“Rakhi likes the comfortable clutter of her life, the things she loves gathered around her like a shawl against the winterliness of the world.”

“In those hours when the night is still dark and cold, we see Alokananda waking up to the faint sound of stifled sobs. The sheets besides her are creaseless, sleepless. She gets up silently, her body: blank, a patchwork of frugal impulses. She gathers the warmth of her Pashmina shawl around her, the shawl that she knows still hides threads from a shirt or two of his: remnants of embraces, once feisty and long forgotten.’('Left from Dhakeshwari')”

“She clutched him, her fingers digging in like she needed to gather parts of him to act as her own second skin for the rest of her life.”

“She gathered the cat up in her arms and held it to her chest as if it was the most precious thing in the world.”

“...the air seeming to gather around her like held breath. As if this whole place were a story about her.”

“Toy is talking and this is why I love her. She can go on about herself ceaselessly and like the scratching of a branch against the window at night, the steady insistence of it is comforting. She has stories without beginnings, stories that trail off, stories that crisscross and contradict and dead end.Toy is the star of her stories. Events orbit her like a constellation.”