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Amit Chaudhuri
97 quotes
“‘Never to have lived is best. And the second best/is to grow old with the morning into/afternoon, and then to evening, when sundry shadows and gestures marry/like the vanished divisions of a shut fan.’ ( St Cyril Road Sequence )”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“‘Light shafted obliquely on it.’ ( The Steamer )”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“‘To the far left, above your shoulder’s gentle/curve, like golden pods, the sodium vapour/lights in the naval dockyard ... And before us,/a continuous, unreal flare of fire defined/the horizon’s extremity, a stain on a brow.’ ( The Steamer )”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“‘As the sun came up, we/saw the leaves peer out, shivering.’ ( Letter from the Hills )”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“‘a speck of dust hanging/in a vertical wall of light.’ ( Letter from the Hills )”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“‘And the old homelovingness/of light falling and touching the black/utensils ...’ ( Kitchen )”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the oldest, bunched houses with tottering stairs,”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“These small freshwater fish”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“‘... what I’ve tried to allow is for the essay to be a space in which the consciousness which reads poetry or remembers a line of poetry or listens to music or goes for a walk, is also the consciousness that is inflected and threatened and endangered by the political; is also the consciousness that registers and is permeated by the political. That somehow it is not a separate ... consciousness that is hiding behind the facade of the man who remembers a line of poetry or forgets it, but that it is the same consciousness in which these various things are coming in and going out.’”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“‘I’m uncomfortable beginning at the beginning. It’s not because I’m clever, but because it’s a difficult thing, writing.’”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“‘This second time round, she’d discovered that to be happy was not so much a self-sufficient, spontaneous emotion, such as you might feel in relation to a dream or a secret, but a way of reacting to the rest of the world; that to be happy this time, she must curb the natural human instinct to look up at the sky, with its all-encompassing definition, and gaze towards the immediate ground and horizon, with its lack of shape, or abode, or clear ending.’”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“‘... the menu’s a delirious poem/on which the names of Moghlai and Punjabi and Parsi/”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It never became so dark in the room in Claremont; some light, inquisitive and worldly, always entered through the curtains”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“‘This morning he’d discovered the bathroom light on, its lustre wasted in daylight.’”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There was a difference between his parents with regard to appliances; his father distrusted them as he would a rival; his mother had no confidence in using them, but none the less desired them.”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“... the cleverest way of battling the heat was not moving.”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There was a gulmohar tree in the lane, the flaming orange flowers erupting from within, and banyan trees, private and removed as ancient pilgrims.”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The city was still .... Soon the machinery would start working again, not out of any sense of purpose, but like a watch that is wound daily by someone’s hand. Almost without any choice in the matter, people would embark upon the minute frustrations and satisfactions of their daily lives. It was in this moment of postponement that the azaan was heard, neither announcing the day nor keeping it a secret.”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There was a special purpose in these throws, for the readers of Ganashakti were fellow-travellers of the Communist party, they believed in its necessity and vision, and an inexplicable bond was formed between the distributor, whose every aim with the bundle seemed to be a salute, and the silent house.”
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“When afternoon came to Vidyasagar Road, wet clothes ... hung from a clothesline which stretched from one side to another on the veranda of the first floor. The line, which had not been tightly drawn anyway, sagged with the pressure of the heavy wet clothes that dripped, from sleeves and trouser-ends, a curious grey water on to the floor, and, especially in the middle, one noticed the line curved downwards, as if a smile were forming.”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Water begins to boil in the kettle; it starts as a private, secluded sound, pure as rain, and grows to a steady, solipsistic bubbling.”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The armchairs, with their flat, sedentary cushions, were designed for society, but the bed was made for solitude. It had a straitened and measured narrowness, an austere frame made to contain the curves of a single body, to circumscribe it, carry it, give it a place, and when I slept at night, I possessed it entirely.”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At the base of her ankle is a deep, ugly scar she got when a car ran over her foot when she was six years old. That was in a small town in Bangladesh. Thus, even today, she hesitates superstitiously before crossing the road, and is painfully shy of walking distances. Her fears make her laughable. The scar is printed on her skin like a radiant star.”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Years ago, my mother and I fell in love with Busybee’s voice, its calm, even tone, and a smile which was always audible in the language. My father, meanwhile, is clipping his nails fastidiously, letting them fall on to an old, spread-out copy of the Times of India, till he sneezes explosively, as he customarily does, sending the crescent-shaped nail-clippings flying into the universe.”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Her hair is troublesome and curly ... It falls in long, black strands, but each strand has a gentle, complicated undulation travelling through it, like a mild electric shock or a thrill, hat gives it a life of its own; it is visually analogous to a tremolo on a musical note.”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Calcutta is like a work of modern art that neither makes sense nor has utility, but exists for some esoteric aesthetic reason.”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Trenches and mounds of dust everywhere give the city a strange bombed-out look.”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The grown-ups snapped the chillies (each made a sound terse as a satirical retort), and scattered the tiny, deadly seeds in their food.”
