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If we’re not keenly aware of the choices we’re making, we’re not likely to work for better ones.

Too often, this concern for the big picture is simply obscurantist and is put forward by people who prefer vagueness and mystery to (partial) answers. Vagueness is at times necessary and mystery is never in short supply, but I don’t think they’re anything to worship. Genuine science and mathematical precision are more intriguing than are the “facts” published in supermarket tabloids or a romantic innumeracy which fosters credulity, stunts skepticism, and dulls one to real imponderables.

Wearing a cape doesn't do much for your social life.

Any bit of nonsense can be computerized—astrology, biorhythms, the I Ching—but that doesn’t make the nonsense any more valid.

A tendency to drastically underestimate the frequency of coincidences is a prime characteristic of innumerates, who generally accord great significance to correspondences of all sorts while attributing too little significance to quite conclusive but less flashy statistical evidence.

I remember thinking of mathematics as a kind of omnipotent protector. You could prove things to people and they would have to believe you whether they liked you or not.

That was probably the most truthful thing that Tanvir had said to him yet. Wherever one was in the world, it seemed that it was difficult to bring the rich and powerful to book. It was enough to turn anyone into a communist – as long as it didn’t mean he had to share his cigarettes and beer.

If publicity was the lifeblood of terrorists, the week-long siege of the hotel had been a massive transfusion.

“I’m telling you that I knew Ashu. She was like a daughter to me. There is no way she would have killed herself – and in such a way.”

“The police seem quite sure,” he replied.

“The police in India are like a river, Inspector Singh, always taking the path of least resistance.”

Singh decided to save the metaphor for an occasion when he could use it on Superintendent Chen.

Singh sat in front of a screen glumly, occasionally scrolling down with one grubby finger on a key. He hated computers. He especially hated information presented to him in such an impersonal way. There was no human touch here. Whatever opinions might have been found scribbled in the margins of a hard copy were nowhere to be found online.

In each puddle of light, like a morality play, the homeless lay on carefully laid out bits of cardboard or blanket. The ‘new middle class’ of Mumbai, spoken of in hushed tones by economists, stepped over the sleeping forms or skirted around them without breaking stride as they headed for the nearest Starbucks to fulfil their destiny as the engine of Indian economic growth.

Out of the corner of his eye, Singh noted that the younger brother looked scared. There were secrets within this family. But was there anything odd in that? All families had something to hide, a sin that loomed large in the household although trivial in the greater scheme of things. A quarrel between members, feuding factions, perhaps an affair. It didn’t necessarily have anything to do with the missing woman.