Shamini Flint Quotes

Humanity was doomed, decided Singh, which made his job of hunting down individual murderers particularly pointless.

Global warming was to blame according to scientists and the government had promised tough climate goals. Next to the article was another one, lauding the Tata Nano, the ‘one lakh’ car. No one seemed inclined to point out the contradiction between reducing global warming and sticking a bunch of cheap cars on the road ... There was something to be said for the ‘no news is good news’ approach of the Singapore dailies. Certainly, an ordinary day’s worth of news in the Straits Times, tucked in between the advertisements for supermarket chains, cheap holidays and miraculous slimming treatments, didn’t look quite like this.

There had been encroachments by Pakistani troops over the line of control in Kashmir. Editorials solemnly urged the government to adopt a firm stance. Right, thought [Inspector] Singh. Two nuclear powers adopting a ‘firm’ stance was definitely the right way forward.

In the foreground, right on the waterfront, was a massive pastel yellow arch – the Gateway of India. “It was built to welcome King George V when he visited India,” explained his well-briefed, Google-friendly wife.
“They didn’t think a bunch of flowers would do?” asked [Inspector] Singh.
“Anyway, it was only completed twelve years after the visit.” Singh grinned. That was the sort of managerial incompetence that he found amusing.

"He gives away a lot of money to charity and supports Sikh causes.” “Maybe we could persuade him that I’m a Sikh cause.”

Her life had all the ingredients of a Bollywood movie except the happy ending.

Mrs. Singh finally hove into view. “About bloody time,” he muttered. “These fellows have been trying to take our passports, our bags, our trolley – they’d have walked off with me balanced on their heads if you’d taken any longer.”
“Strong but not that strong,” remarked Mrs. Singh, leading the way to the taxi rank.

Singh was distracted by a strong and unpleasant smell that suddenly pervaded the airplane. He sniffed cautiously, protruding nostril hairs quivering. It didn’t smell like burning fuel or melting plastic or any of those olfactory sensations that would have caused him to make a dash for the exits. He turned to Mrs. Singh who was reading the in-flight magazine with the disdain of one who preferred to Google her subjects rather than have them pre-selected by an editor. “What’s that stink?” he whispered. “India,” she answered succinctly and then turned her attention back to a gleaming picture of the Taj Mahal resplendent in its manicured gardens, its reflection shimmering in a lake ...

He would avoid her relatives in the same way he’d always done – by sitting irascibly in a corner and allowing their waves of curiosity to wash over him.

Women like her, conservative and narrow-minded, were quite willing to believe that someone arrested for pilfering was congenitally pre-disposed to commit more serious crimes, eventually and naturally culminating in murder. In her view, fixating on the evidence for an individual crime was just pedantic. Mind you, Singh had met high court judges with the same attitude. He wondered for a moment why his wife had such faith in the police force in the abstract and so little confidence in his role in it.

“Eighty per cent of doctors in the United States are of Indian origin,” snapped Mrs. Singh, looking up from the computer for a moment to ensure that he was paying attention. “That can’t possibly be right,” protested Singh. “It says so right here,” said his wife, pointing a bony finger at the screen and basking in the blue light like an acolyte before a high priest. “Not everything you read on the Internet is true,” muttered Singh, addressing his remark to the skinny back in the flamboyant pink caftan.

A mob is more than the sum of individuals. It is more like a single creature with many arms and legs, hydra-headed but working with one idea.

Temples are places of worship, not war. We should never have let separatists hole up in our gurdwaras.

He suspected they did it not just because of their voracious appetite for tropical hardwoods and the money that it brought in, but because of a visceral fear that someday they might have to acknowledge that they were wrong. Everything they had sought and bought had not brought them happiness, let alone contentment. [...] It was better to destroy the potential source of such unpalatable truths than have them live to witness the lives of quiet desperation of their tormentors.

But these quiet people, in their animal skin clothes with their diet of sago, were not to be left alone to wander through the lush jungles, living off the land, leaving no mark when they moved on, teaching their children the secrets of the forest. The greed of others could not co-exist with the selflessness of the Penan with their gentle humour and generous hearts.