Mad After Mentos And Coins

It was around 9.30 in the morning. My room mate, whom I am acquainted for only about two weeks now, gave me a wake up call. I said I will shower and get ready in ten minutes. We had a plan to visit a few properties around Coventry to hunt a house for him on a temporary basis. A short visit to the recent past. Sep 18th 2010. He was homeless, after he returned from his brief vacation to Indian subcontinent. My land lord has always lent his helping hands to people looking out for a short stay. He allowed my acquaintance to share the bed room with mine, bearing in mind the temporary contract. Normally in England, the land lords are pretty stringent with accommodating guests for a night in single bed room apartments. I was even given a A4 sheet to read and agree to the terms and conditions listed on that printed contract paper. Erstwhile before, I had only witnessed "Terms and conditions" on applications in online portfolios and web-sites. I was surprised to evince the professionalism displayed by owners in renting a house to a tenant. I thought, should all this be so formal and directive?. No more, as I am now typing this blog, about which you will figure out when you proceed further. The charge for a night is 10£ per person, even the person with whom you intend to share a night is your friend or family or whatever name you could associate under the tree of relationships. As I compromised my half-room space already to one of my course mates, I had to let this room mate as a third one into my room, thus I could only use 1/3 rd of my total bed room area, which is about 200 Sq.ft. Fine as he had no other choice other than a pot bench in a park, I let him into my room. I spoke with my owner and updated him about the rental amount, after he agreed to the fact that three of us share the bed - room, thus reducing my original rent to roughly a third of what I used to pay him for a single tenant accommodation. He agreed, keeping in mind that I am helping my friends in times of despair. He is a genuine, rational land lord for someone of his education and financial background. I still remember, when he used to ask me very often "Sud, you look a bit stressed?..Are you doing alright?..!! ". I would say "yes" and move on, as we had a lot of things to move, shift, dispose and ward-off. Now the fact is that even though I have guests in my room, who should pay 10£ per night (around 200£ for 20 nights) daily as per contractual terms, my land lord offered a stay to my room mate, having him to spend about 40 £ for a week, including bills and other charges. Now after all this talks I had with my owner, I had put everything in picturesque shape for my lately moved room mate as a friendly obligation. Honestly, I didn't charge him for Toilet tissues, Washing liquids, room-cleaning expenses and allied costs. (This sentence might sound lame, but you will have to wait and read till the end) It was all laid out smooth. As with friends, I love to go that extra mile to sought out the best for them as every one else in my position would do. Fine. Present time. Sep 28th 2010. We both were casually chatting up about the day that we went to look around properties for him. He owed me some money, about 6£, which I asked only because, to me any thing above 5£ is good money to stay cautious in collecting back. I follow the same discipline when I owe some one anything above 5£. Now out of the blue, he asked me a question, which was a shocking embarrassment and a brief lesson for people, whom, I consider as being treated like a swat. He asked "OK. I WILL GIVE YOU BACK THAT 6£, BUT CAN YOU REMEMBER THAT 45p (This is like a 45 paise in India) THAT YOU OWE ME FOR THAT MENTOS PACK I GOT YOU ? COULD YOU SUBTRACT IT AND TELL ME HOW MUCH I OWE YOU?". I felt petrified and collapsed after that subtly inconsiderate question. I thought to myself, I really have to learn to be weary like my preacher turned room mate. I was disturbed to an extent that I started to open an excel sheet to record and maintain almost every penny of money I spend for these people, who break your routine with candid brain-storming questions, which are sometimes not even closer to being answered. But then I thought, there are people like the one here, who just forget to cost their expense on others, but stay awkwardly shrewd to remind others on their expenses. I became Mad after that Mentos question. The next time, when I go to a candy shop, I cannot get a mentos pack, only because now 45p sounds like a colossal expenditure to me. I had been so rich to spend hefty, when I forgot to pay back 45p and remained a credit-payer.             

The Inner Voice

I am new to this blogging world and I had written blogs that could be certainly boring. But unlike a book or a movie, blogging doesn't appeal to the extent that you are engrossed in the content or the experience. So I started to read blogs written by people who span their writings across variety of topics including travel, business and sex and have developed the virtue to captivate the reader. I realized a factor that made the difference to the readers and neo-bloggers. It is how they translate their mental disposition into a meaningful voice that appeals to the reader. Well, if that sounds complex, I shall explain it in simple words. The bloggers take charge of the reader's voice and read their own phrase to critique on the value and meaning of the writings. While it is supposedly to difficult to cultivate such a simulation, it is worthwhile to try out and figure out the possibilities of adding value to your writings. The hitch here is to isolate yourself, pushing into a corner, wherein you will have to judge your own thoughts. Challenging and intuitive. Often fresh eyes spot more mistakes in your work than your own. 

Similarly, there is the degree of integrity that you would afford to push yourself to explain or narrate. There is that conscious that takes the role play and the fact that you are listening to someone's voice that reflect your thoughts, give you scarce opportunities to stay dishonest. After this mind-doping, a threshold limit arises. The flow and integrity of your writings synchronize well to produce a thoughtful message to the reader and the association of your writings with the rationale of the general consensus increases in terms of value. All that I seek to practice is to talk and conjure the essence through a non-existing listener. And he is my own "Inner voice". He always gives me a tough fight. But the outcome is several folds of harmony and laser-focus onto the theme of the blog.       

