Category: The crescent moon

Sometimes she would share about the families of those colleagues, sometimes she shared the gossips she came across about office with her mother.

Nita is the witch and the trainer was an imp.

One day when we met in our home, Lizzy suggested,

“Tell me, Nita is not married or divorced or separated or in some such men goofy rackets, is she then eyeing this young man, Binky, probably trying to reduce competitors.”

We had a hearty laugh on this.

But then Shrum knew Sucheta was fond.

If Shrum ever joins to like someone she can immediately begin reading hearts.

In her nine years, I don’t remember she ever insulted anybody on the face.

Though she has grudges and been offensive behind at times, just when she has not understood the reason for their rudeness, their back comments.

They were tapping her call, I and Lizzy could see that. We tapped into some people to know their motif.

“After all, it is not called stealing if you steal on a thief.”

The software’s are widely available, and we heard into late night dramas.

Till then, they were unable to unfold much, since Shrum was an epitome of perfection.

She was still safe. They were using crude means like her lady manager would be calling trying to collect information.

Often she would want to know, what Shrum thought about Durjoy John since Shrum would smile at him brightly as well as to her director, a bright mind.

“Nothing much I think about him Chinni, I just think he is caring enough to ask how I was liking the place, so I return a smile to him. What else?”

“Yeah what else. You know he is not married but he said he was dating someone. He is slightly old.”

“It’s fine, men are never old they say, it’s women who grow old after menopause. Let him date. Why do you worry?” She was leaning on the terrace, drying her hairs in the sunlight. There was nothing except stretches covered with homes and homes.

“Ahh! Why should I worry. Anyways, I am also seeing a man, he takes a lot of care for me.”

“Ahh! Great. Hope things turn well.”

“They will, of course. No hoping it will.” She said.

“Yeah.”

The call ended, when Shrum told me, I told her something which came spontaneously to me.

“Why on earth are they trying such cheap tricks? Are they very small? We don’t have all this shit in our office. Do they think of taking you down to a man, making you kneel down, beg, borrow, steal and go down the path of destruction. They might be knowing through background checks, your family could not arrange a match for you.”

“Perhaps, there are so many mouths to tell them that also. I choose to not get married, if I don’t marry the face, I want to meet.”

“You can’t tell them that. It is a world where women marry to preserve safety, to be productive in something since most of them are non productive, money wise or mentally. Women marry for so many different reasons, they are trying to find that one reason for you.”

“Really, then shall I leave the job? Maybe I can find something good as yours.”

“Ours don’t use such cheap tricks since they keep us safe for bigger tricks. There are some though even in our office who would serve to satisfy women who are unmarried, widowed or divorced, many bachelors, even married men without commitment entertainment but then they settle down eventually leaving these women groping for more when these giant of women land themselves in trouble coz they can’t control what was ignited beneath them.”

“Is it so hard? To control.”

“No, but the world does not give them time to resolve, they ignite their egos when a man leaves them. So, they say, hmm what if one left I will find another. Then another leaves and another.”

“Okay, do one thing, confuse them.” I said to her.

Sucheta had told one of her colleagues in front of Shrum that she would not mind a husband at home, and a husband at office. She can manage to which our holy Shrum relayed the incident to her mother over the tapped phone.

Her manager had changed.. one lady gave way to another.

A Reiki healer, who knew the meaning of Om Mani Padme Hum, an enthusiastic woman who lived singly. She was in training with Shrum and once when both were washing their hands in the restroom, Shrum in error asked her,

“Are you married?”

The answer was something which Shrum might have to give some years later.

“There should be something good to get married, something more meaningful, something beyond our words.”

Shrum heard it, smiled her bright smile.

She thought while coming back that she would add one word,

“Love, she would only get married to give and get love.”

Rest she knew she could manage, if she could not manage dying was not a very disrespectful decision on her part. She was never scared to give up whereas I was so scared to give up.

The manager would send Shrum for audit rounds and wink at her Quality review trainer, she tested her.

But, then she gave her a chance to flourish.

She was quality review certified much earlier than people told her would take.

