Somehow, bad news, however ridden with static, however filled with echoes, always manages to be conveyed. - Jhumpa Lahiri

In Bengali class, Gogol is taught to read and write his ancestral alphabet, which begins at the back of his throat with an unaspirated K and marches steadily across the roof of his mouth, ending with elusive vowels that hover outside his lips

It was only then, raising my water glass in his name, that I knew what it meant to miss someone who was so many miles and hours away, just as he had missed his wife and daughters for so many months.

When you live in a country where your own language is considered foreign, you can feel a continuous sense of estrangement.