A pretty embarrassing video of a group of Indian tourists stealing accessories from a hotel in Indonesia’s Bali has gone viral on social media. In the 2:20 minute clip, a hotel official is seen unloading the baggage that has been loaded in a taxi for departure to the airport. He is opening the bags and pulling out stuff, one by one.
At first, members of the Indian family are seen arguing. But as more memorabilia topples out of the neatly-packed cases: towels, electronics, decorative pieces, vases, apologies (with a misplaced undertone of barefaced-ness) trickle in. One of them volunteers to pay for all the stolen stuff. We cringe, hoping the video ends soon.
The longest that I have lived in a hotel was in Kawasaki, Japan. It was a business hotel that catered to guests who were there on work. Except, our group had gotten along spouses. In some cases, kids. Even as the staff were getting used to seeing women walking around in their nighties and children playing hide and seek, we began cooking.
The small kitchenette had a hot plate and a steel kettle in case the guest wanted to fix himself a cup of tea. The women eyed the kettle, lustfully, ‘Is it just a kettle? Or, (silent evil laughter), also a pan? Or, maybe, a kadhai, too?’ Thereupon began usage of the hapless kettle for the cooking of entire meals. It was doable. Make rasam. Transfer to bowl. Wash and reuse to make a vegetable. And, finally, some rice. By the end of week one, the shiny kettle was a dark, malevolent cauldron any witch would give her best broom for.
The manager, distressed with The Case of Fifty Black Kettles, must have called for an emergency meeting. They would have brainstormed on how to pull the hotel back from the brink of disaster. Most of them would have thought (but never articulated) that these guests should be blindfolded, taking to Kawasaki station and dumped in front of the bullet train. But, instead, they decided to resolve the issue with their deeply characteristic ‘heiwa’ or peace, tranquillity and harmony. The outcome was a genial recommendation: that the guests be given cheaper vessels to cook in.
They were procured immediately: a small aluminum pan and a saucepan. In Americanese the message would have been: ‘Leave our shiny kettles alone, you curry-cooking, obtuse dimwits.’ But, since the message was in Japanese, the ladies happily accepted the free gifts and stepped up the cooking. Now, we could cook for more people and throw parties!
The only complication was there wasn’t any ‘party-hall’ in the business hotel. The manager, when queried, was deeply disturbed that she didn’t know what that meant. I think she chose ‘seppuku’ (disembowelment to restore honour for herself) that evening. I didn’t see her again.
The next evening, as the new manager crept to the second floor to check what was on, he was handed a samosa with a loud ‘SSSSURPRISE’! Study-table chairs had been pulled out of each room and arranged neatly. Balloons had been tied to them. A speaker was playing ‘It’s the time to disco’. Kids were playing ‘tail the donkey’. Men were clinking plastic glasses. Women were serving pulao and curry.
I wonder why I never saw this manager also ever again.