people who ran away are friends!

Living in this city, you developed a certain relationship with violence and news of violence: you expected it, dreaded it, and then when it happened, you worked hard to look away from it, because there was nothing you could do about it - not even grieve, because you knew that it would happen again and maybe in a way that was worse than before. Grieving is possible only when you know you have come to an end, when there is nothing more to follow. This city was full of bottled-up grief.

Now, standing here, it is clear as day: more than anything else, you want to find words for what you feel and think and everything that is dark. And then this terrifying thought hits you: Yes, your father wrote poetry to find a language for his wounds. Yes, you in your own way have become your father

I hid myself behind Baba. It was like being in the shadow. Shadows are empty places in things. The colour of shadow is also black, which is the color of empty things. Blackboard is also black when it is empty No one can draw shadows on blackboards because shadows keep on changing. You cannot draw changing things. But it happens, you know; you draw and you look and it has changed.

Things taste sweeter when you have some hunger left to linger. You feel it hunting your head for buried things; digging into the fractures of your breath warm and greedy.

What appears strange and complex becomes stranger and more complicated once you begin to investigate it. That's the true nature of the world.

That was the strange problem with writing, you had discovered. Meaning never matched the words and words always evaded the thought.

We must learn to see it in many ways, so that when one of the ways of looking hurts us, we can take refuge in another way of looking. You must always love the city.

You see, my son, a city is all about how you look at it...We must learn to see it in many ways, so that when one of the ways of looking hurts us, we can take refuge in another way of looking. You must always love the city.