You taught me to think, and you put ideas in my head. People read to forget. Books don't change the world, ji. You didn't tell me that. You talked of the dignity of the human spirit to a hijra.

I had never said those words because there were no words left. My beloved and I were both exiles from language. Our love couldn't be expressed in words. Our love had been woven into the melodies rendered by his flute, and it was subsumed in the atoms of the air we breathed. It had been consecrated in this shrine. It had never been named. It was an unnamed thing that had remained unspoken, unuttered, unsaid. I did not need to name it when he could already hear it.

Everyone in this World is Good, But not to everyone.

Surefire things are deadening to the human spirit.

Enjoyment is an incredible energizer to the human spirit.

The human spirit cannot be seen; neither can it be denied.