine destroys it.”

“The road ahead holds many tests challenging everything she ever believed. I whispered a prayer for her inner strength to guide her on her path. She was going to need it.”

“the depth of a person's character is not measured by his or her physical strength, but by the depth of his or her nobility.”