The trainer Biyonte who trained her in the training period was a short stout man, with a gleaming skin. Every woman asked him the secret behind the shine. He was definitely proud of who he was and his knowledge was vouched for, he was also soffit spoken towards Shrum and certified her every now and then whenever she did some huge case or added a note of thanks.

This is what Shrum was looking at, she decided to pave her way through her work.

She did one mistake though, she told that upfront.

She knew Sucheta had an emotional bond towards this man, and she never disturbed her. What enraged her at times, was the thought that Shrum was probably behind the trainer which was never the case.

Her soft spoken words and her soft looks was who she was, and of course a deeply grateful person she would express it to all those who stood to help her on her terms.

But, one day almost a year later, Biyonte for some reason blurted out to Shrum’s new manager,

“Who the hell would marry such a girl.”

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.

There was however one character in Shrum’s life who came around in 2011.

He can be happily called the

Pimp of her life

We can call him Mr.New Kumar.

In India Kumar is a surname like Kumari which means boy and girl if translated into English but strangely they remain Kumar and Kumari even after marriage.

If a Kumari gets married to a Kumar, she becomes a Kumar.

Funny can be names and their origins.

The pimp comes in December 2011, he is the pimp, so he tries to introduce madness in the life of Shrum.

How small things breed into larger things when the world is busy solving the larger wounds, the smaller ones fester and grow to make it big again.

Doctors say prevention is better than cure.

Through this character, Shrum learns a few very vital facts about the world.

1) All bikers are not like her, broad minded, happy go lucky fellows. Travel has not made them widened and outstretched, it has made them cynical. People who fear they would be killed while they are riding their bikes.

Or that pimp was not a biker, a barely thin reed, he posed to be one, so as to dissolve his own inferiorities and insecurities.

2) The world of imagination which ran wild in her mind was hatching in the breweries of some dumb heads, shifted to the pimp to act.

Well, not all imaginations can be channelled into thinking what the world finds beneficial if the protagonist thinks that way. Sorry about that, but then an imaginative mind is creative and not parasitic, growing on the wounds and life of others.

I think the perpetrators confused between imagination and symbiotic parasites.

Shrum was in no way parasitic, their efforts for years went in vain.

As readers, I am sure we all are aware that in India, as well as other lands a name can be given to many.

So in India, pimpish impish New Kumar can be a name to almost a ten thousand which includes synonyms and varied spellings of the same name.

The question was “Dis Shrum love not any?” The pimp could ride bikes, a biker was advertised by one of the managers under whom I worked leaning on the outer wall of Shrum’s cubicle.

The answer was a big “NO”

How can she when she was searching for a face. It does not matter what the face thinks…..outcomes don’t scare choices she makes in life and choices don’t influence the outcome in return.

Love for her was a being she knew she knew.

It did not mean she needed anything from that source.

If he had a life before Shrum would find it, she would definitely not do anything to ruin lives, she would live happily knowing there is another mammoth of her sort, another species.

Well, Mr. New Kumar was advertised by the manager.

New New was the song of the day…..everywhere you go, people were chanting new new new new….Hare Krishna hare Rama would have been better.

Even Jesus Christ!

Bodhi!

Om Naman Shivay or Om Mani Padme Hum.

That does not make a woman’s mind repeat the lines or go to any New Kumar nor even to the pimp of the show, sadly she could not convey.

There are a string of funny incidents which make this story.

Some point to the trappings, human trafficking of minds pulling people on their own will into activities they might not wholly appreciate doing in sane minds.

This happens everywhere and in India it is called

“Trapping of the fly.”

Well, you would see how the trapping was planned for Shrum, funnily and vainly designed.

The means used, the ends imagined and Shrum’s innermost reactions. Hilarious if I could call it. Yet, severely debilitating if you do not know the pros, cons and act out of fear or vanity or anger or jealousy or lust, you my friend would be doomed.

Brace for the impact and learn if you can anything.

Now, there are good girls and bad girls in towns.

In cities no one is good or bad- there is only one genre some are on one extreme a little bit more.

So Shrum was taught some rules and our life is bound by so many necessary and millions of unnecessary laws.

But, then she learnt other rules back in the megacity…..the laws she learnt were mainly how to not give signals that men do not run behind you.

