Manraj

“How many summers had I been alive? The obvious answer was as many summers as my age; but for some reason I felt the presence of another number, a different, realer number somewhere out there in the world. I thought about this as I gazed into the summer glare.”
― Mieko Kawakami, Breasts and Eggs

“I do not wish to explain my passion—that would imply that it was a mistake or some disorder I need to justify—I just want to describe it.”
― Annie Ernaux, Simple Passion

“What is it to inhabit a world?
How does one make the world one's own?
What is it to lose one's world?”
― Veena Das, Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary

“What had come over me? The whole day I'd been running through old memories, getting lost in my own thoughts. But I guess that made sense. It was only natural. Despite Makiko being, in the present, my closest living relative, the bulk of our shared experiences were in the past, from another planet. In that sense, spending time with Makiko meant living in the past.”
― Mieko Kawakami, Breasts and Eggs