"A man who preferred to dress like a permanent tourist was just what a guide passionately looked for all his life" (Chapter 1, page 5).

"The sugar was kept in an old tin can, which looked rusty but contained excellent sugar. It was kept on a wooden ledge on the smoke-stained wall of the kitchen, out of my reach. I fear that its position was shifted up ad up as I grew older, because I remember that I could never get at that rusty can at any time except with the cooperation of my elders" (Chapter 1, page 7).

"Raju was filled with gratitude and prayed that Velan might never come to the stage of thinking that he was too good for food and that he subsisted on atoms from the air" (Chapter 2, page 24).

"He realized that he had no alternative: he must play the role that Velan had given him" (Chapter...