The Inverse of Experience

How often do you think that people around you have been an inspiration?. How often have they allowed or stopped you from being a follower of their habits, activities and interests?. Have you ever felt that you love to follow the paths taken by these influential people ?. Here, by the word influential, I mean someone who almost live every moment in your thoughts, that you tend to get lost or fight to strike a balance between your interests and prejudice. It is this craving that I have, which takes me to them, even though they aren't the badged influential personalities. There are always situations, when the person sitting next to you doesn't always show the rigor to express themselves. A muted, malnourished neighbor, indeed. Don't hesitate to invite or offer. Take a call at any place and you would have already crossed the stage of a neo-experimentalist. Obviously to start valuable sharing, each one of us take time depending upon the degree of comfort that builds over a period of time in a relationship. But nevertheless, these influential people are those who have never felt themselves lonely, even though, they pretty much live by themselves, alone in a room all their life. They don't expect others to allocate a space for them selves. Ironically, they often dwell & ebb out an immediate predisposition to open the chatter box.  Unimaginably straight forward and sensibly modest, they embody their own soul. But inertly cautious, they don't just talk, but also listen and propel others who are supposedly reticent. Certainly, they bring about a change in the way the conversation unfolds. I have spoken with a lot of people who claim that they have shared things with me that they haven't with any one else. I was curious to understand these triggering responses that arouse or push people to go to the next level of revealing their identity for their own good and will. So what exactly are these questions that crack the egg and give way for exploring the unknown lands?. A thought provoking context that draws insight into personal exploration and development indeed. Sometimes I feel too enervated to talk about the past of people. So I start the ignition with a few starters like what do you do? What are your plans? Do you miss home? and etc. A few of them sound very excited and say they are a consultant or a dentist or a chuba player. Whilst, a few sound normal and start to think of the answers that they might probably shoot before, even trying to figure out the level of intensity of the question. And by the time they think with a bleak eye followed by a shattered response patterns in their answers, I would be able to figure out that there is a connection to the past, which they wouldn't want to think or talk about. Time flies. Now they are sitting in my living room having a cup of black coffee with cream bun and say they were tore apart a few years back. Honestly, if you ever bother or show sincerity in knowing about people's life, you probably have more chances of sharing their best and worst parts in a very short span of time. Now the interesting phenomenon in this context is how you squeeze the time to know someone better, than when you had met them during your first glances. If they ever had a past which was quiet disturbing or remorseful, they would probably start expressing themselves at a rapid pace than you expected them to do so. Which means they aren't bothered about who you are or what is the relationship that you have in current-time with them and so on. "Identity becomes less important and unnecessary, if you want to add value to your relationships." In a way, disclosing isn't that bad, when you have absolutely no means for expressing yourself. The point here is you expressed and you feel relieved about that, no matter with whom you shared it, even though it could be someone whom you have met a week back in a CD shop or a library. Realistic as it sounds, grieved people don't really bother about sharing things with an acquaintance. It is because it is a safe venting opportunity. Also from the perspective of the acquainted, it doesn't matter whether you are happy or sad or lost, all that matters is you have got someone who listened to you in first place and especially true if you haven't had a chance to share a particular thing with others whom you might consider as friends or family. Well, they also don't expect you to offer some advise and all that they seek is to get an attention. When you reach mid-twenties, you obviously would have got the resistance and immunity towards handling your own psyche with ease. Partly because of the experience you have had with the people in your past. So how does this experience translate your actions in a relationship? is a trickiest thing to handle. With my observation on people, often they would show interest in talking about the past, if they were successful in all the areas of life such as profession, love and money etc. And now I dig deeper into these areas and find out that almost everyone gets a 2 out of 3 meaning that either profession and love was fine, but they haven't created financial freedom or they had a severe break-up which ate two years of their teens, whilst they managed to become a physician or an engineer or they hated the job but they had a wonderful family and had a lucrative bank account at the end of the day. So when I think about the fact that I wish to meet someone who says "You screwed up bloke!, I got a 3 on 3 in your questionnaire and why the hell are you even writing this blog?", I  can only say that I haven't met someone who really said thing anything close to that. Well, many of us would have had a 3, but probably didn't want to talk about it because we are contented with what is available in our hands or the mark of 3 wasn't consistent enough all through our life. "I wonder the interesting lesson that experience has to teach you is to show how others fight for and against their own experience." Often you don't need to fight for an experience, because it has to happen and even if you are still, it would show up one day, but there are times when you have to fight against them, when you supposedly landed on a hideous one. Nevertheless, life would be boring without making you sit back on a chair to talk about the factor of experiences. It is through the similar life stories, life patterns and grave feelings of others that you make your experience seem a little weak and fainted. There is a need to replenish your focus on experience. Many of these things that you hear are not random,  because they happen around you, to every one, because they somehow happen to you at a time, when you felt a need for an auditive consolation, they bring meaning to your vision about life. The more people you meet, the more conscious you become. The more you look at them, you prove to become strong. "The more you  talk to them, you are becoming an unique experience to yourself, which is a wonderful virtue that you would love to cultivate." Keep listening and meeting.