Rahul Pandita · 257 pages
Rating: (3.1K votes)
“During Aurangzeb’s rule, which lasted for forty-nine years from 1658 onwards, there were many phases during which Pandits were persecuted. One of his fourteen governors, Iftikhar Khan, who ruled for four years from 1671, was particularly brutal towards the community. It was during his rule that a group of Pandits approached the ninth Sikh Guru, Tegh Bahadur, in Punjab and begged him to save their faith. He told them to return to Kashmir and tell the Mughal rulers that if they could convert him (Tegh Bahadur), all Kashmiri Pandits would accept Islam. This later led to the Guru’s martyrdom, but the Pandits were saved.”
― Rahul Pandita, quote from Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits
“I’m on bridge, bridge is on water, bridge-bridge cancel, I’m on water.”
― Rahul Pandita, quote from Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits
“Another problem is the apathy of the media and a majority of India’s intellectual class who refuse to even acknowledge the suffering of the Pandits.”
― Rahul Pandita, quote from Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits
“Another problem is the apathy of the media and a majority of India’s intellectual class who refuse to even acknowledge the suffering of the Pandits. No campaigns were ever run for us; no fellowships or grants given for research on our exodus. For the media, the Kashmir issue has remained largely black and white—here are a people who were victims of brutalization at the hands of the Indian state. But the media has failed to see, and has largely ignored the fact that the same people also victimized another”
― Rahul Pandita, quote from Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits
“During the rule of another governor, Atta Muhammad Khan, Lawrence writes: Any Musalman who met a Pandit would jump on his back, and take a ride.”
― Rahul Pandita, quote from Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits
“Women had been herded like cattle into the backs of trucks. Father and I got out of the taxi to stretch our legs. In one of the trucks, a woman lifted the tarpaulin sheet covering the back and peered outside. There was nothing peculiar about her except the blankness in her eyes. They were like a void that sucked you in. Years later, I saw a picture of a Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz. When I saw his eyes, my mind was immediately transported to that day, and I was reminded of the look in that woman’s eyes.”
― Rahul Pandita, quote from Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits
“One of his fourteen governors, Iftikhar Khan, who ruled for four years from 1671, was particularly brutal towards the community. It was during his rule that a group of Pandits approached the ninth Sikh Guru, Tegh Bahadur, in Punjab and begged him to save their faith. He told them to return to Kashmir and tell the Mughal rulers that if they could convert him (Tegh Bahadur), all Kashmiri Pandits would accept Islam. This later led to the Guru’s martyrdom, but the Pandits were saved.”
― Rahul Pandita, quote from Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits
“For most of us, Kashmir means a calendar hanging in our parents’ bedroom, or a mutton dish cooked in the traditional way on Shivratri, or a cousin’s marriage that the elders insist must be solemnized in Jammu. A”
― Rahul Pandita, quote from Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits
“it. But, sometimes, when I’m angry at the TV shows where our murderers speak about our return, I do. On its front page is a picture of Ravi’s mutilated face. The blood from his nose—the result of a blow from the butt of a Kalashnikov—has dried up. His forehead still looks beautiful and clear, and so does his moustache that I had wanted to imitate when I was young.”
― Rahul Pandita, quote from Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits
“Sometimes it is best to leave things ambiguous, suspended, so that some hope remains.”
― Rahul Pandita, quote from Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits
“I remember the day when I realized I had no memory of her voice. That morning I had been reading the newspapers like I did everyday. I would read a report or two, and Ma would point out advertisements of houses for sale. There were many of them.”
― Rahul Pandita, quote from Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits
“She asked, “Was that really your dinner—two hot dogs and a Krispy Kreme doughnut?” “Four doughnuts.” “What does your cholesterol look like?” “I guess it’s white like what they show in the commercials.”
― Karin Slaughter, quote from Fallen
“The Soviet census of 1937 found eight million fewer people than projected: most of these were famine victims in Soviet Ukraine, Soviet Kazakhstan, and Soviet Russia, and the children that they did not then have. Stalin suppressed its findings and had the responsible demographers”
― Timothy Snyder, quote from Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
“Y bien; purificar el alma, ¿no es, como antes decíamos, separarla del cuerpo, y acostumbrarla a encerrarse y recogerse en sí misma, renunciando al comercio con aquel cuanto sea posible, y viviendo, sea en esta vida, sea en la otra, sola y desprendida del cuerpo, como quien se desprende de una cadena?”
― Plato, quote from Phaedo
“She was only a few yards from the door. If she lunged, she could be safely inside with solid metal between her and the bear. But she had called to him, and he had come. The tranquilizer dart that she had shot on the sea ice now lay in front of her. Impossibly, inexplicably, the bear had brought it back to her. She felt light-headed, and she knew she was shaking. She raised her eyes to look at the bear.
He was a mass of shadows at the edge of the station floodlights. She could make out the shape of his muzzle and the hunch of his shoulders. "Cassandra Dasent," he said. His voice was a soft rumble.
She felt as if her heart had stopped beating.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, quote from Ice
“A woman who dreams of a good home with a man who holds for her only a poor love is putting a $50 saddle on a $20 horse. She'd be far better off single than riding with him.”
― Nancy E. Turner, quote from The Star Garden
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.