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.