The Hungry Tide

He ran an agency of translators and interpreters that specialized in serving the expatriate communities of New Delhi: foreign diplomats, aid workers, charitable organizations, multinationals and the like.

And what was inside?”

“It must be all the essays and poems he wrote over the years. But the truth is, I don’t know. I didn’t open it because I knew he’d have wanted you to look at them first.

Nilima had told Kanai then that his uncle had remembered him on his deathbed: he had said something about some writings that he wanted to send to him.

When people praised him for his linguistic abilities, his response was usually to say that a good ear and a good memory were all it took to learn a language,

thirty years had gone by since

But there are so many people here!”

Nirmal had smiled in surprise. “What did you expect? A jungle?”

Although unmarried, he was, as he liked to say, rarely single:

the neatly composed androgyny of her appearance seemed out of place, almost exotic.

It occurred to him suddenly that perhaps, despite her silver ear stud and the tint of her skin, she was not Indian, except by descent.