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“On the big bed, Mamima and Sandeep’s mother began to dream, sprawled in vivid crab-like postures. His aunt lay on her stomach, her arms bent as if she were swimming to the edge of a lake; his mother lay on her back, her feet (one of which had a scar on it) arranged in the joyous pose of a dancer.”
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“Abhi, Babla and Sandeep slept like primeval creatures huddled on the island of the bed, close to the horizon, outwaiting the dawn that would bring the first thought to their heads. Their bodies slept with a pure detached love for every moment of sleep.”
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“The gutters in the lane overflowed with an odd, languid grace. Water filled the lane; rose from ankle-deep to knee-deep. Insects swam in circles. Urchins splashed about haphazardly, while Saraswati returned from market with a shopping-bag in her hands; insects swam away to avoid this clumsy giant. Her wet footprints printing the floor of the house were as rich with possibility as the first footprint Crusoe found on his island.”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She would sweep the floor – unending expanses, acres and acres of floor – with a short broom called the jhadu, swiping away the dust in an arc with its long tail, which reminded one of the drooping tail of some nameless, exotic bird.”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It seemed there was no democracy among children – always an aristocracy based on strength, intellect and seniority. But seniority counted most, because a boy of ten is bound to be stronger and cleverer than a boy of nine, having spent an extra year in the world, at a time when each year is like a precious deposit in a newly opened bank account. Among boys of the same age, there would be a silent tussle, a clean, honourable contest. Once a leader emerged, however, no elections were held.”
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“... the floor was a stone slab of coolness, an expanse of warm ice that would not melt.”
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“There has been writing for 10 days now”
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“‘... invisibility was one of Bengali modernity’s prerequisites and cardinal achievements.’”
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“…There are many ways of defining the modern but one is to say that an urban space, a man-made space, has some of the energy, wildness, unpredictability and randomness that we usually associate with nature. In another age, somebody might speak with the same kind of excitement about nature as the modernist does about the city…”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On how he envisions modernity in “INTERVIEW WITH AMIT CHAUDHURI” in The White Review (March 2013)
“People are much more aware of one another in England, super-aware. They are focused on others in a seemingly detached and abstract way. This was very different from India. In India you could do anything and people would see you but not see you, hear you but not hear you.”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On how society differs in England versus India in “Life sentences” in The Guardian (2009 Mar 13)
“It does like writers, but it's also Calcutta now, not the Calcutta of 25 or 30 or 100 years ago. They maybe haven't got over the idea of it, but the reality, the context that produced that, has disappeared.”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On how Calcutta has changed in “Life sentences” in The Guardian (2009 Mar 13)
“It's a very strange middle class…Full of operators and people on the move. It really doesn't value disruptions in that activeness. It doesn't have time for any privileging of daydreaming.”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On contemporary India in “Life sentences” in The Guardian (2009 Mar 13)
“There must be other leaps in life - as momentous as the "mirror stage" - that Lacan didn't mention. Some are universal; others, culturally particular. To understand that your parents are human (and not an element of the natural world), that they're separate from you, that they were children once, that they were born and came into the world, is another leap. It's as if you hadn't seen who they were earlier - just as, before you were ten months old, you didn't know it was you in the mirror. This happens when you're sixteen or seventeen. Not long after - maybe a year - you find out your parents will die. It's not as if you haven't encountered death already. But, before now, your precocious mind can't accommodate your parents' death except as an academic nicety - to be dismissed gently as too literary and sentimental. After that day, your parents' dying suddenly becomes simple. It grows clear that you're alone and always have been, though certain convergences start to look miraculous - for instance, between your father, mother, and yourself. Though your parents don't die immediately - what you've had is a realisation, not a premonition - you'll carry around this knowledge for their remaining decades or years. You won't think, looking at them, "You're going to die". It'll be an unspoken fact of existence. Nothing about them will surprise you anymore.”
