As a bookish child in Calcutta, I used to thrill to the adventures of bad girls whose pursuit of happiness swept them outside the bounds of social decency. Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina lived large in… — Bharati Mukherjee Copy Share Image
Lepers were a common sight all over India and in every part of Calcutta, but extending help beyond dropping a coin or two into their rag-wrapped stumps was not. As a child I was convinced even touching a spot a… — Bharati Mukherjee Copy Share Image
You see for me, America is an idea. It is a stage for transformation. I felt when I came to Iowa City from Calcutta… — Bharati Mukherjee Copy Share Image
The picture of Mother Teresa that I remember from my childhood is of a short, sari-wearing woman scurrying down a red gravel path between… — Bharati Mukherjee Copy Share Image
“It's making life important, making a single life important, rather than having a prescription for the global ills which afflict us.” — Bharati Mukherjee Copy Share Image
I truly appreciate the special qualities that America and American national myths offer me. — Bharati Mukherjee Copy Share Image
I flew into a small airport surrounded by cornfields and pastures, ready to carry out the two commands my father had written out for… — Bharati Mukherjee Copy Share Image
In Hindu societies, especially overprotected patriarchal families like mine, daughters are not at all desirable. They are trouble. And a mother who, as mine… — Bharati Mukherjee Copy Share Image
One of the early tip-offs to me about the enormous changes that were going on with being in a Bangalore house, home, where the… — Bharati Mukherjee Copy Share Image
I am aware of myself as a four-hundred-year-old woman, born in the captivity of a colonial, pre-industrial oral culture and living now as a… — Bharati Mukherjee Copy Share Image
Mother Teresa's detractors have accused her of overemphasizing Calcuttans' destitution and of coercing conversion from the defenseless. In the context of lost causes, Mother… — Bharati Mukherjee Copy Share Image
I had never walked on the street alone when I was growing up in Calcutta, up to age 20. I had never handled money.… — Bharati Mukherjee Copy Share Image
“Love on the decline is hard to tell from love on the rise.” [From 'The Lady from Lucknow']” — Bharati Mukherjee Copy Share Image
![“Love on the decline is hard to tell from love on the rise.” [From 'The Lady from Lucknow']” quote by Bharati Mukherjee](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/0d1/bharati-mukherjee-14775_love_love-on-the-decline-is-hard-to-tell-from_1301841.jpg)