Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Anita Desai

Quote by Anita Desai

“Victors climbing atop body-mountains, raising tattered flags, the flags that are required by nationhood. Mouths opening to roar: Azadi! Liberated! At their feet corpses left for vultures to gorge on. Wounds, mutilations thrust in the faces of those who survive to declare: this is Man, intrinsically, this is his history: look!”

Quote by Anita Desai

Work

Rosarita

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Anita Desai
Anita Desai

Anita Desai is a renowned Indian novelist, born on June 24, 1937. Her works are known for their delicate emotional portrayal and profound insight into the social life of India. more

You May Also Like

“That afternoon, as the sun dipped below the horizon, the remaining British men and women in the subcontinent sensed their time in the land rapidly slipping away. They weren’t alone and many Anglo-Indian, Armenian, Chinese, Jewish, Irish and Burmese communities who had flourished in India under colonial rule were also leaving. ‘It seems so tempting to stay on,’ wrote Keenan. “One is only 45 and there may be many years to come. However, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, I have decided not to serve on with India or Pakistan. We must think of our home in some very nice place in England and make a quick break with the East … India is no place for us now.”

“For the mainly Urdu- speaking migrants from India who abandoned home and hearth to make their futures in a predominantly non- Urdu speaking country, Pakistan was the land of opportunity. Better educated than most of their coreligionists in western Pakistan, they expected to get the best jobs. Some of these muhajirs, as the refugees from India came to be known, had sensibly moved their money before partition in the hope of starting up new businesses in both wings of the country. The idea of material gain encapsulated in “Pakistan Zindabad” was a stretch removed from the other more loaded slogan, defining its meaning in vague Islamic terms. But for all their claims dressed up in religious terminology, the protagonists of an Islamic state too had their sights on power and pelf in the Muslim El Dorado.”

“The events leading up to the creation of Pakistan also made the path to statehood very difficult: more than a decade of civil unrest as Indians of all races and creeds sought independence from Great Britain was followed by a massive migration involving some fourteen million refugees who crossed what became the Pakistan-India border. Nearly one million persons—Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims—died during this bloody upheaval.”

“Take a tram ride today. Recognise a dear friend in everyone around. 
Speak kindly to yourself.
It is only your thoughts that bring you fear. You've been through a lot. There is perfect peace in this moment.”