Girlwithoutawatch

An excerpt from a conversation in Shantaram.

A group of foreigners and Indians are talking about hardships they’ve been through, and how much the slumdwellers suffer all the time. The main character’s love interest (unrequited) is about to speak:

We all turned our attention to Karla. She toyed with her cup for an instant, turning it slowly in the saucer with her long index finger. “I think that we all, each one of us, we all have to earn our future.” she said slowly. “I think the future is like anything else that’s important. It has to be earned. If we don’t earn it, we don’t have a future at all. And if we don’t earn it, if we don’t deserve it, we have to live in the present, more or less forever. Or worse, we have to live in the past. I think that’s probably what love is – a way of earning the future.”