The following excerpt is from one of my favourite novels. Sadly it is out of print, and I bought my copy from a second hand bookshop in Gloucester, England back in 1994.
"The bus will take you there. Now. But before it was wild. Desolate. The backyard of Punjab. Here, in my village, the men carry guns and anger easily between their quotidian farming chores.
These are the men of the far North born out of the forerunners and morass of all civilizations that attacked India through the Himalayan passes. These are the men born out of and into the war.
They carry their bloodshed lightly between jokes and daily lawful living. They are men and women of the earth, as basic as that - as quick to yield harvests of kindness and goodness, as quick to dry up and turn sullen and destroy. These are my people".
From "Days of The Turban - A Novel" (by Partap Sharma)
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