VIP room

Driving to northern Maharashtra once in a largish group, we spent the night in the Government guest house in Dhule. They gave us two rooms, one the "VIP Kaksha, Poorva": the Eastern VIP Room. That room, they told us, is normally saved for use by Ministers. Ours to use today because there were no Ministers, nor any other breed of VIPs, expected.

The VIP room, I found, had two major differences from the guest house's ordinary rooms. Two major room upgrades that were clearly meant for the benefit of Ministers.

One, some unidentifiable creature was crawling around the Indian-style, and it wasn't human. Not that I would have been happy if it was human. I tried shooing it away, but it ignored my handwaving and crawled on determinedly.

Two, the geyser connected to the mains with a long stretch of bare wire that looped perilously close to the switch. Turning the geyser on was an exercise in trying not to let my hands tremble. I bathed gingerly, contorted to avoid the wire, trying hard to prevent the water I sloshed on myself from also sloshing on the naked strands. Of course, while turning on the water, I also discovered that touching the tap gave me a shock.

Really, when will we ever learn to stop pampering our Ministers?