Rule#1) If you do not look straight up while crossing a bunch of men they would think you are scared of them, a sense of domination will lead to further following up and other struggles.

No one told them that girls can also look down if there are gravels or the road stands slippery. If the road is not slippery then they can walk with heads held high.

Rule#2) Do not go in front of a man and tell them you forgot and in that point of time don’t give expressions where people think anything and everything about you.

You can feel nervous, scared or perhaps you don’t like to look at those eyes. What do you do then?

Rule#3) Do not look back.

How discriminating, how can you not look back if some normal human you know walks past, if you want to see a puppy or a beautiful horse?

Do men have no work that all the time they are on the road they keep noticing which girl looked back and which didn’t.

She didn’t think all are doing it, but yes some are and. Who they are? It is often important to know.

What about human sympathy, help that humans need on roadways?

Rule# 4) Do not trust anybody.

The day she was searching for a house and people refused help she knew what those words meant.

She got advices….

1) “Check the yellow pages

2) Go online.

3) Tell your neighbours.”

4) “Our house is already getting good rent you can check somewhere else.”

5) “You need to pay 50000 bucks baby we can’t help you without that, see I had convinced my uncle to give the house to you but then you got to pay him at least. If you don’t have ask from your father sweetie, you pay you enter, you don’t pay you don’t enter. Rules can’t change for friends, how can we trust you, that you will pay it in instalments? It’s a megacity babes.”

She knew she should have not trusted the day the director called her into a room asking her questions which made no sense to her then but she had to bear the implications later in the life.

The day she saw the daughter not trusting the mother in the house next door, she knew what it meant.

Well, then comes rules on how you should talk over phones when you talk to men you are interested in and not so interested in.

How what is done….if the whole world was to run on sign language then why confuse the she world with so many languages and teachings in different language?

So,

Just talk when required.

Just don’t smile whenever you feel something is funny. Laugh only when others find it funny and they laugh aloud. You can always join. Laughing always is a sign of advancement.

What about men and women who like to laugh then, who can find the fun and the pun in everything? What about the sherpas and lamas? Are they always advancing when they laugh aloud? What about Santa Claus so widely known and drawn with his laugh?

What about laughing Buddha? Why is it a good luck charm?

So, jolts and jerks she was set to attend the interview and get a job, she was hell bent on it.

The day before the interview she has the first jolt,

“Are you sure it’s not a call centre?” I had no way to confirm except the HR so I ask her, she says it is not. I am happy.

Next jolt,

The guy had a car and was carrying all classmates together. She asked, “Can I come?”

The big tooth Roukie did not allow, car was his by now and so was the other classmate, Penny.

So the PG mate tells her,

“You try the bus. I will get you the numbers from my boyfriend. Show them you can do it alone.”

Well, she did go, not to show them but to attend the interview, if that can be called showing them. Thanks to this Konkani friend from Mumbai.

Point to think about

If we can help why don’t we?

Given we know the person long enough to know we are no spies, thief, ghosts or witches. We are ordinary humans and ordinary beings, so we do not fall in any of this category. We are genuine normal humans trying to live day in and day out.

Cant help at such times.

Is competition so important? Can you actually win that way?

Question is, what do you win from it?

Not helping a person is in a way derogatory to human growth if there are no visible cons and pros, only assumed pros and cons.

We as humans prefer to come out clean every time, we prefer to remain hassle free, we prefer assumed pros and cons.

“If this happens or if that happens? Then what? How many that’s and this’s we live each day have you ever tried counting?

### You must hear all. But sadly whenever someone passes a comment or says something meant only for her, her ears beep. She though knows something was being said to her meant for her but she could never explain a fact so plain.

Reason: No one believes such trifle, it is often considered a shrouded, evil way to diverge all.

### You must understand eye movements. Eye to eye conversations.

Her vocabulary was limited, sorry about that.

She understood very few crude expressions alone.

Though she could sniff all, but she was indeed short sighted. She saw very less of what lay close to her. It made her a poor contender for spying on others, eyeing on others, she could sniff games and conspiracies but could never see them properly.

She was never fit to be a girlfriend ever. She could do nothing that other girls could do with so much ease around her, Literally after a time, her chances of finding that face vanished and vaporised, given she was not good at any of those things.

