The Hungry Tide. Amitav Ghosh

she had a grasshopper in her hand and his lip curled in contempt. ‘Those are everywhere. Who’s not seen one of those?’

      ‘Look.’ Lifting up her hand, Kusum put the insect in her mouth and closed her lips.

      This caught Kanai’s attention and he finally deigned to lower his book. ‘Did you swallow it?’

      Suddenly her lips sprang apart and the grasshopper jumped straight into Kanai’s face. He let out a shout and fell over backwards, while she watched, laughing.

      ‘It’s just an insect,’ she said. ‘Don’t be afraid.’

       Words

      After Piya had dressed and changed, she crawled back to the front of the boat with the chequered towel in her hands. She tried to ask Fokir the name of the fabric, but her gestures of inquiry elicited only a raised eyebrow and a puzzled frown. This was to be expected, for he had so far shown little interest in pointing to things and telling her their Bengali names. She had been somewhat intrigued by this for, in her experience, people almost automatically went through a ritual of naming when they were with a stranger of another language. Fokir was an exception in that he had made no such attempts – so it was scarcely surprising that he should be puzzled by her interest in the word for this towel.

      But she persisted, making signs and gestures until finally he understood. ‘Gamchha,’ he said laconically, and of course, that was it; she had known it all along: Gamchha, gamchha.

      How do you lose a word? Does it vanish into your memory, like an old toy in a cupboard, and lie hidden in the cobwebs and dust, waiting to be cleaned out or rediscovered?