Please click on the links to read the following excerpts from Trust Me:
Bombay.
Coming back to Bombay felt like an assault on the senses. Thud. Thud. Thud. The coolies started jumping into the train even before it had come to a halt. They squeezed their way through the crowded door which was packed with passengers waiting to get off. I glared at a coolie who brushed past my breasts but he had no time to even look at me… (read more)
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Saira bit into her green salad furiously. Firstly, she was angry, and secondly, her salad did require a lot of chewing. I slathered some more butter on my pav bhaji. Who the hell wanted to have a ‘good figure’ any more? Eat food fit for cows and buffaloes, endure the pangs of hunger same as a person below the poverty line, and feel very proud of my self-control? For whom? ‘All men are bastards,’ Kavita said quietly… (read more)
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‘Let’s forget about intellectual justifications for why Hindi films are the way they are – the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I was so crazy about movies when I was a kid, that I once stood in a line for five hours to get a ticket for Sholay,’ he told me. ‘I know most of its dialogues by heart. What I wouldn’t do to get Dharamendra’s role in a film like that! “Basanti bhi tayyar, Mausi bhi tayyar. Is liye marna cancel.”’ … (read more)
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‘So tell me, what else is your type – what kind of guys do you go for?’
What kind of guys did I go for? Oh yes, of course. Kavita’s patterns.
‘You know, I’ve got this pattern of falling for all the wrong kind of guys. And of having these really fucked-up kind of relationships,’ I said. ‘I mean, if you’re like, Prince Charming, I’m obviously not going to fall for you.’ … (read more)
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‘Do you know what “trust me” means in Polish?’ I asked.
He shook his head.
‘What?’
“‘Fuck you.’”
He laughed. I smiled.
‘So, when a guy says “trust me”,’ I said to him, ‘a warning bell rings in my head.’ … (read more)
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‘You know what the trouble with cats is? If a cat sits on a hot stove once, she won’t sit on a hot stove again. But the problem is, she won’t sit on a cold stove, either.’
‘Tom Sawyer said that,’ I said accusingly.
‘I wasn’t trying to steal his quote. And it’s Mark Twain, not Tom Sawyer.’
‘Ya, ya, same thing. Anyway, why do we have to talk, and analyse, and discuss so much?’ I asked, adding some blue to the design. ‘Can’t you think of anything better to do?’
He took the paintbrush out of my hand, kept it in the mug of turpentine, and kissed me soundly on the lips… (read more)
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I took a deep breath and said, ‘Hello?’
‘Paro?’ Saira said. ‘I’m at Whacko’s place, tell me quick why I need to break up with him, I need a booster dose of antibodies, quick, before he comes back from the loo.’ … (read more)
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