When I first decided to be a writer, that meant dealing with preoccupations and concerns that took little account of Indian traditions. I saw India's past as part of an antiquity rendered irrelevant by modernity, which with its science, nation states, free enterprises, and consumer societies was supposed to have solved all problems.
Pankaj MishraPeople who write about issues like poverty or terrorism are a part of the elite, and the distance between the elite and nonelite is growing very fast. You can move around the world but meet only people who speak your language, who share the same ideas, the same beliefs, and in doing so you can lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of the world does not think or believe in or speak the everyday discourse of the elite.
Pankaj MishraMost writers have very little that's important or valuable to offer; most of them are just repeating each other.
Pankaj MishraI meditate at airports because those are the places where Iโm extremely tense, and I often meditate while Iโm walking down the street. I have a thought and become aware of that thought and thereby create another level of awareness.
Pankaj MishraThe internet has spawned people for whom knowingness is more important than knowledge. It equips you with the illusion of offering knowledge instantly - and quite easily - so you can read a few articles on a few subjects and feel well informed but not actually know any of those subjects in any depth.
Pankaj Mishra