Have we failed? W. is certain: we are complete failures. For my part, I am never sure. I never wanted as much as you did, I tell W. I didn't expect as much from life. W. says he expected much more from himself and from me. We should be drowned like kittens, he says, for the little we've achieved. But what opportunities did we have?, I ask him. That's always my question, he says. You're always looking for excuses. It's your Hindu fatalism.
For him, says W. my Hinduism emerges most strongly in my Hindu stories. He remembers them very lovingly. They soothe him. When, for example, we were stuck in a queue for the Greyhound in Memphis, he delighted in stories of the elephant god, what was his name? Ganesha, I say, and that guy who ended up with the head of a goat, who was he? Sati's father, I say. We sat on the floor of the Greyhound station and the hours flew by, says W.
Friends, sighs W. should push each further. What do I do for him, apart from tell him Hindu stories?