Sejal Quotes

Never depend on another person for your happiness. If someone had the authority to give, then he or she had the authority to take away.

home is not a place or a lifestyle, but the state of your heart and all the people who take their place in it.

Everyone must reach a point in their life when they stop running. When it is easier to stand still than to keep being chased, even if the person chasing you is only in your head.

When you give a piece of yourself to someone, count on them to hold it safe, you become vulnerable. You depend on them, but they may not be the person you expected, the one you were sure could carry you. Then the disappointment becomes a burden to bear. It is better to keep yourself at a distance, never getting too close.

But it is not always the sun that must shine to have light. In darkness, we must seek out the stars. Their brightness has its own power.

I can’t help but think when we have nothing else, when there are no answers, faith is our greatest ally.

The past, no matter how definite, does not have the power to determine the future.

But fear is a terrible thing. It paralyzes you with the expectation of the worst happening, never allowing room for something better, something that gives rather than takes away.

You should be with someone who can make you happy.” My heart breaks as I set him free. With all the love I have ever felt for him, I whisper, “You deserve that.

those who leave have a reason that is more powerful than the one to stay.

same blood runs in every human on the earth. You just have to see past the variations in skin and culture.

The third eye focuses on God, and the bindi signifies piety, reminding you to keep God at the center of your thoughts.

a mother cannot give birth to a child and not lose a piece of herself. The child takes a part of the parent with them, holding it as their own. Whether it be their heart or soul, they are now connected for always.

Even though not every story ends with a happy ending or begins with tragedy, along the way there are moments of both. And those moments don’t define you or even break you— they are simply parts of the whole.

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you meet a stranger who holds the piece of you that has been missing.

The unknown is the hardest. Which might explain why we try so hard to rule our worlds. It is the only hope we have to make sense of our lives.

Your grandmother, Amisha, always said to me, ‘Ravi, when you are next to the earth, you can hear her secrets.

hindsight is a vicious thing. It mocks you with what should have been done. Teases with how things could still be. When left with ashes, you wonder how you could have prevented the fire.

I imagine I should have told it to you before? I love you, Sejal.I wish for you to become my wife.Recently I’ve also opened a shop in North Dakota and thinking that, just maybe, you love me too.

Sejal had not thought of her home, or of India as a whole, as cool. She was dimly aware, however, of a white Westerner habit of wearing other cultures like T-shirts—the sticker bindis on club kids, sindoor in the hair of an unmarried pop star, Hindi characters inked carelessly on tight tank tops and pale flesh. She knew Americans liked to flash a little Indian or Japanese or African. They were always looking for a little pepper to put in their dish.

Some moments in your life you wish never happened; you would do anything to take them back. They make you realize you are not all-powerful. That there is a force stronger than you at work. In those moments, you fall to your knees and abdicate all sense of power. Offer your hand and ask for help. If you are lucky, you will feel the touch of something or someone to help you rise. If not, you stay kneeling, left all alone.

you cannot keep someone who has already left you behind.

With that knowledge comes her acceptance that to have the life she wants, she has to repaint the painting.

What he did to you can never be undone. But don’t let it color your life. Don’t let his actions or his way of living become your truth.

Whatever separates us in life has no relevance in death.

What if tradition is just an excuse to keep things as they always have been?

the only thing we take from life to death being the people whose lives we have touched. Everything else is a façade

Heroes are not born or created. They become so in the passing moments of life. When something or someone demands you be more than you have been, when you must put aside your own needs and what is best for you to fight for another, no matter the cost.

I want to explain to her that loneliness isn’t remedied by people around me, that my loneliness is an integral part of me.

am talking about her heart,” he corrects. “As a human, she was imperfect, as all humans are. But her heart always fought to do right by others, even when she was not doing right by herself. Therein lies her perfection

It is a funny thing when you have believed the worst about yourself your entire life. No matter what anyone says, you are the strongest voice of opposition, insisting to anyone who will listen that they are wrong, that you really are worthless.

One piece of knowledge had always eluded her, that life is not what happens to you, but what you make happen.

But the core of the person, what makes them who they are, that never changes.

Heroes are not born or created. They become so in the passing moments of life.

The reasons don’t matter . What’s done is done. Nothing can change the past.

A dream may be the only window to the unknown.

With humility may I reap my own power, and at the end of the journey, I hope I learn when to stand small so others can feel tall.

You have been blessed—a son will never leave you.

She set the course of our mother-daughter relationship and cemented it to what we are today—two strangers with blood as our bond.

When Patrick and I separated, I was so focused on what had torn us apart, I didn’t remember what brought us together.

That those who leave have a reason that is more powerful than the one to stay.

