ktravula – a travelogue!

First Words

“May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dustgreen trees. Red bananas ripen. Jackfruits burst. Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air. Then they stun themselves against clear windowpanes and die, flatly baffled in the sun.”

– Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small things (1997)

“Excuse me, sir, but may I be of assistance? Ah, I see I’ve alarmed you. Do not be frightened by my beard: I am a lover of America. I noticed that you were looking for something; more than looking, in fact you seemed to be on a mission, and since I am both a native of this city and a speaker of your language, I thought I might offer you my services.”

– Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007)

“I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills. The Equator runs across these highlands, a hundred miles to the north, and the farm lay at an altitude of over six thousand feet. In the day-time you felt that you had got high up, near to the suun, but the early mornings and evenings were limpid and restful, and the nights were cold.”

– Karen Blixen’s Out of Africa (1937)

“The blow catches him from the right, sharp and surprising and painful, like a bolt of electricity, lifting him up off the bicycle. Relax! he tells himself as he flies through the air (flies through the air with the greatest of ease!), and indeed he can feel his limbs go obediently slack. Like a cat he tells himself: roll, then spring to your feet, ready for what comes next. The unusual word limber or limbre is on the horizon too.”

– J.M. Coetzee’s Slow Man ((2005)

Random Quotes

“The eyes believe themselves the ears believe other people.” (German proverb)

“A man does not die of love or his liver or even of old age he dies of being a man.” (Miguel de Unamuno)

“I am an eyewitness to the ways in which people relate to themselves and to each other, and my work is a way of scooping and ladling that experience.”

“I am an eyewitness to the ways in which people relate to themselves and to each other, and my work is a way of scooping and ladling that experience.” – Richard Neutra

“History is the study of lies, anyway, because no witness ever recalls events with total accuracy, not even eyewitnesses” – Nancy Pickard

Q: Were you present when your picture was taken? – A court joke

“Silence is as full of potential wisdom and wit as the unshown marble of great sculpture. The silent bear no witness against themselves.” – Aldous Huxley

“You never know how much a man can’t remember until he’s called a ‘witness'”.

CIMG1470 “The eyes believe themselves the ears believe other people.” – German proverb

“A man does not die of love or his liver or even of old age he dies of being a man.” – Miguel de Unamuno

“I am an eyewitness to the ways in which people relate to themselves and to each other, and my work is a way of scooping and ladling that experience.” – Richard Neutra

“History is the study of lies, anyway, because no witness ever recalls events with total accuracy, not even eyewitnesses” – Nancy Pickard

Q: Were you present when your picture was taken? – A court joke

“Silence is as full of potential wisdom and wit as the unshown marble of great sculpture. The silent bear no witness against themselves.” – Aldous Huxley

“You never know how much a man can’t remember until he’s called a ‘witness'” – Will Rogers.