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27fb74d
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The rest of the time Olivia was alone in her big house with all the doors and windows shut to keep out the heat and dust.
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Ruth Prawer Jhabvala |
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c0d3e7e
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Shortly before the monsoon, the heat becomes very intense. It is said that the more intense it becomes the more abundantly it will draw down the rains, so one wants it to be as hot as can be. And by that time one has accepted it -- not got used to but accepted; and moreover, too worn-out to fight against it, one submits to it and endures.
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monsoon
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Ruth Prawer Jhabvala |
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55d02d5
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The landscape which, a few weeks earlier, had been blotted out by dust was now hazy with moisture.
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Ruth Prawer Jhabvala |
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9a43d2a
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You have to believe me without proof. That's what faith is -- believing without proof.' They got up from the bank of stones. It was getting late, the shadows lay cool and lengthened on the grass and the tops of the trees had the stillness around them that means the end of the day and its liquidation in the setting sun. They retraced their steps back to the house where his car was parked, and when they passed through the blighted orchard, h..
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relationships
fiction
literary-fiction
short-story
short-stories
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Ruth Prawer Jhabvala |
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1e3309e
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The world is always the same. Always beautiful: why should we let our delight in it die? The answer to this problem lies in education. If we teach our children to love everything about them - the sky, the air, water, flowers, animals - then they will keep their youthful spirit forever, whatever may happen to them in the trivial world of affairs.
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nature
education
nature-s-beauty
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Ruth Prawer Jhabvala |
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2655040
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when I think of all our gifts, all our riches - the sky the sea, the sea, the mountains and the sun - everything is there for us to seize and enjoy, and still people sit in their little corners and moan about how they are poor... as for me, wherever I shall be and whatever I shall do, I shall always be a rich man.
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wealth
nature
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Ruth Prawer Jhabvala |
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7eb728b
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Olivia understood that actually they would be happier without her, doing matronly things and being comfortable with each other. But they were speaking for sake.
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Ruth Prawer Jhabvala |
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56f761e
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Although the Major was so sympathetic to India, his piece sounds like a warning. He said that one has to be very determined to withstand--to stand up to--India. And the most vulnerable, he said, are always those who love her best. There are many ways of loving India, many things to love her for...but all, said the Major, are dangerous for the European who allows himself to love too much. India always, he said, finds out the weak spot and pr..
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Ruth Prawer Jhabvala |
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67dac53
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When Indians sleep, they really do sleep. Neither adults nor children have a regular bed-time -- when they're tired they just drop, fully clothed, on to their beds, or the ground if they have no beds, and don't stir again until the next day begins. All one hears is occasionally someone crying out in their sleep, or a dog -- maybe a jackal -- baying at the moon. I lie awake for hours: with happiness, actually. I have never known such a sense..
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sleep
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Ruth Prawer Jhabvala |
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57e3b62
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The others, however, told their anecdotes with no moral comment whatsoever, even though they had to recount some hair-raising events. And not only did they keep completely cool, but they even had that little smile of tolerance, of affection, even enjoyment that Olivia was beginning to know well: like good parents, they all loved India whatever mischief she might be up to.
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india
paternalism
colonialism
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Ruth Prawer Jhabvala |
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c14a98e
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The girl was particularly indignant --not only about this watchman but about all the other people all over India. She said they were all dirty and dishonest. She had a very pretty, open, English face but when she said that it became mean and clenched, and I realised that the longer she stayed in India the more her face would become like that.
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india
postcolonialism
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Ruth Prawer Jhabvala |
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4ab0fc2
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It is strange how, once graves are broken and overgrown in this way, then the people in them are truly dead. The Indian Christian graves at the front of the cemetery, which are still kept up by relatives, seem by contrast strangely alive, contemporary
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maintenance
graves
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Ruth Prawer Jhabvala |
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df1ff18
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Olivia was by no means a snob but she aesthetic and the details Mrs. Saunders gave about her illness were not; also Mrs. Saunders' accent--how could one help noticing with her droning on and on?--was not that of a too highly educated person...
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classism
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Ruth Prawer Jhabvala |
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2c56df6
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She explains that often the people who mean the most to us have to be left behind because they cannot follow us along our destined path.
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india
friends
family
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Ruth Prawer Jhabvala |