It both shames and gives me pause that I have lived my life on the sidelines, never knowing or caring that others live in such misfortune.

But, for whom that darkness of the soul is chased by light, splendid and clear shines manifest the truth. As if a sun of wisdom sprang to shed its beams of dawn.

It’s impossible to give someone the world. You can show them glimpses of yours, hope they join you in it, but to give them the world means you have to be willing to give up your own.

Everyone must reach a point in their life when they stop running. When it is easier to stand still than to keep being chased, even if the person chasing you is only in your head. When

I watch all of it, amazed at the human mind and ability to make a home no matter the circumstances. These children, surviving with so little, are more resilient than I can ever hope to be.

In Indian mythology, when the moon covers the sun, darkness has the power to cover your life.” Slowly, he makes his way out of the room and toward the exit. “But it is not always the sun that must shine to have light. In darkness, we must seek out the stars. Their brightness has its own power.

Nothing is gained from getting too close to people. From sharing secrets, dreams, and hopes. When you give a piece of yourself to someone, count on them to hold it safe, you become vulnerable. You depend on them, but they may not be the person you expected, the one you were sure could carry you. Then the disappointment becomes a burden to bear. It is better to keep yourself at a distance, never getting too close.

Ohh,' said the girl with a sad tilt of her head. It was a response Sejal would hear a lot in the following weeks and which she would eventully come to understand meant, 'Ohh, India, that must be so hard for you, and I know because I read this book over the summer called The Fig Tree (which is actually set in Pakistan but I don't realize there's a difference) about a girl whose parents sell her to a sandal maker because everyone's poor and they don't care about girls there, and I bet that's why you're in our country even, and now everyone's probably being mean to you just because of 9/11, but not me although I'll still be watching you a little too closely on the bus later because what if you're just here to kill Americans?' There was a lot of information encoded in that one vowel sound, so Sejal missed most of it at first.

It is not what she deserves,” Ravi argued, surprised he would find the nerve to do so. But he did not care anymore. If Deepak beat him or released him from his job, he did not care. He would not allow this to be done to her.

I once interviewed a New Age guru who spoke about how unfinished business from ancestors can trickle down to generations twice, even three times, removed. Actions in the present can help to correct the mistakes made in the past. And even if there is no absolution to be had, an understanding may help keep the same mistake from being repeated.

floccinaucinihilipilification, one of the most complicated. Hope—for such a simple word its meaning is profound

True kindness in people is a rarity, and when discovered, I believe it should be treasured.

you cannot keep someone who has already left you behind. No matter what I needed or wanted,

He told me once that people will forget many things, but they will never forget a person who shows them kindness.

But laws are slow to change what is in people’s hearts.

For hundreds of years, people have categorized others as less so they could feel like more. Color, gender, class, religion, physical handicaps, sexual orientation, and pedigree are just a few ways in which one group is divided from another. For every person who stands superior, another must be inferior. But what does it say of us as a human race when we push others down for our own needs?

Fate passed its judgment and sentenced my mother at birth. She was destined to live a life without the presence or guidance of a mother. Though sadness always accompanied her, she carried the weight of her hurt silently. She believed herself a curse and kept her distance. She loved me the only way she knew how while living her own life in shame.

Blood does not define family. Love does.

A daughter born to you is never truly yours.

Their way of life is not for us to judge but our opportunity to learn.

It is believed that meditative energy flows from the feet upward,” he says. “Only with bare feet can you feel God within you.

He gave me the only answer he could—that history proved time and again it was difficult to change what people believed as truth.

Your story showed me that life isn’t always about what I want to be but instead what I can be.

Then you are lucky. True kindness in people is a rarity, and when discovered, I believe it should be treasured.

Hope—for such a simple word its meaning is profound.

death was a matter of time, neither to be feared nor fought. Life was a punishment, and the time spent on earth an ordeal.

True, but in that moment, that child makes them a family. And the parents leave here knowing that being a mother or father is a gift, no matter how it comes about.

you grow a bird in a cage and then humiliate it by telling - 'you can't fly'.

Peace became my motivation, and I did everything to maintain

It is always the strongest and best that suffer,” Nita says, clasping Ranee’s hand in her own. “As if God knows that you have strength the rest of us lack.

don’t make a wish. Instead I smile,

to find peace in that moment, you have to cede control of life.

Her stories were her only passport to places she had never been. Without them, she would be forever trapped in this village.

She hated prisons, whether it was in the dungeon or in the open air.

He treated her as an equal. With him she felt safe to be herself and, in doing so, started to discover who she was.

