One of the fundamental rights of mankind should be that of wearing as many or as few clothes as one likes inside one's own home.

I'd be staring at you and thinking, I should ask, I should ask, I should ask; do you want to be in a stable monogamous relationship for the rest of your life?

Those who choose differently must suffer the consequences. They must take the pain their decisions bring.

Whatever happens, happens for the best.' That's how any domestic counselling starts in a Marathi family. Everyone in every family has an inner psychiatrist who rises to the occasion with some home-made mottos, a few lines from Jagjit Singh ghazal. An older generation may quote Tukaram but underlying all this is the bedrock phase: Whatever happens, happens for the best.

Spoil all the walls with sellotape marks.

I wonder if I should believe what she says. But when you're not strong in yourself, anyone can tell you anything and you'll fall for it.

When you're looking for a relationship, the process weakens you. you feel you have to bear with whatever the other person wants. Each of the people I have met has made this a little more clear.

I sometimes go and sit there. it is my museum of broken things.

I have only men like you n novels, men who lived their own idiosyncrasies.

I have only met men like you in novels, men who lived their own idiosyncrasies.

Once you start living together and you see the same person day in and day out, you begin to wonder: was it for this I struggled and toiled? Did he feel that way?

We both disliked rude rickshwalas, shepu bhaji in any form, group photographs at weddings, lizards, tea that has gone cold, the habit of taking newspaper to the toilet, kissing a boy who'd just smoked a cigarette et cetra. Another list. The things we loved: strong coffee, Matisse, Rumi, summer rain, bathing together, Tom Hanks, rice pancakes, Cafe Sunrise, black-and-white photographs, the first quiet moments after you wake up in the morning.

Kaku, the aamti is excellent. Did you put ghee in the daal when it was boiling?

I felt the kind of peace you feel when you come in from a hot afternoon and pour cold water over your feet.

I took my clothes out of the cupboard and looked at myself in the mirror. I dropped the wet towel. i took a long, clear-eyed look at myself. that i was different was nowhere apparent.

I didn't like Dali: now, like you, I do. Like you, I began to drink my Coke with a pinch of salt . Like you, I stopped bothering about ironed clothes. Like you, I sit with a dictionary while reading the papers. Like you, I sit on the compound wall after a bath.

At the meeting you behaves exactly as Marathi novelists of the last century tell is husbands do in sari shops.

That you should not be here when something we've both wanted happens is no new thing for me. Today too, as always, you're not here.