You always need to know what you choose and based on your choices decide how you want to live.

You decide the consequences you are ready to fight which emanate out of your decisions.

You decide what you would not take from the world no matter however close they are.

You decide to convey the same to the world.

Since Shrum knew there were many ways, and one was hers.

So, she decided one evening when the Konkan coast lashed with rains.

1. No friends with benefits.

2. No boyfriends of vague sorts.

3. No friends either, more importantly men unless the man is mature enough to understand that the woman in front of him was not ready to mingle friendship with any other relation.

4. No musing around.

5. No going around even with anyone on the pretext of any damn thing.

6. The only relations she was ready to accept from a man were very thoroughly Indian by definition:

I) a brother related to her by blood or distant attributes.

II) a husband if that can be done till she saw it.

III) certain relations which spring out of others…….aunt to some, mam to others, keeping them clean.

It does not make a woman with such choices an ascetic or a monk. It is called setting your boundaries.

Sticking to your boundaries. There is no harm in choosing a path, the harm is when two or more paths are weaved into one.

A woman may choose to be a rampant on the stage, a sex worker or a friend with benefits.

But the choice should be her own, where she chooses without any stress.

The stress of living, the stress of dying, the stress of food, the stress and trauma arising from the fears which work like watchdogs for the crooked noses of society, the ones who hide in the shade of darkness and try influencing masses.

Now, it’s sad but two things are true:

1. We mustn’t call humans animal names like dog, crow, cur, wolf, sheep, fox, hyena for demeaning a person or even a tiger or lion or cow or horse to praise a person.

Humans are not worthy to be called an animal or bird. They are worse.

Have you watched each of the animals? Did you get time from your daily needs and wishes.

They are superior creatures than human mind and work from three factors…..fear, a pure conscience and three to four needs. They are far more superior since even to this day they mate in a systematic order except the primates of modern times influenced by the men perhaps, their closest ancestors.

2. Men must not treat women after animals. Women also are far more beautiful than men.

If you watch closely many in the tribe of men have successfully destroyed creatures more beautiful than them, more superior than them. Destroyed in some way and form.

Many of them in men also pay prices, heavy and bad for what other men have done to their tribes. They are good men, aware, awakened and strong. To be able to see the wrong in itself requires strength and wisdom.

Consequences: Running into shady areas and shady men who can confuse or work towards confusing relationships and some instances where her personality might be attempted a twist of kinds to prove she is shady in many which ways.

Result: Frequent efforts to straighten the truth when lies coil it down.

She grew up in towns. Rugged brown towns of Leh, Spiti, to drop by Shillong and Aizawl, Agartala then Imphal while her parent tried deciding where to make a home. Then there were relatives all around Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Kutch, Himachal Pradesh and Assam.

None of them any longer stay in those places except a few.

India is a land of towns – religious towns, old towns, not so old towns, ghost towns, hilly towns, mountains and valleys town, summer town, winter towns, many towns.

In towns, people are sleepy and dreamy. They dream to be kings and queens one day.

They dream to be good things, they obey the laws, try discipline, try mental health.

Yet there are many who are not healthy, and thus government makes funny rules like banning blue films but then men and women are interested and in towns they resort to such measures.

Those were still things she could deal with, but what she could not deal, along her way were more tangible problems….

Worrying for food,

Worrying for safety

Worrying to be fine

Worrying for compassion

Will the world give her a chance to survive, and if so, will they allow her to put her terms on the plate?

She was aware of millions who were not living at all in their own terms, millions who just were living or being puppets to survive the show, to go home alive at the end of the day, to be able to fend for the small children which have been their only masterpiece in life, something they look up to, to amend ways through this world, to create that small place for the children, even if not enough for them to dream it had to be enough to breathe, to become one of them when the children grew up at least.

Will the world not take away from her all that she had built so far?

Was this the first step, her mother’s illness towards destruction?

I am sure every single day, many of us are dealing with these issues, these worries.

In a world of men, women still tug their fears somewhere deep in their heart.

Women are not free, they are still slaves to the slavery which promises grand world tours but the promises fade and the grandeur vanishes when the terms and conditions change. People all over, live in fear.

