The Indian Premier League makes good business sense for some, but also, as my Bengali peers point out, “nonsense” for others. I am at the receiving end of that nonsense as the jamboree moves to Kolkata and the Eden Gardens, resulting in an acute shortage of hotel rooms in the city. My regular hotel can’t promise me my room on all the days of my stay there, so my office fixes my board and lodging alternately at the city’s “finest business hotel”. That it’s walking distance from my place of work is a saving grace.
I might step lightly to work, minding my way through footpaths of luchis and noodles and watery fish curry, all of it cooked, cleaned and served on the city’s pavements, but the hotel keeps a strict vigil once the guests are back. Barely have I stepped into my room and placed an order with room service for a chilled beer when the phone rings. The Indian restaurant on the premises suggests I might want to dine and drink there.
I shouldn’t but cannot help feeling spooked. My work does not begin before noon, so I plan to spend my mornings reading at the coffee shop at a table overlooking the swimming pool. But the executive staff is on its rounds and any stray diners are a captive audience. The first to stop by the table is a lady from the sales staff. Is this my first stay at the hotel? Am I enjoying it? Do I know the other cities where they own hotels?
I like my mornings quiet and resent the intrusion, burying my face deeper in my book and my now-disappointingly tepid cup of coffee. To no avail, as next up is a public relations lady with a similar litany. I tell her the night latch jams, the temperature control in the room is dodgy, but she isn’t interested in the details, she just hopes I’m having a nice stay, that I should call her if I need anything else.
Perhaps it’s like a fire drill, I console myself as I head for breakfast the following day, a monthly exercise that requires management executives to interact with the guests. I sit at my table, order an egg, but before I can open my book, I see a marketing executive headed my way. Giving my breakfast and any hope of a leisurely morning short-shrift, I rapidly head out.
But the executives are everywhere — in the lift and in the gym, and they’ve done their homework well. I’m accosted in conversations when I least expect it and have taken to dashing through the lobby nervously. The feeling of being constantly watched won’t go away. While it might be good at sleuthing, the hotel’s service is a little less efficient. There’s no bottle-opener in the room for the beer, they send me hot milk when I ask for it chilled, and milky coffee instead of the black I’d requested. A packet of fruit my wife has had a friend deliver, to carry back to Delhi, isn’t sent up to the room despite my asking. When I suggest that the packet of fruit be kept at the check-out counter for me to carry back in the morning, it is misrepresented as an order for breakfast — and, charmingly, I am seen off while clutching a bag of sliced fruit, compliments of the hotel, which I have while finally reading my book in peace on my breakfast flight back to Delhi.
