For a long time, she sat in the same room as I - seeing with unseeing eyes the so many things that passed in and out of her world.

It was a difficult world, certainly. Her lower limbs were the problem - disformed and deformed till each step must have caused her enormous discomfort. And masking that discomfort must have given her that mask of an expression. For a long time, I didn't think - about any of these things, about what her world must be like.

I kept trying to go through my day without meeting those unseeing eyes.

Then, one day, she suddenly spoke - not to me but her friends - trying to explain some particularly trying equation. It was one of the days when I was determined to watch. With some shock, I realized that there was a brilliant mind behind those unseeing eyes, that dull expression.

I should have known better.

Perhaps she also sensed that I had looked at her as an individual for the first time. When next she came to seek an opinion, I realized more. The sharp mind was accompanied by ambition - burning and determined.

I really should have known better.

She left me with a realization. We deal with people on such a superficial basis - never knowing what they are all about till its all too late. Never realizing their depth, or acknowledging it - treating them as ordinary.

Next time, I hope I'll know better.