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A clear-cut case of depression leading to suicide? Or was something even darker behind the death of Deepti Wadhwa. The only clue she left for the world was written on her Facebook page two days before her death. Then, there was the matter of the mysterious man at her gate. But first, here’s what happened.

There’s something awful about night shifts. It can get under your skin when you live out of sync with everyone around you, your rhythms are so different from the rest of the world, you feel permanently jetlagged. Studies, in fact, have shown that shift timings can do serious damage to those who are prone to depression. And when the cold, grey mist of a Delhi December descends, it can feel a whole lot worse.

If twenty-something Deepti Wadhwa was feeling the strain, her colleagues at Tech Mahindra didn’t think see it. They used words like ‘happy’ and jovial’ to describe her. In the intervening night of December 23, Deepti worked as usual in her capacity as a Tech Mahindra call centre team lead. Not the most cheery job in the world, but it was the holiday season and the pretty, intelligent young woman seemed to be in good spirits.

At around 5.30 to 6 am, Deepti finally got home to Paschim Vihar from her gruelling night shift. Her mother fussed around her and made sure the growing girl had a glass of milk. A few minutes later, Deepti told her mother that she needed to go out for some air. She hopped into the family’s Wagon R and that was the last time her any of her loved ones saw her alive.

Driving via Punjabi Bagh, Deepti drove to the Moti Nagar flyover. She stopped and punched in a few quick messages — to her brother, sister and friend Tarun Sachdeva. They all said the same thing: I am sorry. It was about 7.10 when Deepti got out of the car, slamming the door behind her. She didn’t switch the lights off, and left her keys and cellphone behind. She wouldn’t be needing them anymore. According to an eyewitness she quickly made her way to the edge of the flyover and plunged to her death.

What could have led to this? There’s one cryptic hint in Deepti’s Facebook profile that all was not well with her. While most of her previous posts had been limited to friendly comments on the photographs of her friends (and one ‘awesome day’ she recorded as recently as November 7), she sounded disturbed on December 21, two days before she took her life:

” One should always think deep before doing anything, as once its done, u really can’t undo it…”

What could be so terrible? Was she being blackmailed? Was she wracked with guilt about something? As of this writing, the police maintains that she was not romantically linked with anyone. Nonetheless, a mystery remains. Around the time of her death, a man came looking for her. The reports are conflicting: While this one claims he came to the gates of her Noida office, this one states that he arrived at her home. He must have been pretty frantic if he was trying to search her out so early in the morning.

There are many questions. Was Deepti trying to flee her visitor? Could this person be her friend Tarun Sachdeva? After all, the two seemed close going by their Facebook interactions and he was one of the three people she sent her goodbye message to. last I checked, he was playing Farmville on Facebook, but I’m no one to judge. I have a feeling that there’s a lot more to this case. So, watch this space.