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Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.

i

The Hotel Window


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Publishing-in-support-of,

EDUCREATION PUBLISHING

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ISBN: 978-1-61813-428-8

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Printed in India


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The Hotel Window

A Tale of

Heart & Science

And

Love & Logic

By

Sriharsha Sripada

EDUCREATION PUBLISHING (Since 2011)

www.educreation.in


iv


v

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,

businesses, places, events and incidents are either

the products of the author’s imagination or used in

a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual

persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely

coincidental.

W


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Contents

S.No. Content list Page No.

1. Part-1 1

2. Part-2 60

3. Part-3

136


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The Hotel Window

1

I

(Heart + Love) – (Science + Logic)

“A man, who can flirt with a woman, is a smart

worker. And the one who cannot is a hard worker!”

I’m a hard worker!

WeinnSoft is now a company listed on the

NYSE. All the software developments take place at

our centre. The business is burgeoning, and as a

result, the earlier office couldn’t accommodate the

whole pool of talent. In addition, with an

anticipation of an increase in the headcount, we are

here now. It’s quite hard to find a good office at a

nice location like this in Bangalore – the Silicon

Valley of India. But we managed to get one.

Located on the top floor of the building that’s

right opposite the prestigious Vrinda Palace and

next to the renowned Al Arab hotel – an abode for

all the ambassadors and businessmen from UAE –

my place really looks exciting. I’m sitting right next

to the glass walls of the floor, and just by opening

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Sriharsha Sripada

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the blinds, I get a beautiful glimpse of the windows

of Al Arab, though they are always curtained.

As per people’s opinion, with a mere experience

of four years, holding the position of a Technical

Analyst is quite exemplary. We, I and my best

buddy, Sid, who sits in the adjacent cubicle, take the

ownership of the entire project. Our skills

complement each other in all ways, which make us

the highly critical resources of the company. Yeah!

All seems perfect to me at this point – good

designation, decent package, fast-growing company

and people who look up to me for any help – all

these I gained by hard work and perseverance.

Days went by so fast in work that I never felt the

absence of a lovely woman in my life after I broke

up with my girl during my college days. My bad!

She can no longer be called “my girl”.

I’m not a flirt. I lack that art. Maybe I used my

brain too much in programming that I forgot the

way to impress a woman with a heart. Sid keeps

telling me, “Move on buddy – talk to women –

make friends – hang out – don’t be a jerk? – have

fun and see the other side of life.” Well, sometimes

it feels correct, but it is not easy for me.

It’s time for the inaugural party – and with my

mind in such a state, a drink that keeps me dozy

would be my best friend now.


The Hotel Window

3

Friday, 13 June 2014

After the daily status meeting at 11:00, it’s a usual

walk to the office entrance gate where Sid and I

have a chat. Smoking is not allowed inside the

office premises, and Sid cannot work without a

smoke.

“Who’s Messi?” I asked Sid, looking at his blue-

red-lined T-shirt with “Messi 10” inscribed on it.

“You don’t know! He’s an Argentinean soccer

player, and the numero uno in the world, and more

than that, I’m a huge fan of him,” he said, “FIFA

2014 is starting today, I’m excited!”

Sid slipped into a quick conversation with his ex-

colleague who was passing by. And like always, my

mind slipped into the reports that I need to send to

the clients by EOD.

I was looking ahead on the road and saw a car

cruising ahead of all others. I was keenly observing.

It’s a jet black Audi Q7, which gradually

lowered its speed and stopped right before the Al

Arab. That’s my favourite car! And obviously, I

couldn’t take my eyes off the beauty of it.

However, there was something more special

about that car.

The driver quickly got out of it, came running

towards the left rear door and opened it.

Here arrived the moment of my life!


Sriharsha Sripada

4

High heels, black trousers and a brown-spotted

white shirt – a beautiful woman got out of the car.

Unable to resist the daylight, she had put on her

sunglasses. Fair skin, blonde hair, sharp nails with a

lovely paint, a platinum necklace on the low-neck…

Even the word “hot” is insufficient to attribute to

her.

She got down with a magic and walked with a

grace. Though it’s a busy road with a lot of traffic, I

just couldn’t hear even a decibel sound from any

other source. All the noise was made only by the

tickling long earrings, the uncontrollable bouncy

hair, the honey droplets spilling out of her eyes and

touching her lips, the small rings on her waist chain,

the movements of the second hand on her platinum

watch and the high heels that were firmly dug into

the ground as she was walking.

She made a gesticulate with her face and a

messenger started running toward the car to grab the

luggage.

And just before I lost a visual of her as she was

entering the gate, she threw two sharp swords at

me! They have come straight towards my heart. She

turned her face right and looked at me. I was

virtually killed. That’s it! First time ever, I felt like

the Earth’s gravity has become zero. I was flying

and flying. And she vanished out of my sight.

Ah… Could this be the life!


The Hotel Window

5

“Buddy, what happened?” asked Sid, looking at

my awestruck face.

“Hey, nothing! Uhm…! Felt like some known

person, I was just looking… Shall we go?” I said.

We started walking back to our office. Sid was

telling me about the colleague he met. But all in

vain. Not a single word went into my brain. It has

perfectly recorded the scene it has seen few

moments back. It was like a high-definition video

that went straight into my sub-conscious. I was just

replaying it repeatedly.

