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d0da6c6
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How pride had kept them from admitting their mistakes--and
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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623feff
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Ah, now I have learned how deep in the human heart vanity lies, vanity which is the other face of the fear of being unloved.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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6f45d91
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When your heart is crusted over with your own pain, it is easy to feel little for others.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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d05a111
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In the things we love lie clues to who we are. What we want for those we love.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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2c3fcfe
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The fates are cruel," Bheeshma whispered, "and they've been crueler than usual to you. But the sins you committed in ignorance are not your fault." "I'll still have to pay for them," Karna said. "Isn't that how karma works? Look at what happened to Pandu, who killed a sage by accident, thinking him to be a wild deer. He had to bear the consequences of it for the rest of his life." --
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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da54ccf
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And finally, I bless my daughters, who are yet unborn. I pray that, if life tests them--as sooner or later life is bound to do--they'll be able to stand steadfast and think carefully, using their hearts as well as their heads, understanding when they need to compromise, and knowing when they must not.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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90f9b62
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The choice they made in the moment of my need changed something in our relationship. I no longer depended on them so completely in the future. And when I took care to guard myself from hurt, it was as much from them as from our enemies.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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3d126c7
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How innocent we'd been, thinking that if only we willed something hard enough, it would come true.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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00fb6fe
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Your childhood hunger is the one that never leaves you. No matter how famous or powerful they became, my husbands would always long to be cherished. They would always yearn to feel worthy. If a person could make them feel that way, they'd bind themselves to him--or her--forever.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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c5926f6
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I couldn't control what was done to me. But my response to it was in my control.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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e57d1fe
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My mother clutches at the collar of my shirt. I rub her back and feel her tears on my neck. It's been decades since our bodies have been this close. It's an odd sensation, like a torn ligament knitting itself back, lumpy and imperfect, usable as long as we know not to push it too hard.
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divakaruni
immigrant-experience
india
indian-american
love
mothers-and-daughters
novel
novel-in-stories
women-s-books
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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3de7927
|
Try to remember that you are the instrument and I the doer. If you can hold on to this, no sin can touch you. Instrument,
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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96f6d32
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It feels as though it were just yesterday Grandfather exited my life like a bullet, leaving a bleeding hole behind.
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drama
family-relationships
immigration
india
literary-fiction
suspense
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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56cced3
|
It didn't drain me as I thought it might. Instead, it invigorated me. Such was love's magic--the giver gained more than the receiver.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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fa2e6c2
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You will be remembered for causing the greatest war of your time.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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b92ace4
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I listened mesmerized, visualizing the goddess with her divine mate, wondering if it was possible for humans to replicate this perfect relationship. Would I be blessed with such a love in my life?
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lovers
parvati
shiva
sita
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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e3f0178
|
In your yearning you have made me into that which I am not.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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4ae99b3
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Who held his cries in until red swam behind his eyelids like bleeding stars.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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28ac1fe
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O exhilaration, I thought. To be lifted up through the eye of chaos, to balance breath-stopped on the edge of nothing. And the plunge that would follow, the shattering of my matchstick body to smithereens, the bones flying free as foam, the heart finally released.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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0c342ab
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But where love and sorrow bind people together, goodbyes are not so easily said. We were about to discover that.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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869f77d
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What is the most wondrous thing on earth? Each day countless humans enter the Temple of Death, yet the ones left behind continue to live as though they were immortal. . . . In
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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68b72c5
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Perhaps that was why I had to endure pain--because true transformation can only happen in the crucible of suffering
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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295baa3
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But when I see Sudha, her face bright with a simple, generous joy, the walls I'd set up so carefully collapse around me like a house of cards. Inside my heart it feels like a wet, new rain. In spite of all my insecurities, in spite of the oceans that'll be between us soon and the men that are between us already, I can never stop loving Sudha. It's my habit, and it's my fate.
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reunion
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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52abade
|
The pleasures that arise from sense-objects are bound to end, and thus they are only sources of pain. Don't get attached to them. And: When a man reaches a state where honor and dishonor are alike to him, then he is considered supreme. Strive to gain such a state.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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d7e59e7
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why man found himself driven to wrongdoing in spite of good intentions, Krishna replied, Because of anger and desire, our two direst enemies.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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444796a
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She lifts her eyes, and there is Death in the corner, but not like a king with his iron crown, as the epics claimed. Why, it is a giant brush loaded with white paint. It descends upon her with gentle suddenness, obliterating the shape of the world.
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immigrant-fiction
india
indian
indian-american
mothers-and-daughters
novel
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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34ba20b
|
But inside loss there can be gain, too,like the small silver spider Bela had discovered one dewy morning, curled asleep at the center of a rose.
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child-narrator
divakaruni
fiction
immigrant-fiction
india
indian-american
mothers-and-daughters
novel
women-s-fiction
|
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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0a7a1ce
|
Good daughters are fortunate lamps, brightening the family's name. Wicked daughters are firebrands, blackening the family's fame.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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0263858
|
In the white marble hall of the hotel, I'm waltzing with Rajat. The music is a river and we're dancing in it. It winds against our bodies, muscular as a serpent.
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family-relationships
immigration
indian-fiction
literary-fiction
mystery
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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d5a8429
|
Love comes like lightning , and disappears the same way.. If you are lucky it strikes you right..
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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1cbb383
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When you begin to weave your own desires into your vision, the true seeing is taken from you.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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e5a5049
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Why are you attracted to self-sabotage? I
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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7048f20
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And under it all, earth waited with her lead-filled veins, impatient to shrug herself clean.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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ff4f8c2
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Open yourself to the sight, and it will show you what you need to know. But never attempt to bend it to your will. Never pry into a particular life that has been brought to your care. That is to break trust.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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4498fcf
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I want to weep too, not for me but for us all--for rich or poor, educated or illiterate, here we are finally reduced to a sameness in this sisterhood of deprivation.
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truths
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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6aac194
|
American-Statesman
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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e248c88
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Maybe it was that sense that comes to us all at some point in the growing-up process, that we are separate from our parents and must suffer our own lives, with our own sorrows. Or maybe it was something simpler, a childish spite, Let her hurt like I'm hurting. And then the light changed and she started driving again.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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0ed41cd
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expectations are like hidden rocks in your path, all they do is trip you up.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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70ccf22
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Expectations are like hidden rocks in your path--all they do is trip you up. .
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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0973a8f
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They say in the old tales that when a man and a woman exchange looks the way we did, their spirits mingle. Their gaze is a rope of gold binding each to the other. Even if they never meet again, they carry a little of the other with them always. They can never forget, and they can never be wholly happy again.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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bf10607
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And have you come to set me free finally, Govinda?" he asked. "Have I paid sufficiently for my theft?"
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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bf4988f
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You did what you were supposed to. Played your part perfectly.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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470c53f
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The herbs and chants weren't working because of my anger towards Ram. In some dark part of my soul, I wanted him to suffer.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
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0f621d5
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I don't agree with you that the private life must be sacrificed for the public one. And that is the final advice that I leave for my children: my dearest boys, balance duty with love. Trust me, it can be done.
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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |