15 Quotes by Vivek Shanbhag

Words after all are nothing by themselves.

Cakes as good as the coins they cost.

Ours is a joint family. We live in the same house – my wife and I, my parents, my uncle and Malati. Malati is my older sister, back home now after having left her husband. It is natural to wonder, I suppose, why the six of us should want to live together. What can I say – it is one of the strengths of families to pretend that they desire what is unavoidable.

If we wanted new clothes, we knew exactly how much he could spare and what cuts would have to be made elsewhere. The result was that we simply did not desire what we couldn’t afford. When you have no choice, you have no discontent, either.

Amma and i went to each house to tell them we were leaving. They all said, ‘Don’t forget us. Keep visiting.’ At the age I was then, this seemed absurd. i had grown up among them – how was it even possible to forget these people? Now I see what they meant.

On that day I became convinced that it is the words of women that deeply wound other women.