Amit Chaudhuri (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tagore claims that the first time he experienced the thrill of poetry was when he encountered the children’s rhyme ‘Jal pare/pata nare’ (‘Rain falls / The leaf trembles') in Iswarchandra Vidyasagar’s Bengali primer Barna Parichay (Introducing the Alphabet). There are at least two revealing things about this citation. The first is that, as Bengali scholars have remarked, Tagore’s memory, and predilection, lead him to misquote and rewrite the lines. The actual rhyme is in sadhu bhasha, or ‘high’ Bengali: ‘Jal paritechhe / pata naritechhe’ (‘Rain falleth / the leaf trembleth’). This is precisely the sort of diction that Tagore chose for the English Gitanjali, which, with its thees and thous, has so tried our patience. Yet, as a Bengali poet, Tagore’s instinct was to simplify, and to draw language closer to speech. The other reason the lines of the rhyme are noteworthy, especially with regard to Tagore, is – despite their deceptively logical progression – their non-consecutive character. ‘Rain falls’ and ‘the leaf trembles’ are two independent, stand-alone observations: they don’t necessarily have to follow each other. It’s a feature of poetry commented upon by William Empson in Some Versions of Pastoral: that it’s a genre that can get away with seamlessly joining two lines which are linked, otherwise, tenuously.”
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“Tinkling sounds came from outside, of hammering and chiselling, as labourers worked like bees, and seven- or eight-storeyed buildings rose in the place of ancestral mansions that had been razed cruelly to the ground, climbing up like ladders through screens of dust. An old mansion opposite the veranda had been repainted white, to its last banister and pillar, so that it looked like a set of new teeth. ... In another sphere altogether, birds took off from a tree or parapet, or the roof of some rich Marwari’s house, startling and speckling the neutral sky. Not a moment was still or like another moment. In a window in a servants’ outhouse attached to a mansion – both the master’s house and the servants’ lost in a bond now anachronistic and buried – a light shone even at this time of the day, beacon of winter.”
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“... my mother will settle on the rug and unclip the bellows, pulling and pushing them with a mild aquatic motion with her left hand, the fingers of the right hand flowering upon the keys, the wedding-bangle suspended around her wrist. Each time the bellows are pushed, the round holes on the back open and close like eyes. Without the body music is not possible; it provides the hollow space for resonance as does the curved wooden box of the violin or the round urn of the sitar. At the moment of singing, breath tips in the swelling diaphragm as water does in a pitcher. The voice-box itself is a microscopic harp, its cords tautening and relaxing with each inflection.”
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“While reading the Times of India each morning, my father spares a minute for the cartoon by R. K. Laxman. While my mother is, like a magician, making untidy sheets disappear in the bedroom and producing fresh towels in the bathroom, or braving bad weather in the kitchen, my father, in the extraordinary Chinese calm of the drawing-room, is dmiring the cartoon by R. K. Laxman, and, if my mother happens to be there, unselfishly sharing it with her. She, as expected, misunderstands it completely, laughing not at the joke but at the expressions on the faces of the caricatures, and at the hilarious fact that they talk to each other like human beings.”
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“‘... this refined language of Indian modernity – an Indian language that was actually first used as a first language by a home-grown cosmopolitan elite – enough to say, with or without humour, ‘Ami tomake bhalobashi’ (‘I love you’) or ‘Apni kothai thhaken?’ (‘Where do you live?). These stray statements performed an incantatory ‘open sesame’ – into the bounded, charmed, small-scale world of ‘Bengaliness’. The ‘honorary’ Bengali might be myopic; might be an aficionado of art-house cinema; might be politically left wing; might have taste for lyric poetry; a tendency towards the autobiographical; an appetite for fish; or display none of these traits.’”
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“‘Calcutta, for me, was a particular idea of the modern city, and I found it in many forms, works, and genres. ... by ‘modernity’ I have in mind something that was never new. True modernity was born with the aura of inherited decay and life. ... if you look at paintings and photographs, and see old films of the city, you notice that these walls and buildings were never new – that Calcutta was born to look more or less as I saw it as a child. I’m not referring here to an air of timelessness; the patina that gave to Calcutta’s alleys, doorways, and houses their continuity and disposition is very different from the eternity that defines mausoleums and monuments. It’s this quality I’m trying to get at when I speak of modernity. ... modernity in the nineteenth century is indistinguishable from nature; perhaps it is nature – in some ways, the culvert, which has emerged from the rock, seems more of its place than the mountain itself.’”
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