They went around the room, Marin murmuring “Grapes,” but offering no reason when it was her turn. But when another girl said pineapple, Marin paid attention, curious about the choice. “Because it’s prickly on the outside and impossible to cut through. But once you get to the fruit, it’s worth the trouble,” the girl explained. “So don’t always believe what you see.

Heroes are not born or created. They become so in the passing moments of life. When something or someone demands you be more than you have been, when you must put aside your own needs and what is best for you to fight for another, no matter the cost. The past, the day-to-day living becomes irrelevant. All that matters is that instant when the ticking of the clock is louder than an ocean’s wave hitting the rocks, when time does not stand still, but slows, every second longer than the last one. This is when the decision becomes the only thing you can hear and see. When the choice falls out of your hand and fate intervenes. When your life is no longer yours but conjoined with another’s, each dependent upon the other to survive and thrive.

What is the chance our marriage can survive the tumultuous ups and downs of hope followed by disappointment and finally resignation? When it is too hard to stand, how do you help another?

I want all of you to write about creating something you want, destroying something you don’t need, and protecting what is vital. But you must explain how your heart, your soul, and your mind feel about each event.

before passing through childhood.” In history class via textbook pages and photos, I learned how the caste system defined generations of Hindus. Each person was slotted into a predetermined position of value based on his birth. The untouchables were on the lowest rung and were often considered worthless. Furious at a system I

you at the apartment?” He’s asking about the spells of darkness and loss of time. I had seen his concern then, but if he had asked, I wouldn’t have had the answer. “I think it was the grief. I didn’t know how to handle it, so it was just easier to black out.” At any other time, the symptoms would have been frightening, but then I barely realized what

Everyone is a student and a teacher.

Though there is no playbook on how to navigate the path of life, if I do it with the grace and heart of the women before me, then I will have lived my life with honor.

The heart and soul work on emotions. They don’t always stop to think about what is right or wrong, only what they want and need.

I lost the man I love without reason.

It was easy to be together in the moments we were strong, but it felt impossible when I was weak.

Photo © 2014 Hema B. Ravani

each day is precious and love is something to be protected as a priceless treasure that only the fortunate find and keep.

For hundreds of years, people have categorized others as less so they could feel like more.

I hope I learn when to stand small so others can feel tall.

Amisha giggled at the parade of cows with bells on their necks.

When we reach, we always chance a fall.

The ache in his words is a warning to me.

Given the freedom to decide, have I ever made a decision, or have I blindly followed the steps laid out for me?

A man is building his house. Though warned by his friends it isn’t a safe design, he refuses to listen. There’s an earthquake, and the house collapses. He and a bird that lived in a tree near the house become trapped.” Amisha searched the students’ faces and was pleased to see their interest. “There is only one small hole through which to breathe. The man must decide who gets the oxygen.” She paused to make sure she still had their attention. “Please write about what happens next.

The memories of the past circle around me—a reminder of a time when my marriage was stronger than circumstance. I pass through the years like snippets of a film reel until I am moments away from the day he told me about Stacey. With the recollection, the pain comes flooding back.

Last night, Amisha had helped Jay for the first time with his English homework. Afterward, he climbed into her lap and thanked her. She had swallowed the lump in her throat and hugged him back before tickling him. When he ran off laughing, she glanced at the makeshift temple and nodded her thanks.

I realized I wasn’t teaching them the right way. So I sat my two oldest sons down and admitted something.” The students leaned closer, as if waiting for a secret. “‘I had never been a parent before I had you,’ I told them. ‘I am learning to be your mama as you are to be my sons.’” “You said that?” another female student asked. Thrilled the children were responding to her, Amisha nodded. “I did. They were surprised. I think they believed I was born as a mama.” She smiled at their laughter. “So I offered them a deal. They would help me to be a better mama, and I would help them to be good sons.

What if we all stood equal in one another’s eyes and felt pride at our reflection? I speak of utopia and chance being ridiculed, but sitting in a village thousands of miles from everything, I will roll the dice. For one day only, maybe we could put aside our differences and come together in our sameness. For one day, we could see that past all the variations, we are all the same with similar hopes, dreams, fears, strengths, and weaknesses. For one day, we could stand together, not apart, and treat others as we would hope to be treated. History teaches us that day will never come. Our differences give us purpose—both good and bad. Some see it as an opportunity to strive for what they aren’t, while others take it to belittle those who frighten us. In the vein of my earlier appreciation for dancing, I would imagine a world where music defines us. The fall and rise of the tempo would dictate our moves, and our hearts and minds would sway to the beat. Each person would have a place on the stage, and every voice would be heard. The melodies would bridge our differences while celebrating our similarities. And at the end, we would be better for having danced together.