Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Vathsalya Suites: Cyberabad's best or Is it?


                                         As I checked into vathsalya suites, I had no idea what was in store for me.  I was greeted by Rajesh, who struck me as the slimiest and most dislikeable person ever.  I have this habit of finding out something weird about the guy who i meet and poking fun at it.  A very irritating habit it is mind you, makes me think of all the rude things, I want to say to people.  Over the course of my life, this annoying habit has caused me great discomfort.  I could write a book called 1001 stupid things you think and should never say, I could go on and on.  Coming back to reality, There was Rajesh, a small barrel of a man, dark skinned and brilliant black moustache, two big, frog-like eyes and a paunch to rival a woman in early pregnancy.  He asked me to settle the bill and he would show me to my room.  
                                         I paid him his money and started towards what would be my dwelling for a couple of months, I was pretty tired as I had been up early and wanted to maybe hit the sack. Rajesh saw my cigarette pack sticking out of my shirt pocket.  He casually walked up to me and asked if he could borrow a fag.  I always give out fags, I like to think of myself as a very generous man with a pack of fags.  However, I stared up at Rajesh and my eyes became slits, It was the most intense dislike, I have felt for a human being for a long time.  I mechanically put my hand in my pocket snapped my pack open and handed him not one but 2 fags, and I told him to go about his business and not ask for a fag again.  Had I known that this would be a scene relived over and over again, I would have probably stopped, and not tried to stoke the belly of the raging beast.  
                                                Days passed and I had come to feel averagely good at vathsalya, even though my room mate Sankey had this melancholy look about him.  He would simply sit there for hours, sometimes for days staring up at the ceiling.  When I spoke to him,  I was assured of intelligent conversation, because I was either speaking to myself or when he did take part, it would often be one of those intellectual statements which is left open ended, or a one word answer.  It was a right nightmare sometimes, as you can imagine; I am sitting there so high,and when your high that's when the real paranoia kicks in.  I am pondering, have I done something wrong, because that's the kind of weird unfriendly vibe I felt from him, what has he been thinking for the last few days, etc. 
                                                 Rajesh, meanwhile had resorted to dirty tactics, of giving away a room me and Sanket had decided on, to some one else for more money.  This was when the great raging war began, it was a nasty low down fight, males egos would clash and so on and so forth.  Even though I never trusted Sankey, me and him struck up a silent deal of playing good guy, bad guy with Rajesh. It was the only way we figured, to keep him out of our room and not heckle us.  Although, if offered one cigarette he would not hesitate to ask you for maybe 3 or 4 next time, which he would plead and roll over for or simply state some disciplinarian rule and charge you a cigarette. 
                                    As luck would have it the guy who owned the place was an ex-cop called Murlyshekhar reddy who built a Service Apartment on ancestral property which he inherited from his grandparents.  Murly was a strict disciplinarian who did not encourage smoking in his hostel, and the irony for Rajesh, as well as Murly was that they were both heavy smokers.  
                            Rajesh had been heckling us for too long and our final ounce of resolve broke when he entered our room to search it and replaced the mattresses with mouldy old ones and the curtains, had been changed to a lighter shade, which Sankey took personal offence for as he felt it mocked at his nocturnal life.  In the process of opening the cupboards and searching for cigarettes, which unluckily for him, weren't there, he also made a crude inventory of how many bags we had.  The only thing we ever did was smoke inside the room, which he would charge us cigarettes for and when I was in good mood he would simply ask for a cigarette again.    
                                What happened when we came back from office is another day another time maybe.  

