The Secret Keeper of Jaipur

Be humble for you are made of earth Be noble for you are made of stars. —SERBIAN PROVERB

If you want the rose, you must put up with the thorn. —HINDU PROVERB

There's more power in keeping a secret than in betraying it.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. Give the world the best you have and you may get hurt. Give the world your best anyway. —MOTHER TERESA

I turn the pages carefully. Our tribal elders may not know how to read, but they revere those who can. "Books contain magic," they say.

I should have known that Moti-Lal would figure it out. More than once, he’s told me selling gold requires an insight into human nature. He says you must be able to discern the intensity of a customer’s desire by looking into their eyes. That will tell you what to show, what to hold back, and how much the customer is willing to part with.

Nimmi and I don’t belong. Not truly. To one set of beliefs, one set of traditions. But we can create our own traditions. Observe those we like, abandon those we don’t.

He looks at his father as if to ask how I could possibly know the queens of Jaipur so well. It’s a small satisfaction, and I feel a deep pleasure as I approach Her Highness.

We have important destinies. We are the ones who make or break this country. My family has responsibilities to make sure people like you have food to eat, a roof over your head. Now you’ll leave my family alone, or you’ll have bigger things to deal with—more significant than whether Manu Agarwal is about to lose his job. And you won’t go spreading lies about my son.

I also realize I’m angry at the injustice of it all. Manu’s signature is on everything. He’ll be held responsible for the greatest calamity Jaipur has known in decades. The Singhs will walk away with only a portion of the blame.

my own ears, I sound like an overinvolved mother. Is that how Nimmi sees me? I reach for my cup and drain my chai. Malik is twenty, a grown man. But in him I still see the eager, enterprising boy he used to be.

To her, a hill woman accustomed to sleeping in the open air on bedding quilts padded with scraps of old blankets, these two-story Shimla houses, built by the British, must seem obscenely luxurious.

After Dev died in the gorge, I’d became adamant that my children would never suffer the same fate, migrating back and forth with the tribe through the mountains, toes lost to frostbite, the threat of death always only a few paces away.

Independence of our country was actually the event of the century, Nikhil.” “Well, I wasn’t alive then, Papaji. But I’m alive

I never knew there was a place where you could go look at books, much less borrow them, then return them when you are through looking. Imagine! Something that precious!

The old queen is the only one who has not been instructed to call me Abbas. Automatically, I glance at Sheela. She removes her sunglasses and stares at me, as if she’s hearing Auntie-Boss calling my name all those years ago.

I’m doing the same thing every other jeweler’s doing. If I can buy gold being smuggled into India—gold I won’t declare to the authorities—why wouldn’t I? Otherwise, my shelves would be completely empty! Samaj-jao?

There is no need to cast aspersions on them.

Shah Jahan demanded carnelian, lapis lazuli, tiger’s-eye and malachite be inlaid in the marble of the Taj Mahal.

A month ago, I was still angry with Lakshmi Kumar for telling me what to do, for sending Malik away from me, for being so bloody competent. But now I just feel a sense of relief that someone—anyone—is willing to take charge and help.

Most of the tribes, whether from the Nepalese or the Kashmiri border, share some common words in Urdu, Hindi and Nepali. Like many North Indians, I speak mainly Hindi with some Urdu words thrown in

Never approach a goat from the front, a horse from the back, or a fool from the side!

As the milk and water come to a boil, I drop in cardamom seeds, a cinnamon stick and a few peppercorns before spooning in the tea leaves. The

Manu’s mother, busy with her sandalwood rosary, settled the argument.

There’s more power in keeping a secret than in betraying it.

Indian food is bold, colorful, bursting with aromas and flavors. What better way to enrich a plot and show character development than to infuse a story with one of the boldest, most beloved cuisines on earth?