My first novel, ‘The Tiger’s Daughter,’ embodies the loneliness I felt but could not acknowledge, even to myself, as I negotiated the no man’s land between the country of my past and the continent of my present.
BHARATI MUKHERJEEWhat was the function of poetry if not to improve the petty, cautious minds of evasive children?
More Bharati Mukherjee Quotes
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Growing up in an old-fashioned Bengali Hindu family and going to a convent school run by stern Irish nuns, I was brought up to revere rules. Without rules, there was only anarchy.
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You know, there was always a couple of bodyguards behind me, who took care if I wanted… I needed pencils for school, I needed a notebook, they were the ones who were taking out the money. I was constantly guarded.
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I’m sorry, this is too much work, I’m going to try applying for call center jobs. The pay is better.’
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Mother Teresas detractors have accused her of overemphasizing Calcuttans destitution and of coercing conversion from the defenseless.
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I had never walked on the street alone when I was growing up in Calcutta, up to age 20. I had never handled money.
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Through my fiction, I make mainstream readers see the new Americans as complex human beings, not as just The Other.
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We do things when it is our time to do them. They do not occur to us until it is time; they cannot be resisted, once their time has come. It’s a question of time, not motive.
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In traditional Hindu families like ours, men provided and women were provided for. My father was a patriarch and I a pliant daughter.
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A farmer is dependent on too many things outside his control; it makes for modesty.
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My life has gotten a little more complicated than my ability to describe it. That used to be the definition of madness, now it’s just continuous overload.
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What was the function of poetry if not to improve the petty, cautious minds of evasive children?
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The picture of Mother Teresa that I remember from my childhood is of a short, sari-wearing woman scurrying down a red gravel path between manicured lawns.
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Spend two years studying creative writing at the Iowa Writers Workshop, then come back home and marry the bridegroom he selected for me from our caste and class.
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In India, there are real consequences to inattention; drivers who jeopardize pedestrians can be lynched on the spot.
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In the context of lost causes, Mother Teresa took on battles she knew she could win. Taken together, it seems to me, the criticisms of her work do not undermine or topple her overall achievement.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE