"Home is not a place; it's an irrevocable condition."
This quote by Bharati Mukherjee suggests that "home" is not about physical location, but rather an emotional state or feeling of belonging, acceptance, and security. It implies that one can find a sense of home in various places throughout their life, depending on the connections, experiences, and emotions they form there. This quote invites us to consider home as less tangible than brick and mortar, and more about personal identity and the emotional ties we establish with our surroundings.
"The essence of every epic is loss."
This quote suggests that the fundamental theme in great stories, or epics, is loss. Loss can take many forms – loss of a loved one, loss of innocence, loss of a home, or loss of a cherished belief system. Through this narrative arc, we are challenged to confront and grapple with the complexities of life, including pain, suffering, and change, thereby achieving growth, understanding, and ultimately, wisdom.
"To enter a new language is to risk one's self, to open oneself up to the mercies or vagaries of an unpredictable world."
Bharati Mukherjee's quote underscores the vulnerability and transformative nature of learning a new language. It suggests that when we immerse ourselves in another language, we expose our identity to potential alteration, as we adapt to its nuances and cultural context. This process can be unpredictable, leading us either to find solace or face challenges, reflecting the risks and mercies inherent in such a journey. Essentially, she implies that learning a new language is not just about acquiring linguistic skills; it's also an exploration of selfhood and cultural understanding.
"Immigrants become the silent heroes of national epics."
This quote by Bharati Mukherjee highlights the significant yet often overlooked roles that immigrants play in shaping nations. Immigrants, through their resilience, adaptability, and contributions to society, create new narratives for their adopted countries, essentially penning chapters in the national epics. Their stories, though silent compared to the loud tales of history, are powerful, as they reflect determination, cultural exchange, and the building of diverse societies. In essence, Mukherjee is acknowledging the heroic efforts of immigrants who, through their journey, enrich the tapestry of nations with their unique threads.
"The role of the writer is to make reality palatable through metaphor and mask."
Bharati Mukherjee's quote emphasizes that a writer's primary role is to transform complex or difficult-to-understand realities into something more digestible, meaningful, and relatable for readers using the tools of metaphor and symbolism (the "mask"). By doing so, the writer makes reality palatable, or easier to accept and comprehend. This process allows readers to gain a fresh perspective on their own lives or experiences while engaging with the written work, ultimately enriching their understanding and emotional connection to the subject matter.
I had never walked on the street alone when I was growing up in Calcutta, up to age 20. I had never handled money. You know, there was always a couple of bodyguards behind me, who took care if I wanted... I needed pencils for school, I needed a notebook, they were the ones who were taking out the money. I was constantly guarded.
- Bharati Mukherjee
In Hindu societies, especially overprotected patriarchal families like mine, daughters are not at all desirable. They are trouble. And a mother who, as mine did, has three daughters, no sons, is supposed to go and hang herself, kill herself, because it is such an unlucky kind of motherhood to have.
- Bharati Mukherjee
I flew into a small airport surrounded by cornfields and pastures, ready to carry out the two commands my father had written out for me the night before I left Calcutta: Spend two years studying creative writing at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, then come back home and marry the bridegroom he selected for me from our caste and class.
- Bharati Mukherjee
My mother's rules had to do with feminine deportment, so I never played hard enough to break a toy or muddy my dress. My father's rules had to do with never shaming the family by even a hint of scandal, and not providing business rivals with an opportunity to kidnap me or throw acid in my face.
- Bharati Mukherjee
Bengalis love to celebrate their language, their culture, their politics, their fierce attachment to a city that has been famously dying for more than a century. They resent with equal ferocity the reflex stereotyping that labels any civic dysfunction anywhere in the world 'another Calcutta.'
- Bharati Mukherjee
Mother Teresa's detractors have accused her of overemphasizing Calcuttans' destitution and of coercing conversion from the defenseless. In the context of lost causes, Mother Teresa took on battles she knew she could win. Taken together, it seems to me, the criticisms of her work do not undermine or topple her overall achievement.
- Bharati Mukherjee
As a bookish child in Calcutta, I used to thrill to the adventures of bad girls whose pursuit of happiness swept them outside the bounds of social decency. Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina lived large in my imagination. The naughty girls of Hollywood films flirted and knew how to drive.
- Bharati Mukherjee
In traditional Hindu families like ours, men provided and women were provided for. My father was a patriarch and I a pliant daughter. The neighborhood I'd grown up in was homogeneously Hindu, Bengali-speaking, and middle-class. I didn't expect myself to ever disobey or disappoint my father by setting my own goals and taking charge of my future.
- Bharati Mukherjee
The picture of Mother Teresa that I remember from my childhood is of a short, sari-wearing woman scurrying down a red gravel path between manicured lawns. She would have in tow one or two slower-footed, sari-clad young Indian nuns. We thought her a freak. Probably we'd picked up on unvoiced opinions of our Loreto nuns.
- Bharati Mukherjee
I had a 2-week courtship with a fellow student in the fiction workshop in Iowa and a 5-minute wedding in a lawyer's office above the coffee shop where we'd been having lunch that day. And so I sent a cable to my father saying, 'By the time you get this, Daddy, I'll already be Mrs. Blaise!'
- Bharati Mukherjee
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