[Mahatma Gandhi] said that the first president of India ought to be a harijan girl, an untouchable. He was so against the class system and the oppression of women that an untouchable woman became for him the epitome of purity and benediction.

It's not at all hard to reconcile the two things if you organize your time intelligently. Even when my sons were little, I was working.

Defeats are always pitiful. Victories are always last resources.

Sometimes friends are dangerous. We must be very careful about the help friends give us.

Muslim women had to go out in purdah, that heavy sheet that covers even the eyes. Hindu women had to go out in the doli, a kind of closed sedan chair like a catafalque. My mother always told me about these things with bitterness and rage.

For me the only point that has remained unchanged through the years is that in India there is still so much poverty.

Little by little I changed my mind, and when I was about eighteen, I began to consider the possibility of getting married. Not to have a husband, but to have children.