Now, when schadenfreude is the commonest mode of wishful thinking — yaniki, our yearnings are dedicated to the failures of others more than the realisation of our own dreams — watching Banu Mushtaq and Deep Bhasthi hug as they won the International Booker was an island of sweet emotion. It was a saturated embrace of worlds, Kannada and English, Muslim and Hindu, city and town, curly hair and long hair, an older woman and a younger one, the story-writer and the writer-translator, a gold-pink silk tissue and a mustardy gold temple sari, two different forms of excellence and a same-same love for language. Maza aa gaya.

“This moment feels like a thousand fireflies lighting up a single sky — brief, brilliant, and utterly collective,” said Mushtaq in her speech, offering an image where we might each shine alongside others, a moment out of the cinematic poetry of popular films. In contrast, Bhasthi made us smile when she said, “I did not want to jinx our chances by writing a speech”, but she had “dared to make some notes titled just in case” on her phone.