So Shrum thought of trying, at the least she would lose all of it. She was not attached, she had very less to lose at that point so the fear, we guessed had dissipated slightly not finding any foothold, any strong point on which it could grow.

“What is fear? Huh….a mere parasite.” Shrum was brave and blood was young and hot. She ventured out, a girl who knew bikes, who knew Taekwondo, who desired to be on top of Chomolangma one day for reasons of her own, she shared it with only one person in her life time, the man who once pointed a finger to himself wanting her to go to him always. She shared it with him, went repeatedly, banged his doors so many time. One fine day she realised that the door won’t open for her the way she wanted, so she left trying. But, in her heart she would only go to him always, when weak, when tired to rest on his shoulders. She knew she did not need him close if he was happy away from her.

She went out, she had seen a lot of crevices and fissures, tricky traps too.

She used all her knowledge to dodge that rat faced big teeth fellow who called her sex siren 1 since there was one more such person. Initially like an ordinary man, he pretended to like her and she was apathetic, smitten by her own wounds.

But, then she knew he was scheming and plotting. Trying to be that one bright face which would not be denied the best job in the institute.

It is strange that often knowledge is not enough and you need to add more dimensions, presumably unnecessary often cynical dimensions to get anything in this world.

Shrum did not want to twist her finger to get the butter. She believed to change the bottle and not twist her finger, since she did not like twisting it. She did not believe in twists and turns, she was tired of so many imposed twists and turns of tales.

If you are even vaguely attached to a tale, any twist in it would make you feel the impact.

The training took her to coastal beaches and castles and chapels and churches.

The Konkan coasts.

She worked with another cranky person who was indirect yet the world could guess he was trying to lure a grief stricken girl who was not even noticing.

Well, she had no such intentions and stuck to herself.

One day he realised she was not bowing to him ever, he was decent enough to stop the little games and moved on.

Shrum felt later it was her training ground as the games grew big later in her life.

But, he punished her….how?

Well, the rent of last month of his stay, he gave to her and instructed her to pay it to his landlord.

She went a little shaken by what she would meet, a few precautions in mind

-don’t enter any house, room.

-be strict

-do not talk.

The place was a filthy, shabby place. There was a wine shop and a man with a thick moustache. To her relief he was shorter to her.

She looked around, peeping out of the bar were few shorter people.

The shrubs and bushes had three more men.

She was prepared for combat, if need be but then the need did not arise.

The short man took the money from a severe faced girl and stood as if stunned for a moment. Shrum knew she had won the battle, he had lost it inside.

“It’s good if he chooses you, why don’t you go with him. Your parents can have a support and you can stay in these regions forever.” A girl stricken by love, her colleague was smiling one day telling her this fact.

“Precisely since I do not love him.” I said.

“What the heck is love? We believe a woman can love anybody?” She said.

“Why don’t you marry anybody then, why wait for a man and all the drama?”

I was chagrined.

“Image Shrum, image. You have to be image conscious. The world runs on image. If I say I can sleep with anybody, well, you know the rest of the story.”

I looked at her, clapped my hands and just one thing escaped my lips.

“Wow! A jackal amidst sheep, I must say. You are so good in acting. Why don’t you try it?”

“As if you are some Sati or Savitri or whatever. If he is friends with benefits also with you, it will help you. You can also do such things.”

“Wow! You know me better than me. Good.” The Taekwondo in me rolled and glided within me to punch her on the face. I resisted punching her that day so hard that it gave me a fever in the evening.

She left after a month and called once after that, but then she knew me by then, never daring to contact again. I would say dare since she knew it’s wrong to tell a person to be something or someone, the person does not wish to be when it comes to personal, intimate choices.

Whom we choose to love?

Whom we choose to live with, whom we wish to marry?

How or what we choose to spend our lives in?

Which path we choose to live? If we cannot help a human live a life in a certain path, I think they have no rights to try manipulate minds for their selfish benefits or petty advantages or greater advantages.

Telling is fine, we all do at some point but pursuance is not, a Nono.

Precisely if that very person does not disturb your living pattern, whether they like it or not should not be of much concern to anyone.

