The German Housemate: A Short Story

By Roji Abraham

An Indian college student moves into a rented house in a suburban town in England. The shared house, which he starts living in, has other foreign boarders too, including an overage German student - a social misfit who has this uncanny talent to vex even the mildest of men.

The Indian graduate notices that the German’s boorish behaviour and queer mannerisms had isolated the latter from everybody around. But over a period of time, the newcomer starts seeing a different side to the uncouth, middle-aged, lonely man.

Perhaps, all that man deserved was a second chance... A chance to be understood...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roji Abraham
• Release date: Dec 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310560613

Roji Abraham

Roji Abraham was born in the tiny, oil-rich country of Kuwait, second child to working-class immigrant parents - a machine operator at a steel plant, and a nurse, in the early 1980s.At the age of 9, he took flight along with his parents, two siblings and a few bags of old clothes and trinkets, when a certain infamous Iraqi dictator-president (who was later hanged for his war crimes), bombed and invaded the country he lived in. After an adventurous trip in which he recounts living in a refugee camp for three weeks in the middle of a scorching desert called no-man's-land (somewhere between Jordan and Iraq), sleeping in canvas tents and standing in long queues outside the Red Cross trucks that came everyday to distribute rations, he eventually returned to his native village in South India.In the years since then, he survived the after-effects of a major leg surgery, completed high school and later graduated with an Engineering degree from a college, known better then for the enviable street fighting skills of its students rather than its academic prowess.Between 2005 and 2014, he worked for a software company and travelled to and worked in half a dozen countries in Asia, Africa and Europe and indulged in their cultures and cuisines (croc meat anyone?). In between, he also completed a master's degree in business from a reputed British university and earned his first few pennies as a writer doing ghost writing of academic articles for University students during the time he was left with an empty bank account and no full-time job.Roji published his first book 'Kaleidoscopic Lives - Ensemble Narratives of the Common Man' in 2015 - a fictional collection of short stories heavily inspired by the people he had come across and various incidents from his roller-coaster life. The book has been well received for its subtle humour, strong emotions and its ability to connect with readers.

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The German Housemate

A Short Story

ROJI ABRAHAM

Copyright © 2015 by Roji Abraham

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Sep 2015

Contents

The German Housemate

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Afterword

About The Author

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The German Housemate

For a post-graduate student who was on the verge of completing his thesis, shifting rooms is a wearisome task. In addition to the effort and time involved in physically moving every piece of clothing, books, baggage and trinkets one owned, time and effort is also required in getting adjusted to the new premises. And change is something most of us hate.

I had moved into a little room located close to the city centre and in the vicinity of a popular university. After having lived for a year in the extraordinarily beautiful campus of a very lively university, it seemed unlikely that I would grow to like my new dwelling– a row house (as most homes in that region of England were) in a very plain neighbourhood.

Before moving in,