Excerpts from "Lovers' Rock"

Grace was a blazing fire, and he was ready to burn in it. Mani soon realized that Grace’s slender legs had walked into his life with a whole lot of unpaid bills.

Despite his success, Mani’s work did not garner much respect from the established masters of the time. Gradually, however, the sheer strength of his mounting sales, the single most important factor that separated the successful from the gifted, won them over. That talent alone did not guarantee success, was demonstrated by the genius of Pestonji, time and again.

I do not wish to feel like a dumb ass among the bulls and the holy cows of the art fraternity. I don’t understand their language.

He knew he had married a live bomb, ready to explode at the slightest provocation. It wasn’t easy to defuse her.

Despite his success, Mani’s work did not garner much respect from the established masters of the time. Gradually, however, the sheer strength of his mounting sales, the single most important factor that separated the successful from the gifted, won them over. That talent alone did not guarantee success, was demonstrated by the genius of Pestonji, time and again.

Mr Habib took a round of the exhibits, as if looking for his mother-in-law arriving in a train from Timbuktu. He didn’t seem to have an eye for art—not a single work on the wall captured his interest—but anything beautiful draped in a sari engaged his attention. There were plenty of saris to keep him enthralled.

‘You amaze me, dear girl,’ he said at length. ‘But then, lotus blooms best in marshlands.’

‘And so does cactus in the desert,’ she said.

‘You’re gifted with noble thoughts,’ Pestonji remarked. ‘I’m enchanted.’

‘Humble would be more appropriate to describe my thoughts,’ she said. ‘Nobility mainly resides in higher places.

‘I’m just an ordinary shell John picked up from the shores of Daman.’

 ‘Perhaps a shell that houses a pearl in its core,’ Pestonji retorted.

‘You’re a prisoner of your pride, consumed by a passion of revenge that could ruin everything you’ve achieved in your life.’

Tanya was like the rocks he painted—strong, solid and at eternal peace. Grace, on the other hand, was more like the fierce waves of the ocean—eternally restless, full of fury and ready to destroy anything that came in the way.

 

 

She could not face the past without remorse, the present with dignity or handle the future without fear.

Kaveri wasn’t one to give up so easily. ‘By the way, where has this ravishing bird come from? I hope she is of the migratory type.

‘I can’t figure out why a flower must blossom, if it must wither before its time?’

 ‘Sealing the wound now would be better than concealing it with the bandage of untruth.