If you can help somebody acquire something which can be good as per them, their paths then and only then it should be done and that I think is called help.

Help cannot be defined as any action or thought which has been considered for another person or living being by not keeping his or her best interest or the path they desire to follow in view.

If that is so, it is not help. It has many names, but not help.

So, She had to set the priorities right.

1) Either marry the guy she calls her own

Or

2) not marry at all.

If not marrying at all, then every attempt had to be made to

Not become a second hand, a keep as they call people.

Not to let people abuse our integrity as women.

Not to let ourselves fall in any unnecessary trap.

To keep a head clean.

To move forward in directions decided by us and only us.

Not to be influenced in short.

Thus, movement was our only way. Journeys and eternities.

She knew one thing now….chomolangma would happen, it was close.

Chomolangma her eternal home.

Slowly, she wished to move forward.

This very thought allowed her live so long.

Alongwith other thoughts.

She had seen a monster called poverty.

She had seen all the seven sins.

She had seen every other hell in life either through her own life or through someone else, she had accidentally known or would know.

Completely incomplete yet beautiful.

This is a new series spread across ten years and an office life, an Indian girl, her life changes and phases. A fictions tale.

“No fiction is untrue at some point yet not wholly true. ”

Save the author from being ravaged and killed….

Every story has many sides. When you hear each side, you feel they are right. But, no story is complete without all the sides.

No judgment should be done without hearing all.

No decisions should be taken without considering the information from all sides.

An elephant becomes one when you see it from all sides, not if you catch it’s tail or the ears, as the old fable goes.

The excerpts of each chapter will appear in my blog.

Begin the circus,

Toll the bells,

Roll the drums,

This is a hum

Weak and old come along.

Chapter 1

Shrum as she was know, strange name which meant hard work, yet a name.

India, a country dealing with democracy, secularism, conspiracies of various kind since olden days, trying to survive, the second highest population of the world standing at 1,367,578,158 as on June 2019.

Now, every Indian if you see them closely is trying to do just one thing I mentioned above- survive. Survive everything that comes their way….survives pain, poverty, disease, lack of resources, lack of help, lack of everything even proper water.

If you walk into any metro city, there are two issues….drinking water and pollution humming over your head like humming birds.

Not that anybody does anything about them except complaining and putting it over th heads of a handful of politicians- MLA (member of legislative assembly) and MPs (member of parliament).

I am sure they alone can’t change the country, if Indians don’t try.

But, Indians don’t try and that is a fact…..

Reasons are many….

1) Clashes between beliefs leading to murders and killings.

2) Why should I do? Anyways I alone can’t change the world- Sorry figures.

3) How does it even bother? I have my home in a nice hill station, who cares how the sewage runs here. I would earn and go back. If I start changing, tomorrow people popes will come and tell me that I am snatching their jobs. Fear arises, people are scared every moment they would lose life.

We all share one fear….fear that we would die unnecessarily, when all we want to do is survive.

So, her story begins when she comes to a city as many other. A mega city, name does not matter since every city has its sins.

She is torn by her life when she arrives in the city by three things- lack of money, lack of benevolence and lack of dignity in living what is lived.

Her mother suffered the disease people feared like no other in our country- breast cancer.

The only hands which stood around her without any compromises, without any conundrum and without any conditions were the doctors located somewhere fifteen thousand kilometres away down in the southern most state.

Humans who often help are always those whom you least expect.

What does a human need when totally torn? Any ideas?

Well, let me share……

A hope, a strange day of hope.

A direction.

A small amount of faith.

Some unconditional love which money cannot buy.

Indians suffered from poverty long and the zamindari system. So, ingrained in their mind is a fact that if I am paying for something, it’s bought by me, nothing extraordinary.

This thought often seeps into the medical profession.

But, doctors care and when and those who do, are very close to something greater.

Care and their warmth cannot be brought by money.

Of course, you can buy the medicine but not the care with which they infuse it onto you.

You can buy the amount used for surgeries, but you cannot buy the doctor’s acumen who removes the sickness from the patient.

You cannot buy true care no matter how much you pay.

So, those few hands nurtured her into believing that

This was not the end.

This disease is curable.

Above all, go, try to live again.