Chapter 4: The Ghost in the Machine

Arjun had gone inside to refill his glass, leaving the sliding door slightly ajar.

Kabir remained on the balcony, listening to the murmur of his friend’s voice on a phone call—probably checking emails, probably firing off a late-night directive to a subordinate. The engine never stopped.

Kabir leaned against the railing, the cold metal pressing against his forearms. He looked out at the sprawling complex of "The Magnolias" or "The Camellias"—he always confused these high-rises. They were all the same: marble lobbies, concierge services, and air so scrubbed it felt synthesized.

He took a sip of his tea, which had gone cold.

He had seen Arjun’s look of desperation a hundred times before. It was the same look he had seen on the face of the Venture Capitalist in Bangalore whose teenage daughter had stopped speaking. It was the same look on the Supreme Court lawyer whose son had perfect grades but panic attacks so severe he couldn't leave his bedroom.

They all came to Kabir eventually. They came when the "Best School" and the "Best Tutors" didn't work. They heard about him in whispers at cocktail parties—_“There’s a guy. He doesn't advertise. He doesn't have a website. But he fixes it.”_

Kabir didn't have a job. He hadn't swiped an ID card or sat in a cubicle in fifteen years. He moved from project to project, a ghost in the machine of elite education. Sometimes he was a "consultant." Sometimes a "mentor." Usually, he was just the guy trying to stop parents from crushing their children under the weight of their own love.

He thought about Rohan’s schedule. Arjun had rattled it off earlier with a mix of pride and exhaustion.

Monday: Coding. Tuesday: Tennis. Wednesday: Spanish. Thursday: Piano. Friday: Robotics. Saturday: Math Olympiad.

It wasn't a childhood. It was a hedging strategy.

Kabir watched a plane blink across the night sky. He knew exactly what Arjun was doing. Arjun was treating his son like a diversified stock portfolio.

We don't know what the future holds, the logic went. Will the world need coders? Buy the coding option. Will it need creatives? Buy the piano option. Will it need global citizens? Buy the Spanish option.

They weren't trying to raise a pianist. They didn't care if Rohan ever felt the soul-crushing beauty of a Chopin Nocturne. They just wanted the certificate. They wanted the line item on the Ivy League application that said: “Well-rounded.”

It was the "Premium Mediocre" trap.

Kabir had met these kids when they turned eighteen. He had interviewed them for scholarships. They were tragic figures. They could code in Python, play a mediocre sonata, serve a tennis ball, and speak basic Spanish. But they were hollow.

They were tourists in their own lives. They had visited twelve different disciplines but lived in none of them. They had never felt the obsession of the master. They had never stayed with a problem long enough to hate it, and then love it. They were "Excellent Sheep," bred to jump through hoops, terrified of the open field.

And the schools...

Kabir’s gaze drifted to the distant lights of the "International School" visible across the highway. The sprawling campus, the equestrian center, the Olympic-sized pool. Fees that rivaled a mortgage.

International, Kabir scoffed internally.

What did that even mean in Gurgaon? It meant isolation. It meant paying twenty lakhs a year to ensure your child never had to smell the reality of India. It meant importing a curriculum from Geneva to teach a child in Haryana how to think like a European, while they lived in a bubble of air-conditioned cars and gated communities.

It wasn't education. It was a lifestyle product. It was a VIP lounge at the airport—you pay extra not to get somewhere faster, but to avoid sitting with the general public.

Arjun came back out, the glass door sliding shut behind him. He looked slightly more relaxed, the whiskey doing its work.

"Sorry," Arjun said, sinking into his chair. "Work crisis. Solved now."

"It always is," Kabir said, turning back from the railing.

"You were thinking about something," Arjun observed. "You have that look."

"I was thinking about portfolios," Kabir lied smoothly.

"Stocks?"

"Something like that." Kabir sat down. He looked at his friend—a good man, a successful man, a man running as fast as he could to stay in the same place.

Kabir decided not to say it. Not tonight. He wouldn't tell Arjun that he was building a Frankenstein’s monster of accolades. He wouldn't tell him that the "International" tag was a marketing gimmick to soothe his class anxiety.

Instead, he would plant the seed.

"Arjun," Kabir said, "Let’s try an experiment. For one week."

"What kind of experiment?"

"An audit. But not of your finances." Kabir leaned in. "I want to audit Rohan’s curiosity."