I just arrived at the welcoming lobby of the hotel in 1993. It was shady and surrounded by the patio’s gently waving palm trees. The marble floors caressed my parched feet with cool air which was a contrast from the hot concrete on the sun-drenched streets of the city of Madras, which lay right outside the doors.
The calm silence was suddenly broken. “You took the room key and I’ve been waiting forever! How could you be so thoughtless?” she yelled. Sylvia wasn’t really asking a question, she was accusing, barking. Her usual soft, sea green eyes were now blazing at me. We had never had an argument before in our three-year friendship. I was 40 years old and she was 45. I stood shocked and frozen.
An hour before, I walked along circuitous lanes lined by vendors selling sweets, flowers, and a myriad of household items. I had a hard time ambling in a straight line as I kept turning to look at the beautiful women decked out in brilliantly coloured saris while they browsed amongst the stalls.
I arrived at the hotel savouring this experience, despite the heartbreaking poverty I witnessed along the way. My chest exploded with rage and sadness when I saw two young men within a block of each other, begging on the pavement. Scrawny hands lifted up and held out, emaciated; skeletal hands, and hollowed out eyes. I was told the day before by a seasoned traveller, that fellows like these, had probably been orphaned many years before. They would be fed by a greedy street organizer, who would maim them physically. He would use them to could get money from their begging.
Sylvia and I were at the beginning of our trip to India, and already I was experiencing paradox. There was the beauty of daily sensory pleasures surrounding me on my neighbourhood expeditions. At the same time, everywhere I explored, the horror of cruelty was all too evident.
I looked directly at Sylvia, wanting desperately to concede my fault. I did take the room key, thoughtlessly, without one shred of mindfulness. I left the hotel lobby entranced, earlier in the morning, key in pocket, following the scent of mango, mesmerized by the sight of vivid colours of hibiscus. I was also on a mission for a robust cup of chai, the best in the world, made in India!
But all I could hear, on my return to the lobby, was her high pitched, “How could you!” My back arched like a cat!
We were in the middle of the lobby alone.
My mouth moved and I said what I shouldn’t have. Damn!
“What’s the big deal, Sylvia? I wasn’t gone that long.” I knew this was absolutely the wrong thing to say. But I felt really angry with her. All she could do was, Blame, Blame, Blame!
“I had to wait 45 minutes for you, it’s hot, and I had no idea how long you’d be. They didn’t have anyone at the desk to find the master key for me until five minutes ago!” She put her hands on her hips.
Mine were across my chest.
Stand-off.
We stared at each other. Eyeball to eyeball.
Suddenly, I sensed a funny stillness in the air. I turned to look further into the lobby. Six Indian porters were staring at us. Somehow, in the midst of our intense argument, they had managed to circle around Sylvia and me.
Quiet. One porter came up to me and bowed slightly and respectfully. He tapped me on the shoulder lightly. “Excuse me, madam. May I speak?”
“Yes,” I said, stunned.
“I have consulted with my colleagues, we are all porters, and we witnessed your differences with your travelling companion. We suggest that you are, excuse me, for our opinion, in the wrong. You should not have taken the key on your travels in the city of Madras.” He was gentle in tone, but!
Now, I was more than stunned, I was paralyzed with astonishment many times over. I was being visited by the Indian Jury or shall I say, the Greek Chorus, in service of the travel argument that Sylvia and I were having!
I looked at him, his colleagues, and Sylvia. The entire group was in suspended animation. All looking at me. A huge comic ripple entered my body and heart. These hotel employees struck me as sincerely trying to solve our travel argument, and their verdict was absolutely correct. And never in my life, had a group of strangers come up to me to try to solve a domestic type of dispute.
I laughed in agreement, I laughed with joy, I laughed at, what for me, a white settler with an English heritage, was ludicrous intrusiveness by a group of onlookers. This tiny community of Indians, looked upon my argument with Sylvia, as a family affair to be solved. There was noboundary between them and us. So different in this Madras lobby from what would have happened in a Vancouver, Canada hotel lobby.
Within moments of our interaction with these hotel employees, I felt a sweet human connectedness with them. I just plain laughed. A huge belly laugh. And every one of them joined in, with Sylvia sounding like a joyful blackbird as she twittered gleefully.
Ganesh Chaturthi is the Hindu celebration of the birth of Lord Ganesh. His life represents prosperity, wisdom, and good fortune. The festival falls in August/September which is in the month of Bhadra on Shukla Chaturthi in the Hindu calendar.
Photo Credits: Getty Images
