Isn’t it strange how life won’t flow, like a river, but moves in jumps, as if it were held back by locks that are opened now and then to let it jump forwards in a kind of flood?
– Anita Desai
Anita Desai! The Indian novelist is a wordsmith in more than one language. Because of her German mother, she grew up speaking German at home, but spoke Bengali, Urdu, Hindi, and English everywhere else.