The God of Small Things

is curious how sometimes the memory of death lives on for so much longer than the memory of the life that it purloined.

If he touched her, he couldn’t talk to her, if he loved her he couldn’t leave, if he spoke he couldn’t listen, if he fought he couldn’t win.

Who was he, the one-armed man? Who could he have been? The God of Loss? The God of Small Things? The God of Goose Bumps and Sudden Smiles? Of Sourmetal Smells—like steel bus-rails and the smell of the bus conductor’s hands from holding them?

She hadn’t learned to control her Hopes yet. Estha said that was a Bad Sign.

While other children of their age learned other things, Estha and Rahel learned how history negotiates its terms and collects its dues from those who break its laws. They heard its sickening thud. They smelled its smell and never forgot it.
History’s smell.
Like old roses on a breeze.
It would lurk forever in ordinary things. In coat hangers. Tomatoes. In the tar on roads. In certain colors. In the plates at a restaurant. In the absence of words. And the emptiness in eyes

She had had one chance. She made a mistake. She married the wrong man.

Perhaps it’s true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes.

“Gatsby turned out all right at the end. It is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.”

And we cannot understand the whispering, because our minds have been invaded by a war. A war that we have won and lost. The very worst sort of war. A war that captures dreams and re-dreams them. A war that has made us adore our conquerors and despise ourselves.”

It was as though the window through which their father disappeared had been kept open for anyone to walk in and be welcomed

Looking at herself like this, Ammu’s soft mouth would twist into a small, bitter smile at the memory—not of the wedding itself so much as the fact that she had permitted herself to be so painstakingly decorated before being led to the gallows. It seemed so absurd. So futile.
Like polishing firewood.