Vedant endured ______ as a child living in the slums of Mumbai, making pennies a day through the _______ job of sorting through bits of recyclable trash. Losing his mother and older brother to disease left Vedant _____, even among his friends, because his losses left him feeling that the proper ________ for survival would be to avoid getting close to anyone, lest they go away like his family. Fortunately, Vedant was able to escape his poverty as a teenager and later, as a married man of modest success, look back and _____ his dire philosophy of life, having learned to seek the comforts of friendship.