“That trainer, don’t go near him much, stay away. Even for work make sure you sit at a distant. You don’t see me, I jumped off, broke my arm and leg. I can’t take the audacity anymore.” The Konkan women are the most beautiful and as Reanna smoked a smokeless cigarette, Shrum saw why people said that.

The medical college hostel had some who were doing all sort of things, and if she asked anyone they all had one answer. They were trying to save themselves. None said they tried drowning themselves. That was her six months before her job. The hostel superintendent would sometimes ask for money, perhaps twice. Shrum gave her since her son was no longer found or did not support the old lady leaving her with growing women of the medical College and the old lady did not quite like doing what she did.

After coming back from home in July 2010, Shrum just focused on one thing- learning all the ever changing rules. She always scribbled all of them in a notebook. A pen and a notebook soon led her to questions, remarks and taunts.

“You can’t remember is it?”

“Ahh show off, how serious you are with your work. Come let’s go, now a village girl would teach us how to work.”

“The time you spent studying all this, why don’t you wax up a little. You hands look coarse covered in those hairs.”

She did not take that one, “yours waxed one don’t look good either, they are red with rashes.”

The girl went close to her, taunting her further.

“Show me your legs, common don’t be shy. In this cubicle you can just show the legs, lift your skirt a little, I am sure you have a forest down there.”

The girl moved closer, but then Shrum pushed her away.

Poor city girl fell down, tumbling on her back against the girl she liked, Sucheta.

She saw the change the flip that day, she stopped thinking Sucheta was kind and stuffs.

That became an issue, it was inside the office, later she stood and cried when the car guy came up comforting her. He was kind at times, at least not hurting even when not helping.

But then, he left soon. So, a friendly person was soon gone.

She attended his wedding engagement as well. He wanted a better job. He was quite messed up with what he did here.

I told her again not to get into any arguments. That made all eyes stand up.

The other day when she found a fault with a case, done by a senior she knew she was in trouble when someone told her in the cafeteria.

“You are gone. You will also make big mistakes, do you think this is it?”

She blabbered she did not see the name and she had just found an error, it could be rectified rather than taken on the ego.

“You are gone.” The random office guy from the other wing left laughing.

She relayed to me. Nothing seemed much severe till now. But, I knew she had fallen into eyes and that would take her somewhere not so good.

“If I don’t rectify it they will talk wrong about me di, my job is new, they can eat it up. We are told to find if any preexisting fault is there to correct it.”

I told her to correct only those things which can impact her the most.

I told her to further find out which impacts he pr work the most.

The sole source she had was her buddy, the young guy in his cubicle who was too young to approach for everything lest he builds a thought around it soon and the clumsy awkwardly silent man soon to be married and quite rude at times.

She decided to stick to her buddy and she slowly collected information she needed to keep the job.

Her PG mates changed every week, except her Konkani friend, who was soon to be getting married to a man who believed women were socks and shoes. She was just moving forward since she seemed to be suffering from some kind of fear.

Rey as she called her left the job, married in a temple, did not call Shrum for her wedding which was again very small according to the girl.

Shrum thought differently though about the man, hence was not sure if it was taking place, the way she knew her friend she could tell, she was not sure if he was marrying even after she purchased her wedding saree.

There was one girl who seemed to be going around with men and was from Kashmir.

I found out she was not, since I was a Kashmiri pandit.

She would harass Shrum asking her all sort of things about how office was, what she did and how she lived. She would often bring proposals for free parties. Shrum would decline but the girl would pester immensely. Shrum would behave rude at times and would hurt herself calling me and sharing her experience. She is not good at being rude and thus it hurts her back.

There were girls who would often take money and not return.

One of the girls stole her bucket while leaving.

In the previous PG she lived in a room with a message girl, with a girl who suffered from constipation, with a girl who sleep walked.

One of them was a lesbian and mostly used her bathroom whenever she brought her mates inside the PG. Reason: Shrum’s door had no lock and repeated requests to the PG owner fell in deaf ears. It was those times when the city roads were not secured with video cams.

Everyday, she had someone who had no cleanliness hygiene the least sense, at least or someone had run away or someone had maddened her.

She brought a puff doll from the roadside one day. The office was not willing to put it.

All came around her, “remove it, it’s not official.” Sucheta told her.

“Everyone decorates their desk. Why can’t I?”

She did not argue, spoke to me and left the matter and the doll at home after keeping it for two days in her work desk.

This was her beginning but then I told her not to get into eyes.

Except another small squabble about the insignificant topic of marriage, wherein she opened her mouth, rest two months were peaceful.