"He's not alone. There are eyes and ears and hearts around him. But he can't live in the village...It's too dangerous for him. Gul-kak is what we call a 'mout' - he lives in his own world with his own rules, a bit like you in some ways." Musa looked up at Tilo, serious, unsmiling.

"You mean a fool, a village fool?" Tilo looked back at him, not smiling either. 

"I mean a special person. A blessed person."

"Blessed by whom? Twisted fucking way to bless someone."

"Blessed with a beautiful soul. Here we revere our moet. 

(..)

We nearly lost him two years ago. There was a cordon-and-search operation in his village. The men were asked to com out and line up in the fields. Gul ran out to greet the soldiers, insisting they were the Pakistani army, come to liberate them. He was singing, shouting Jeevey! Jeevey! Pakistan! He wanted to kiss their hands. They shot him in his thigh, beat him with rifle butts and left him bleeding in the snow. After that incident he became hysterical, and would try to run away whenever he saw a soldier, which is of course the most dangerous thing to do. So I brought him to Srinagar to live with us. But now since there's hardly anybody in our home-I don't live there anymore- he didn't want to live there either. I got him this job. This boat belongs to a friend; he is safe here, he doesn't need to go out."

(..)

"Almost all the moet in Kashmir have been killed. They were the first to be killed, because they don't know how to obey orders. Maybe that's why we need them. To teach us how to be free."

"Or how to be killed?"

"Here it's the same thing. Only the dead are free. "

(Arundhati Roy "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness")