Chapter Two
Robert… Again
Strangely enough, having never troubled to cultivate an acquaintance, let alone a friendship, and most of mine and Erin’s friends in the village and elsewhere having proved to be her friends only, it was my neighbours - the wife, Navya, to be precise – who lent me an ear upon which to pour out my troubles.
She was, I discovered, an early thirty-something with roots in the Uttar Pradesh. Namely the ancient Indian city of Allahabad, sitting at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers and housing more than 2.5 million people who live inside its metropolitan area; its most famous children include India’s founding prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Navya herself, having been raised in a small village in which over 70% of the population – and she had been one of
