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.  

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.

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.