People rarely win wars, governments rarely lose them. People get killed. Governments moult and regroup, hydra-headed. They use flags first to shrink-wrap people's minds and smother thought, and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury their willing dead.

Of course, there's an alternative to terrorism: it's called justice.

If we were to lose the ability to be emotional, if we were to lose the ability to be angry, to be outraged, we would be robots. And I refuse that.

When people say "the people" or "the public" as though it's the final repository of all morality, I sometimes flinch.

In India, we have a right wing that is so vicious and so openly wicked, which is the Baratiya Janata party (BJP), and then we have the Congress party, which does almost worse things, but does it by night. And people feel that the only choices they have are to vote for this or for that. And my point is that, whoever you vote for, it doesn't have to consume all the oxygen in the political debate.

Excitement always leads to tears.

An old-growth forest, a mountain range or a river valley is more important and certainly more loveable than any country will ever be.