Kamala Suraiyya Das

“At sunset, on the river ban, KrishnaLoved her for the last time and left. . .That night in her husband's arms, Radha feltSo dead that he asked, What is wrong,Do you mind my kisses, love? And she said,Not not at all, but thought, What is It to the corpse if the maggots nip?”

“A book is a good substitute for a man. Fiction, preferably”

“If wrappings of cloth can impart respectability, the most respectable persons are the Egyptian mummies, all wrapped in layers and layers of gauze”

“It is I who drink lonely Drinks at twelve, midnight, in hotels of strange towns, It is I who laugh, it is I who make love And then, feel shame, it is I who lie dying With a rattle in my throat. I am sinner, I am saint. I am the beloved and the Betrayed. I have no joys that are not yours, no Aches which are not yours. I too call myself I.”