“Partition was a total catastrophe for Delhi,’ she said. ‘Those who were left behind are in misery. Those who were uprooted are in misery. The Peace of Delhi is gone. Now it is all gone.”

“The bravest and most noble are not those who take up arms, but those who are decent despite everything; who improve what it is in their power to improve, but do not imagine themselves to be saviours. In their humble struggle is true heroism.”

“India has always had a strange way with her conquerors. In defeat, she beckons them in, then slowly seduces, assimilates and transforms them.”

“Mr William, he said, in my life six times have I crashed, and on not one occasion have I ever been killed.( Bevinda Singh taxi driver from City of Djinns”

“She tried not to be gloomy at funerals. People lived, and died, and were remembered. It happened in the same way that winter followed summer. It was not a wrong thing. There were tears of course, but they were for those who were left. Those who had gone on did not need them.”

“I wonder now… were my tears for Alex and Al and all the others who had gone and who were yet to go? Or was I weeping for myself…and those who would remain?”

“If the history of the 20th Century proved anything, it proved that however bad things were, human ingenuity could usually find a way to make them worse.”