This underneath, and on top a flat creed: cake was better than laddoos, fork spoon knife better than hands, sipping the blood of Christ and consuming a wafer of his body was more civilized than garlanding a phallic symbol with marigolds. English was better than Hindi.
This quotation explains how the nuns who educate Sai in the convent school assign moral weight to cultural differences, a pervasive remnant of colonialism that shapes Sai's sense of self. The quotation compares Indian and European items and ideas to highlight similarities and highlight the arbitrariness of believing Indian culture is innately inferior. For example, the nuns insist that cake, a British staple, is superior to laddoos, an Indian sweet, though there is no nutritional difference between the two deserts. They also arrogantly insist that their native language, English, is "better" than Hindi—though knowing Hindi is far more useful than knowing English while residing in India.
The quotation uses irony to highlight how ludicrous and arbitrary the nuns' cultural biases are. Catholic theology argues that during holy communion, believers literally consume the body and blood of Jesus Christ, a ritual that sounds cannibalistic and primitive. However, the nuns still insist their religious traditions are more "civilized" since some Hindu traditions invoke sexual imagery.
One day the Indian girls hoped to be gentry, but right now, despite being unwelcome in the neighborhood, they were in the student stage of vehemently siding with the poor people who wished them gone.
Biju delivers Chinese food to a group of wealthy Indian students who try to relate to Biju. Though Biju and the students are Indian, their experiences of being Indian in America could not be more different. While Biju is constantly shamed for his background, the girls are praised and privileged with the ability to occupy both Indian and Western spaces. The students intend to embrace the economic and political systems that oppress people like Biju while still enjoying their cultural identity. This quotation summarizes the idea that there is no homogenous Indian or immigrant experience.
And he found that he possessed an awe of white people, who arguably had done India great harm, and a lack of generosity regarding almost everyone else, who had never done a single harmful thing to India
In this quotation, Biju confronts his own prejudices. Biju's father, the cook, grew up during the British Raj and internalized the colonial ideology that Western culture is inherently superior, and Biju absorbed this same bias. However, when as an immigrant in New York City, Biju faces near-constant racial discrimination and befriends people from a variety of backgrounds. Thus, he realizes the hypocrisy and danger of idolizing Western, colonial cultures while simultaneously disparaging groups of people who never harmed India.
"Time should move…Don’t go in for a life where time doesn’t pass, the way I did. That is the single biggest bit of advice I can give you.”
In this quotation, Noni, Sai's tutor, expresses that her life is wasted and stagnant. Mistakenly believing that an appearance of respectability was the key to happiness, Noni abandoned her dream of being an archaeologist and never found love. On their remote estate, Noni and Lola idealize contentment and seek to recreate an imagined colonial past. In this quotation, Noni advises Sai to reject romantic views of isolation and pursue a life that excites her.
“You are like slaves, that’s what you are, running after the West, embarrassing yourself. It’s because of people like you we never get anywhere.”
In this quotation, Gyan expresses indignation over Sai’s Western behaviors and blames her for his oppression. Though Gyan is a victim of colonialism, he fails to recognize that Sai, having grown up in a convent school and under the care of Judge Patel, also struggles to find identity in a society that condemns her heritage as inferior. Additionally, poverty and social stratification were part of the Indian cultural landscape before English colonizers ever set foot upon Indian soil. Gyan's misplaced vitriol evidences his feelings of impotence, as he cannot improve his family's situation through either education or political activism.
The men sat unbedding their rage, learning, as everyone does in this country, at one time or another, that old hatreds are endlessly retrievable.
As soon as Gyan joins the GNLF protest, his frustration and anger are immediately redirected toward non-Nepalis and other beneficiaries of colonialism. Though Gyan navigated various social spaces and fell in love with Sai, he revives the inherited prejudices he once criticized. Rather than recognizing the complex root causes of his oppression, Gyan takes out his anger on Sai because humiliating and betraying her is immediately gratifying.
The man in the curly white wig and a dark face covered in powder, bringing down his hammer, always against the native, in a world that was still colonial.
When meeting with his old friend, Bose, Judge Patel realizes the extent of colonialism's legacy on both his own life and India itself. The quotation evokes the imagery of a judge with a powdered face to illustrate Judge Patel's complicity in colonial oppression. Though Jemu and Bose were appointed to the Civil Service to "Indianize" it, their actual role was to maintain British influence disguised as inclusivity. Judge Patel painfully realizes that his career harmed India and destroyed his sense of self.
Here, Sai had learned how music, alcohol, and friendship together could create a grand civilization.
Throughout the text, Sai struggles to define her identity as she navigates post-colonial Indian and British culture. Judge Patel criticizes Sai for being "too Indian," and Gyan criticizes Sai for not being "Indian" enough. However, in this quotation, Sai expresses that her interpersonal relationships more significantly define her sense of belonging than affiliation with any nation or culture. By describing her friendships as a "grand civilization," Sai explains that culture itself is a complex web of relationships.
He could not talk to his father; there was nothing left between them but emergency sentences, clipped telegram lines shouted out as if in the midst of a war. They were no longer relevant to each other’s lives except for the hope that they would be relevant.
Biju thinks about and misses his father daily; much of his emotional energy is spent trying to figure out ways to ease the cook's worries. However, when Biju calls his father for the first time in three years, he realizes that their relationship has been damaged by their time apart, their separate experiences changing them. In this quotation, Biju expresses his intense fear that, through their time apart, his father will realize his affection for Biju was simply a matter of habit and obligation.
The wealth that seemed to protect them like a blanket was the very thing that left them exposed.
When GNLF affiliates illegally reside on Noni and Lola's property, they realize that the privileges they once enjoyed will be their downfall. Under normal circumstances, the sisters' wealth and social standing insulated them against the harsh realities of living in Kalimpong. The poor of Kalimpong, like Gyan, resent the sisters' unearned privileges and blame them for systemic oppression. Thus, the GNLF members feel justified in targeting the sisters as a form of reparation for hoarding resources.
