She was simple, never judged humans based on what they worked as, she would talk with the same respect to a driver as she would to a scientist. This was a weakness I knew the drivers would soon explore even if not a doctor or a scientist.

Meanwhile she kept visiting places in the city, tourist spots with a room mate who had SLE. Vini was on medication and Vini would take Shrum with her to the hospital for check ups. She was on medication and Shrum had grown emotional.

She would ask Shrum to place her up in her company, but Shrum knew how much slogging goes everyday. So, she would deny her every time showing her the amount of work required.

But, then one day they fought over hygiene.

The girl never got back to her.

Vini left the PG and I knew she was interested in Shrum only for her own selfish sake, and Shrum was very amenable.

Even if she is in deep pain, she would always consider others. Probably she understood pain like her Zongpa taught her in childhood.

When she was not talking to Sucheta, not really talking, the cab one day began picking up only them. So, only two people occupied the cab and though she was now not liking her in entirety, she knew rivalry was closing in Sucheta’s eyes, but Shrum spoke plainly to her. Sucheta was worried about what she did was an easy job and what Shrum did was a little better, as per company standards.

Sucheta might have once thought it was due to her colour, burnt mahagony when compared to Shrum’s golden glow. But, then Shrum knew one thing well. She could keep competition out of her head. When Shrum walked into my life, I too began leaving competing with others behind.

I knew this was the fuel in MNCs which keeps you alive but if you are not a person who is of this kind from within, you would soon tend to outgrow it.

This incident build the first point where I knew they had begun studying her.

One day when no one was watching in August, I called her to a discotheque. With an anonymous crowd you are safe to talk.

Lyra and Lizzy, the threesome of us were together.

Lizzy and Lyra were smoking in the bar when Shrum argued outside with a boxer. He would not allow her inside in a salwar and she would not budge, a stubborn head by nature.

If she thinks, she thinks, end of the world. I loved her like a sister and could understand it to the extent that I found it funny.

I often shared all the funny stuffs with her.

Anything in this world, almost all are surrounded by a rim of tears but when you know it’s core, you know it’s not a rim of tears and fears and pain, it never was. It is then that you laugh out, heartily.

“Leave her Jack, she is with me.” They knew me as the loner.

I never interacted with anyone, even if someone tried I wouldn’t talk. For the past five years, I had only come here since I was in the city. Lizzy and Lyra cam down mostly, so we did not need anyone.

Jack never thought I had ever known someone who’d be so scared to even enter the disco bar. He looked at me, screwed his eyes and shrugged allowing her in.

I had began planning a Ph.D in robotics and I knew I would leave by the end of 2014. I had found my sister some six months back and I was trying to establish contact each day.

She would listen to my voice and cut the call.

One day she told me she was on a voyage.

But that morning she called me up, she did not speak much but she gave me her number.

“How are you? How’s mom and dad? How was everyone? I have a long story how I dropped into this, I should have not trusted that guy. Love you. Call me after ten pm in Amsterdam.” That’s it, I heard from her.

But I was happy, she was safe.

But robotics was hard to get in European countries and I had very few choices.

“By 2015 end I would surely leave. I can help you till then, but then you have Lyra and Lizzy. But, you can always call me, anytime. Physically I can’t help you but I can help you.”

She listened quietly and I had to repeat myself a thousand times. She could never hear sometimes, she said there was a beep, a long beep, short beep in her ears.

Some random person told her once when she had been in Leh, that it was divine intervention to protect her from hearing falsities and falsifying details.

She had specs, she could not see well either.

So God protected her eyes and ears. But, then she was so truthful that often she blurted our truth even when not required.

I told her to not speak every truth so plainly.

I told her to not speak out at all when not required.

A half truth is a lie as per some, yet as per the philosophers of this world, Socrates, Pliny and Plato,

“A truth half is always half and never a lie. A lie is not even a twisted truth, is however, close to it. A lie defies all laws of truth, the four pillars of truth.

It does not have a base, a pillar, a roof and walls.”

I showed her Pliny’s thoughts and made her read Plato, asking her to never budge even when people tell her that a truth half is a lie. I told her it was not. I told her it was the way of the world.

I was surely fond of her. I knew by August 2010 she had not become any of these

A competitor

A follower

She was safe for the month.

Though she faced competition, though her seniors refused to help her learn new things, though she knew she was the scapegoat and she ended up doing big, huge cases. She was under the radar though.