              It had been an extremely stressing day at office, I was really tired.  Sankey, was away on a vacation and I was the only one in our room at the moment.  I barely changed and crashed on to the bed, I fell asleep.  I was awakened by a faint sound of knocking on my door, as I came to the knocking got louder.  I clamped the pillow over my ears and wished that whoever it was would go away.  Cursing the person disturbing my sleep on the Weekend.  Finally with superhuman effort, I willed myself to open the door.  
           The door flew open and in walked Rajesh, ushering his minions in, directing them to clean up and tidy the room.  Apparently, they were quite new and they were being trained by the ringmaster Rajesh. 
             Of the two minions who entered the room, one seemed to be a bit overqualified for the job, I introduced myself and found out that he was called Prabhakar.  The other guy was Prasanna.  They were pretty polite and pleasant to interact with.  
           While performing his training duties, with great zeal and gusto, Rajesh chanced upon a cigarette pack lying on the desk. 
           I am sure you could imagine, the kind of chemical reaction that takes place inside the frog-eyed rotund man called Rajesh, when he sees a stray cigarette lying somewhere.  He has to pick it up and inspect it, if it passes his strict quality parameters he would light up immediately, or would pocket it depending on the situation.  Cigarettes, are one of the three chinks in his armour, the other two being Alcohol and 2 KG Rice, he entire existence revolved around the three.  He frequently day dreamt.  His favorite dream involved 2 KG rice, 2k in the pocket, 2 Litres of Gudumba, which is a kind of local brew, made with all kinds of tropical fruit imaginable, fermented together for a few months.  Rajesh along with his rice and Gudumba, had the happiest dreams ever.  There was almost a kind of childish innocence to these dreams, as it would suggest from his expression, which was one of .a no longer fazed by the troubles of the world, a man having attained salvation, in his small world of 2 litre Gudumba, 2 KG Rice and Cigarettes everyday for eternity.  


Monday, September 17, 2012

Civilization has grown in leaps and bounds after the advent of the Internet. Social media has taken a hold of all our hobbies and other parts of life that we enjoyed. To think that today 30% of the people using a Social Networking website only try and do interesting things to brag about or to put up on the internet. I know certain people who only do things to gain attention. It's almost like a war of likes and comments for people, Often judging each other by the plastic and frozen images of our profile. Whatever happened to kids playing football or cricket or going out for a swim. 
                   When I was at school we never had cityville, farmville or Mafia wars, though we still had a lot of fun. I heard this argument going on between two teen aged girls the other day, about one of them not liking the others status update. Facebooking is now an avid hobby of almost all people. Whatever happened to reading a good book or listening to some music. Sad as it is, even when people are pursuing reading or listening to music, they inadvertently put up a status message, Mentioning what they read or what they listened to. For some people facebook is a way of portraying themselves to be cooler than others, for another more sinister and dangerous type of person it is a sea of unsuspecting people to hack and stalk others.  
                   On a lighter note, take for instance the diljala majnu stereotype,  Earlier when one got their heart broken it was the human network or society and people in and around others gave him information, When some one's  Laila was missing. In our times, he was merely singing sad songs, or playing them on stereos and drinking in dingy bars,  Now he is on Facebook, searching and researching almost everyday, for the a glimpse of his love.  Its like his emotions have transferred on the plastic frozen images and the familiar blue pane of Facebook.  Since our emotions are much more complex than trying to learn qwerty. He will sadly end up posting silly sad updates, dedicating songs to people who don't wanna look at them, wish birthdays to others on his own wall, drinking all the while, he no longer hounds her house like the old days, instead he chooses to try and scan through mutual friends images for a glimpse of her.  Its pretty typical of old, and damn funny to boot.


Sunday, April 15, 2012

The mind is like a intricate maze if we let it free all the time. So vast that we could stay lost in it forever, Smoking weed all day long does indeed further the cause, So you can be assured of total peace physically. Although mentally your mind would be running like the wind and plotting away to glory. Your actions would never become your words. Clinical and Scientific research has furthered this fact.

I am writing this to test this fact to the limit. I know I can do it. Single minded focus is what my brother always said. So, standing by that let me see whether all of this channels out into any constructive.

Self Destruction: The beast inside

When does a man self destruct.

