“The emotions that drove my quest to deconstruct the real woman behind the anguished formal portrait of Mrs Ramchandra Raghuvanshi were those of sympathy, empathy and curiosity about the fractured identities and expectations of most women in India today.”

In Search of Sita: Revisiting Mythology (2009)

“Sanity is like nail polish, it chips easily, it has to be restored and renewed. Too constant a use can cause a yellowing of the nails.”

The Book of Shadows

“As we trace the eternal living reality of Shiva in its forward and backward moments, in its multifarious and often conflicting interpretations, we breathe new life into the living faith of Shiva, he who is beyond words and names, he who is beyond understanding, who can be glimpsed only in the total and terrible moment of absolute surrender and annihilation.”

The Book of Shiva

“The distinction between Kala and Mahakala, between manifest and transcendent time, is a philosophical concept of great depth and magnitude. Time in creation is rhythmic, and this is why Shiva is understood as the cosmic dancer.”

The Book of Shiva

“My grandmother thought it all a waste of time. ‘I have seen a lot of learned men’ she would say, scrunching up her face in distaste. ‘Their minds get dizzy from too much thinking.”

Gods, Graves and Grandmother

“A long, long time ago, in the ancient lands of India, known in those days as Bharatvarsha, a family quarrel grew into a bloody war. There had been wars before, and there have been wars since, but this mighty battle between warring cousins of the Kuru clan has become a part of the mythology and history of India. Told and retold a million times, the story of the Mahabharata is about defeat as well as victory, humility as much as courage. It is the greatest story ever told”

The Puffin Mahabharata

“The habit of grief can be as insidious as the habit of love.”

The Habit of Love.

“I have come to the hills to heal, to hide, to forget. To forgive, to be forgiven.”

The Book of Shadows

“Aren’t you the girl who wore the red flower in her hair, that day? she asked suddenly. Looking back, today, I can say that perhaps it was only the cruelty of arrogant youth; but then, in that moment, in the present of that hot mid-afternoon, I reeled at the sudden strident cruelty. ‘Yes’, I answered shamefacedly, wishing the earth would swallow me up, and swallow my white sandals and my white home-starched Lucknowi sari too.”

Paro: Dreams of Passion (1984)

“Metamorphosis has its complications. Having entered Nala, the animus that Kalee harboured against the once-fortunate king was beginning to feed on itself”

The Habit of Love

“The question of truth has to be constantly addressed according to the changing temper of the times” my brother replied.

Shakuntala – The Play of Memory

“They hid their apprehensions behind stern looks and a tight-lipped silence, for, sometimes, to recognise an evil is to give it more force.”

Things To Leave Behind (2016)

“Something in my circuitry just crashed. This.Was.Not.Real. She was – had been – a cannibal! I trusted Ghatotkacha and Hidimbi Ma, but what was to stop one of their rakshasa brethren from getting tempted by a tasty morsel of young human flesh?”

Lost in Time: Ghatotkacha and the Game of Illusions

“And Rudrani Rana? She was in the shadow of every line, of every vexed question, every hope and despair and consolation. My body remains a haunted house.”

“It was in the nature of things that the young did not, could not, understand the fragility of time.”

Jaipur Journals (2020)

“Bhotiyas are the most wonderful dogs in the world, they are brave and fearless and loving, but they don’t survive in the plains, they belong to these mountains, and in many senses, these mountains belong to them”

The Book of Shadows

“The history of women is left to us in folklore and tradition, in faintly remembered lullabies and the half-forgotten touch of a grandmother’s hand, in recipes, ancestral jewellery, and cautionary tales about the limits of a woman’s empowerment”

Mountain Echoes – Reminiscences of Kumaoni Women

“Shiva is the god of life and death, of destruction and rebirth. The whole life process is imminent in him, but he transcends it and inhabits a mental, emotional and spiritual space which is difficult to understand through intellectual processes alone. To embrace Shiva, to comprehend his power, involves an intuitive leap into our deepest inner selves.”

The Book of Shiva