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Change is one thing. Acceptance is another.
The God of Small Things
Comrade Pillai, Chapter 14: Work is Struggle.
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Revolution is not a dinner party. Revolution is an insurrection,
an act of violence in which one class overthrows another.
The God of Small Things
Comrade Pillai, Chapter 14: Work is Struggle. |
And there it was again. Another religion turned against itself.
Another edifice constructed by the human mind, decimated by
human nature.
The God of Small Things
Chapter 14: Work is Struggle. |
Men's subliminal urge to destroy what he could neither subdue
nor deify.
The God of Small Things
Chapter 18: The History House. |
The Inspector asked his question. Esthas mouth said
Yes.
Childhood tiptoed out.
Silence slid in like a bolt.
Someone switched off the light and Velutha disappeared.
The God of Small Things
Baby Kochamma persuades the twins to betray
Velutha in the police station, Chapter 19: Saving Ammu. |
Velutha didn't live through the night. Half an hour past midnight,
Death came for him. And for the little family curled up and
asleep on a blue cross-stitch counterpane? What came for them?
Not Death. Just the end of living.
The God of Small Things
Chapter 19: Saving Ammu. |
But what was there to say?
Only that there were tears. Only that Quietness and Emptiness
fitted together like stacked spoons. Only that there was a snuffling
in the hollows at the base of a lovely throat. Only that a hard
honeycolored shoulder had a semicircle of teethmarks on it.
Only that they held each other close, long after it was over.
Only that what they shared that night was not happiness, but
hideous grief.
Only that once again they broke the Love Laws. That lay down
who should be loved. And how. And how much.
The God of Small Things
Chapter 20: The Madras Mail. |
As she watched him she understood the quality of his beauty.
How his labor had shaped him. How the wood he fashioned had
fashioned him. Each plank he planed, each nail he drove, each
thing he made molded him. Had left its stamp on him. Had given
him his strength, his supple grace.
The God of Small Things
Ammu watches Velutha. Chapter 21: The Cost
of Living. |
They knew there was nowhere for them to go. They had nothing.
No future. So they stuck to small things.
They laughed at the ant-bites on each other's bottoms. At clumsy
caterpillars sliding off the ends of leaves. At overturned beetles
that couldn't right themselves . . . at a particularly devout
praying mantis.
The God of Small Things
Ammu and Velutha, Chapter 21: The Cost
of Living. |
The God of Small
Things Chapters 1-13 |