Author

In Delhi, where I grew up, commerce is brusque. You don't ask each other how your day has been. You might not even smile. I'm not saying this is ideal - it's how it is. You're tied together by a transaction. The customer doesn't tremble before complaining about how cold his food is.

From Karan Mahajan

American life is based on a reassurance that we like one another but won't violate one another's privacies. This makes it a land of small talk.

From Karan Mahajan

I had a thick accent, and people didn't understand me, and I was ashamed, and I fumbled. I radiated an uncertain energy; sometimes baristas sensed this and wouldn't try to talk to me, and then an insecure voice in my head would cry, 'He's racist!'

From Karan Mahajan

When a certain swathe of India's population considers the country's ancient past, it doesn't see a country fragmented into kingdoms, savaged by caste divisions, and mired in poverty; rather, what's envisioned is a vast, unified Hindu empire stretching from Kashmir to the Indian tip at Kanyakumari.

From Karan Mahajan

The Hindu nationalists see a religion near perfection save for the tampering of Muslims and Christians. So they fall upon these groups, rather than try to reform their own practices by drawing on India's sophisticated philosophical traditions.

From Karan Mahajan

I see flaws as a kind of beauty.

From Karan Mahajan

I travelled around small-town India a lot for a job from 2010-2012, and I was impressed by the energy I encountered in these places.

From Karan Mahajan

I met a number of young, striving, enterprising people in cities like Aligarh and Hubli. But the mental landscape of these towns is out of sync with their reality. Many of these towns are hellholes.

From Karan Mahajan

I remember returning to Bangalore after a few months of travel and seeing it as a first-world city, like New York or San Francisco. This may be obvious to some people, but I grew up in Delhi, and I had no experience of how someone from a 'Tier 2' city may view a 'Tier 1' city. You really do emigrate between worlds when you come from those towns.

From Karan Mahajan

Literature has become too psychological.

From Karan Mahajan

Karan Mahajan

Notable Quotes

Authors with Similar Views

Salman Rushdie

William Blum

Pankaj Mishra

John Keegan

Anita Desai

Authors with Opposing Views

Conrad Black

George R. R. Martin

Adam Jones

Alejandro Jodorowsky

Ambrose Bierce