The Room on the Roof

I don't want to rot like mangoes at the end of the season, or burnout like the sun at the and of the day. I cannot live like the gardener, the cook and water-carrier, doing the same task everyday of my life... I want to be either somebody or nobody. I don't want to be anybody.

You don’t have to lie if you know how to withhold the truth.

When we are young, we can put up with a great deal of discomfort in order to follow a dream. If, after thirty-five years, I’m still doing my own thing, it’s because I haven’t forgotten the dream. Let no man take your dream away. It will sustain you to the end.

But he could not return; he was afraid of what lay ahead, he dreaded the unknown, but it was easier to walk forwards than backwards.

He spoke the truth. Rusty always spoke the truth. He defined truth as feeling, and when he said what he felt, he said truth. (Only he didn’t always speak his feelings.) He never lied. You don’t have to lie if you know how to withhold the truth.

You are afraid to die without having done something. You are afraid to die, Rusty, but you have hardly begun to live.

Rusty stood at the empty gate, staring down the empty road. He thought, "I'll go back to my room, and time will run on, and things will happen, but this will not happen again... there will still be sun and leeches, and there will be other friends, but there will be no Meena and no Kishen, for our lives have drifted apart... Kishen and I have been going down the river together, but I have been caught in the reeds, and he has been swept onwards; and if I do catch up with him, it will still not be the same; it might be sad ... Kishen has gone, and part of my life has gone with him, and inside of me, I am all lonely.

I do not want to rot like the mangoes at the end of the season or burn out like the sun at the end of the day. I cannot live like the gardener, the cook, and the water carrier, doing the same task every day of my life. I am not interested in today; I want tomorrow. I cannot live in this small room all of my life, with a family of lizards, living in other people's homes and never having one of my own. I have to break away. I want to be either somebody or nobody. I don't want to be anybody.

He was determined to break away from the atmosphere of timelessness and resignation that surrounded him, and decided to leave Dehra.