There was a mad man who used to pile stones all day long, After the stones formed a neat pile he would pull out the base and watch the stones fall away. Every day he did this for many years. One day a traveler asked him why he did this. He simply replied that in our entire life we simply create what would be destroyed some day later. Everything and Everyone would one day be destroyed and men simply run behind that all their life. My actions reflect my thought.

I could never fathom the reason behind his actions. I appreciate the thought, but I failed to realize the gravity of it. My recent tryst with self destruction has thrown light to a very different side of my persona. My life also mirrored his actions, in essence exactly like a mad man. This is probably when a good man does throw everything away. It showed me a very lackadaisical and irresponsible side. There will always be moments to make life tough. We have to match up to this toughness. May be I am one of those people who simply does not want to be responsible for his actions or thoughts. Life will always knock you down. We choose to get back up or lie in the dust.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

The different life

It is a reality check to see once long lost friends, people I looked down upon at school. I berated these people for being too nerdy or bookish. Today when I see these people do better than me, It actually forces me to realize that I might have been ignorant. I used to think that these people would probably have a dull life full of boredom. They would sit behind a computer in some Multinational and work, be engineers, Scientists, doctors and so on, my views have been flipped about and i have been forced to introspect. My life has taken me through so many twists and turns that I have understood the hard way. I had these crazy visions about a life so different from what it would be for my friends. Maybe my indecisiveness and my flippant attitude towards life has cost me a chance at making my life early, so when most of my friends are out there struggling with real life issues, i on the contrary am still locked in a debate about my future, don't get me wrong its not as if i did not graduate at all. The sad and real fact that stares us down in this particular country I live in forces me to be educated, or earn a truck load of money and do whatever I feel is right. What really vexes me is that even after I finished my graduation, I still fail to understand what I take away from it. My degree for me is not a proof of my learning rather it is a document that I had to fight with myself. I know my frivolous nature, the surprising fact is that somehow I let it drag on , even though I pondered many a times about leaving my Grads halfway, the people in my life really pushed me towards it, Coaxing me and telling me that it is a document of real importance. I looked it at like a bitter pill that I pinched my nose and swallowed with a glass of water. Don't get me wrong, I want to thank all the people who pushed me to finish it. What they made me look at was the fact that when a person runs a 1000 meter race, one does not stop when he/she is just 100 odd meters away from the finish line. The funny thing is that I really am at a very different position in my life than what designs people had for me, and I realized that I got what I had wished for: the different life.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

What is the question

To many of us living life out there, a series of questions that may dwell in a mind. The best part about "juggling too many thoughts at a time' as quoted by a friend, is that there is no central idea binding you to a thought, rather than a process of ideas, skimming through your mind so fast that you feel the revolution of the earth. At that particular instant you are tethered to the corner of your own mind, however the exhiliriation mentioned is unprecidented. Try and make sense of this?

Sunday, July 11, 2010

New World Champions

Tonight the match is going to be exciting, football lovers all around the globe will be watching the match. Whether the Dutch, come away with the greatest prize of the footballing world or will they succumb to the Spanish armada?? that remains to be seen. Either way we are going to witness something special, with the dutch style of efficient football vs the technically sublime skills of a certain Xavi, Iniesta and the prolific David Villa. I remember when Spain was in the Euro cup final and they managed to end Germany's run and they did it once again in the Semi finals, Spain is going to be a tough team to beat and Netherlands will have to close down on their Midfield quickly, likewise even Spain need to really to concentrate on the punishing pair of Robben and Sneijder, these players can really make a difference, although i personally feel that Nigel De Jong's return is only going to bolster the already tough Dutch holding midfield. I personally favour the Spanish but the Dutch team really look top notch, the only reason for concern is Robin Van Persie, who it seems has left his scoring boots back in Amsterdam. Even El Nino's form and place in the time can be questioned, as he has hardly showcased any of the tenacity of the Euro cup 2008. Conclusion; Expect Fireworks, Its going to be an extremely intense final and my advice is that we should all watch history in the making.