My Notes -

There is only one rajadharma: survival. Do anything and everything to cling to power. The ruler who forgets that, is a dead ruler.

‘You can believe anything you want. But the fool who believes the fire is cold will perish in it.’

‘And without power, how are you going to do anything about maintaining the truth or doing the right thing, my boy?’

‘Life will teach you about different shades of truth.

‘Here is some fatherly advice for you. What wins ultimately, will be called the truth.’

‘Politics is about mining religion and selling what is holy,

I liked your question —what’s in it for you. I hate people who do things selflessly. They are so unpredictable and unreliable.’

Don’t let doubts fester in you,

Take life by its horns, don’t cower in fear.

Read about the Mahabharata war again and again. How even the honest had to lie, the noblest had to cheat, the cruellest had to be kind and the purest had to be evil—for the game changes everyone.

Evil happens not because there are evil men, but because good people stand by indifferent to the deeds of the evil men.

Be careful what you think, for the world has a way of making your thoughts come true.

We all joined the army not because we love our country more than everyone else, or because we are braver than the others. We joined to fight the enemy. You know the name of that enemy, boy?’

‘No, not the enemy you think. We fight and kill or get killed by the enemy that our rulers identify for us. That isn’t our real enemy. The real enemy is hunger, boy. We joined the army so we could feed our families. We know no one cares whether we live or die. We may get a veerasringala, maybe some pompous official will visit our grieving family if we are martyred, but then we will be forgotten in a blink.’

‘Rani Sivagami devi, kindly tell the prince that in my five decades of life, I have never seen good winning over evil, or vice versa. Whatever wins is called good. But there is someone who always loses, someone whom no dharma saves. Ordinary soldiers like us’

Forgive my selfishness, forgive my forthrightness, but life has taught me that the biggest victory for an ordinary soldier in any war is to come out of it alive.

Kattappa—a man of such strong values and fierce loyalty that one can scarcely believe such a man exists.

The Pattarayas and Bijjalas of the world were fools who thought they could imprison the wind. It was the breeze that lifted a butterfly’s wings and rustled the leaves that would become a storm when the time arrived.

there was no good or bad in the world. Only winners and victims. ‘Live, don’t just exist’,

The kingdom is a kleptocracy, where a few steal from everyone else as taxes, as trade. A few live in luxury, offering protection to the common people.

The power of a civilisation is not in some obscure sacred texts or in the croaking of priests. It is in the power of knowledge, in the power of science and technology.

Religion is the best trade one can have. Not as honest as piracy, but more profitable.

‘No one is good or bad. It is the circumstances that make them act in a particular way.’

They don’t need their ruler to be noble, my dear. They want rulers to give them a spectacle. They will continue to cheer for you, die for you and hail you as God. Bloody blind devotees; fools; give them what they deserve. Give them theatre and empty promises about good days to come, and you can steal from their begging bowls.