Devoured by the Hungry Tide of Language

 it is interesting that you bring up the relationships between kanaii/piya and piya/fokir, as I definitely found that there was a juxtapositioning of silence and language being portrayed... however when I was first reading, I actually did not have the sense that piya and kanai were positioned entirely as opposites. In fact, in my initial notes, I wrote (a little forgiveness is necessary because this is taken directly from my spontoneous notes, therefore is jumbled/inarticulate):

"I’m still trying to figure out why these two characters- why Kanai and Piya? They are interesting because conventional literary tools seems to want them to be foils in my mind but their aren’t foils of one another… there isn’t necessarily a sense of “balance”- They are alike in many ways… in that they both have insider/outsider status; they are both educated; they are both observant/perceptive…"

Basically, as I was first reading, I was having the strangest sense that some dynamic was missing in the relationship between Kanaii and Piya... at first I related/attributed this sense to a conventional device used in literature- a "foil"- two characters whose personalities/identities/etc serve the purpose of highlighting the differences between them... but in Kanai and Piya's first encounter, although there are clear differences which set them apart, it is their similarities that seem to be forefronted. Which lead me to ask why Kanai and Piya? Where is this relationship going, how will these two characters push one another forward? Where is the balance in the text, the character whose identity diverges in a much more pronounced nature, so that the characters might be forced to rethink their existence? In fact, the first encounter between Piya and Kanai appears to have moments in which the characters are doing the exact opposite of re-thinking... as Piya "feigns admiration" to “mollify” Kanai’s irritation she also serves to boost his ego and consequently reassure his sense of self; in addition, their conversation is structured so that they are asserting/reconfirming particular aspects of their identities.

And then, we encountered Fokir. Through Fokir, it becomes clearer the ways that Piya diverges from Kanai as she relishes the silence; as much as it becomes clear that she is also still bound by language… despite a growing comfort with the silent friendship that is developing between her and Fokir, she is distinctly unable to trust this silence… Piya spends many moments fretting anxiously about what Fokir must be thinking- about whether or not he was impatient waiting for her to collect data; worrying about what he must be thinking during their silent encounters; not wanting to wake him in out of fear that he would be angered. In these moments, Piya cannot help but berate herself with questions- with language- ultimately disrupting the ease of silence itself. In her speculation, she also reveals some potentially “kanai-like” assumptions about her silent friend, such as how he must have never met his wife before marrying her; though this contradicts our knowledge as readers, who have been informed by a conversation between Kanai and Moyna that Fokir and Moyna had known each other before marriage. However, "reading" the silence in the interactions between Fokir and Piya, her anxieties seem incredibly unfounded, as he appears contented and unbothered in many of the situations where Piya (inwardly) expresses concern.

I agree that words seem to work in both ways- and that together, Kanai, Piya and Fokir seem to exist on a spectrum, going from heavily linguistic to almost completely wordless. Their differing relationships highlights the complicated and at times, seemingly contradictory aspects of power and uselessness in language/silence.