If you’ll pardon me for making this somewhat prosaic observation – maybe that’s what life is, or ends up being most of the time: a rehearsal for a pe… - Arundhati Roy

maybe that’s what life is, or ends up being most of the time: a rehearsal for a performance that never eventually materializes. (p155)

Young Palestinians who cannot control their anger turn themselves into human bombs and haunt Israel’s streets and public places, blowing themselves up, killing ordinary people, injecting terror into daily life, and eventually hardening both societies’ suspicion and mutual hatred of each other. Each bombing invites merciless reprisal and even more hardship on Palestinian people. But then suicide bombing is an act of individual despair, not a revolutionary tactic.

Even in the most uneventful of our lives, we are called upon to choose our battles (p165)

Ammu's tears made everything that had so far seemed unreal, real.