Aymal had given Yusuf Miss Thomas’s number after the party in Pune and had asked him to meet her in Mumbai. He would get into a good circle through Miss Thomas. She had told him that Miss Thomas was the head of an organization of like-minded people in Mumbai. At the time she was attending a conference in Sri Lanka or else she would have been present at the party. Aymal had called Miss Thomas up and had introduced Yusuf privately.

Before meeting Miss Thomas, he bought an English novel to gift her.

The first meeting was pleasant.

Yusuf had indulged in less conversation and had carefully answered Miss Thomas’s questions on the party at Pune. Yusuf had said that it was as if the party had cut him off from his umbilical cord, once again. Miss Thomas had asked what he meant by that. Yusuf had said that every individual had a cultural identity. He was a prisoner of certain beliefs and spent his life with certain kind of people around him. This imprisonment, beliefs, restraints were like the bond between his soul and his umbilical cord. Till the time man did not break this cord, he would not be truly free. This made Miss Thomas smile and say, ‘Freedom is the ultimate desire of a human heart but unfortunately, the human himself is the enemy of that freedom.’

Yusuf presented the novel to Miss Thomas before she left. She had happily accepted the gift and said that she read a lot. Miss Thomas had a small bungalow in Colaba. Her parents had passed away and she was still unmarried. Every second month she hosted a small get-together of people of the same belief. They talked, debated and discussed topics like the present religious deviations of man and the freedom of his self. Yusuf became a part of these get-togethers, where he was able to connect with some residents of the city and realize how religion had created rifts in society; to prove itself to be the ultimate truth in the pages of history, religion subverted reality and used intuitions, miracles and the paranormal as weapons to meet its goals.