***

As far as I could remember, today was the dumbest

day of my life when I had gone totally blank. I was

unresponsive to the questions, talks, jokes and the

comments of my fellow people.

I took the coffee, left it with just one sip. I was

there for lunch, left the pizza with just two bites. I

wasn’t eating, I wasn’t drinking, I wasn’t talking. In

fact, there were no verbs available to describe any

of my actions. Or rather, there were no actions to be

described by any verbs.

“Is everything alright?” asked my mates. “Sorry,

yeah! All fine,” I said, with a smile on my face.

They were perplexed.

“Man, why aren’t you replying to him?” asked

Sid.


Sriharsha Sripada

6

“What… Who?” I asked.

“To Javed. You seemed like you don’t care a

damn about the manager,” Sid said with a

disappointed expression.

“Ah… Crap! I’ll check it out.”

I went rushing to my manager’s cabin, knocked

and slowly opened the door.

“Sorry Javed, I heard you came to my desk

twice?” – I went inside.

“Yes, I wanted to know the status of the

deliverables for this sprint.”

“It’s going as per the plan. Three of five are

complete and the rest are at 60% completion. We’ll

be there pretty comfortably.”

“Oh, that’s cool. Thanks!” said Javed.

When I turned back and was about to open the

door, I heard him speaking again.

“Hey, is everything fine? You look very different

today.”

“No, nothing Javed. Everything’s pretty good. I

was just thinking about my… my… plans this

weekend, yeah!”

He smiled. I felt it was a mix of sympathy,

confusion and some amount of sarcasm.

I knew it’s not right to be in the office anymore.


The Hotel Window

7

“Sid, I’m calling it a day. I got something urgent

to attend. Could you please send the report on my

behalf? You know my credentials, right?”

“Sure, I can do that. Take care and have a nice

weekend,” said Sid.

“Thanks, you too.”

A repeat telecast of the same video went through

my mind all the while I was driving – couldn’t get

rid of it.

I was very angry with myself once I reached

home. I never was so lost like this before.

“OK, now what? There are so many beautiful

women in this city. Would you be lost whenever

you see a new girl? Come on. Behave yourself.

Don’t make it evident you’re acting a moron,” I told

myself, to erase the thoughts, the moments, and the

video was out of my mind. I was unsuccessful till

half way through the night; but by the next morning,

I almost back to normal.


Sriharsha Sripada

8

Monday, 16 June 2014

It’s 8:45 AM. Fresh and rejuvenated, I was back to

the office.

“Morning Sid, how are you today?”

“Great, how about you?” asked Sid with a smile

on his face.

“I’m good!” I said. He was glad to see me in a

normal state again.

It was a nice weekend spent at home with my

family. I quickly jumped onto my mailbox, verified

the report sent by Sid last Friday and checked other

emails I received. I chalked out the meetings to be

scheduled with the team today and the work that

need to be completed on priority.

Oh, by the way, I have to drive past Al-Arab to

come to the office, and I ensured I do not look at the

gate of that hotel.

I started getting my brain on track and hopped on

to the Java editor to resume coding. Ten lines,

twenty lines, fifty lines and hundred lines of code. It

felt great again.

I usually do not like to use the electrical lighting

during the daytime, when it’s bright and sunny. I

opened the blinds of the glass walls and allowed the

sunshine to brighten the cabin.

I moved back into my chair and starting typing.


The Hotel Window

9

Suddenly I lifted my head as if someone was

calling me. Looked around, no one there. Just

before my eyes fell back into the editor, I looked

forward.

As I looked through the glass walls, and about a

few tens of metres away from them, I saw two

hands holding the middle of the curtains of a

window of Al-Arab. As they opened up the curtains

slowly, the light started illuminating the person.

It’s a woman wearing a black nightwear laced up

at the waist with a chain of shiny beads hanging

down her lower neck and merging at the valley. She

sharply opened up the curtains with her stretched

hands and shook her head to the left and then to the

right to level out her hair.

My eyes went wide open, my spine became

straight and my jaws started dropping gradually at

what I was seeing – I couldn’t believe it!

It’s her!

Yes, it’s her again.

My brain started functioning in an abnormally

excited way with a mixed bunch of emotions.

Thoughts poured in from the control training I had

given to my brain over the weekend with regards to

not caring about women. But I hope, the training

was not deep enough.


Sriharsha Sripada

10

My sub-conscious quickly took over the

territory. Everything in the world blanked out again

for me. Four of my five senses stopped working. All

my brain was receiving was the signals from my

eyes that were quickly capturing the picture of that

lady and sending it back to my sub-conscious hard

disk in every nanoseconds.

I was absolutely dumbstruck. I was just looking

at her with shocked yet excited eyes. Guess I was

not blinking even.

She took a cup from the table beside the window

and sat on the rectangular window groove, with her

legs on the slab. It was fascinating to glance her in

that profile view. Her beautifully carved feet, her

super-shaped hot legs, her graceful hands holding

the cup, her chain of beads bouncing over her

bosoms, her lips made brownish by the coffee she

was sipping in and her eyes that looked like the

black holes of the universe. I wished if that moment

could be paused at the same state forever.

Then there was something magical. She slowly

turned her face right and looked at me, again! She

was not taking her eyes off me. I don’t know how

something like this could even happen. Could she

sense it whenever I looked at her? Does she feel the

same way I’m feeling? I… I… couldn’t make it out.

I know I’m not good at judging a woman, but that


The Hotel Window

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