"Maybe they reflect some core aspiration that lies at the heart of the nation, the aspiration to be somewhere else, the delusion that you can be separate from the traffic or pollution or slums or potholes."

"It often feels as though you are on the edge of some clarity, some discovery about finding the balance, the right place for it to stop, when you realise that axis has changed again, that it is not just the string in motion but the entire apparatus around it."

"Or perhaps you’re on the highway, driving forward, changing lanes, occasionally aligning but never really on the same journey, never entirely sure of anyone’s destination."

"In the audience, he recognized his mother, the long dead teacher whose apprentice he had been, and other vaguely familiar faces."

"There was an intimate connection between the two women, a familiarity and closeness that seemed to encapsulate centuries of behaviour and expectations."

"When the authorities arrive, he is alerted, he packs up his large bag and disappears, only to materialize nearby a few hours later."

"You play mindgames that you deny even to yourself, keeping your phone away for an hour in the vain hope that the number has miraculously grown or savouring pointless interactions as though they signify something larger."

"There are supplements for everything, pills that make you happier or calmer or more energetic, infinite ways to alter your mind or body."

"You see a woman a few rows ahead clutching some sort of idol and reciting a prayer. Further forward, the bony hand of an old lady is being held tightly by her husband from across the aisle."

"Generations have feasted on the mangoes every summer, some napping in its shade, and others have sought and found refuge in its welcoming branches. The people are long gone now, but she sees and hears them still."

"Sometimes, they whisper to the crow and ask if they could borrow its glossy black wings. But the crow pays no heed and the leaves must content themselves with the smell of the wind and clouds it brings in its wake, the closest they will ever come to the sky."

"Her tears would fall upon the earth in which she had planted a garden of yearnings: she thought no one would see her weep but the soil always remembers. The new garden is now a many-armed river of memories, its tributaries merging into the atlas wall."

"Maybe the best way is to disconnect, turn off the analysis and just consume from an altitude, to become the pigeon without worrying about the big picture."

"The street smelt of smashed dreams and forgotten yearnings and ripe desires. The tree has been gone for years now, the jamuns long dispersed into the sky above but the house still remembers, tasting them on rainy, cloud-choked nights."