The bond that ties her strength to my weakness, my fierce demands to her nurturing, my trust to her capacity to contain that trust—and my loneliness to her compassion—is stronger than the bond of motherhood. More satisfying than the ties between men and women.
Lenny gives great importance to family. She has a particularly close relationship with her godmother. They kiss and hug each other and Lenny always wants to be in contact with her. This quotation shows the intensity of their connection and the almost erotic power of even family relationships, as described in the novel.
My nose inhales the fragrance of earth and grass—and the other fragrance that distills insights. I intuit the meaning and purpose of things. The secret rhythm of creation and mortality.
This is Lenny’s description of seeing Masseur and Ayah have sex late at home at night. The quotation shows Lenny’s intuition of the importance and power of sex.
Even in retrospect, these isolated impressions didn’t add up to a reliable warning. Pir Pindo was too deep in the hinterland of the Punjab, where distances are measured in footsteps and at the speed of bullock-carts, for larger politics to penetrate.
Here the narration talks about the difference in how the conflict between different religious groups manifested in the city and the countryside. This difference, and also how conflict reaches everywhere in the end, is an important theme of the novel.
Do you expect us to walk away with our hands and feet? What use will they serve us without our lands? Can you evacuate our land? [. . .] Do you expect us to leave everything we’ve valued and loved since childhood? The seasons, the angle and color of the sun rising and setting over our fields are beautiful to us, the shape of our rooms and barns is familiar and dear. You can’t expect us to leave just like that!
These sentences are uttered by the village head in Pir Pindo and other villagers. They have been told to leave their home to find safety elsewhere after Partition, but here they powerfully argue that it is not so easy to detach oneself from the land.
And the vision of a torn Punjab. Will the earth bleed? And what about the sundered rivers? Won’t their water drain into the jagged cracks? Not satisfied by breaking India, they want to tear the Punjab.
Lenny says this after she hears about the murder of Mr. Rogers. Here she imagines literally what it would mean for the Punjab to be “torn” or partitioned.
One day everybody is themselves—and the next day they are Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian.
As tensions between communities in Lahore get worse, Lenny describes how all the people around her suddenly become symbols of themselves—visible more for their religious belonging than their qualities as individuals.
That night I went mad, I tell you! I lobbed grenades through the windows of Hindus and Sikhs I’d known all my life! I hated their guts… I want to kill someone for each of the breasts they cut off the Muslim women… The penises!
Ice-candy-man says this after the train comes to Lahore full of mutilated and murdered Muslims. His violent actions and way of justifying them are important for showing how it was that former neighbors and friends were able to begin murdering each other during Partition in revenge for what the other side did (or was thought to have done).
It surprises me how easily Ranna has accepted his loss; and adjusted to his new environment. So…one gets used to everything…. If one must. The small bitterness and grudges I tend to nurse make me feel ashamed of myself. Ranna’s ready ability to forgive a past none of us could control keeps him whole.
This quotation spoken by Lenny shows the differences in how people experience trauma. Though Ranna lost almost his whole family and was nearly killed on his journey escaping Sikh mobs in India, he is able to forgive. Lenny, in contrast, is in emotional turmoil because of her anger and bitterness.
And I chant: “Ayah! Ayah! Ayah!” until my heart pounds with the chant and the children on the roof picking it up shout with all their heart: “Ayah! Ayah! Ayah! Ayah!” and our chant flows into the pulse of the women below, and the women on the roof, and they beat their breasts and cry "Hai! Hai! Hai!" reflecting the history of their cumulative sorrows and the sorrows of their Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and Rajput great-grandmothers who burnt themselves alive rather than surrender their honor to the invading hordes besieging their ancestral fortresses.
This passage narrated by Lenny to describe what happens at the camp for recovered women shows the power of female solidarity beyond religion. Her cry of joy in finally finding Ayah mingles with the cry of the women who have been raped, kidnapped, and now found. Despite their differences, people can be united by their pain.
The innocence that my parents' vigilance, the servants' care, and Godmother's love sheltered in me, that neither Cousin's carnal cravings, nor the stories of the violence of the mobs, could quite destroy, was laid waste that evening by the emotional storm that raged around me. The confrontation between Ice-candy-man and Godmother opened my eyes to the wisdom of righteous indignation over compassion. To the demands of gratification—and the unscrupulous nature of desire. To the pitiless face of love.
Lenny has this terrible glimpse of the adult world as she hears Ice-candy-man’s story about making Ayah a prostitute and then marrying her. All of the attempts to protect her have now come to nothing. This is an important moment in Lenny’s loss of innocence. She realizes here that even love and desire can be a force for evil.
