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what if I forget about my son’s school, doesn’t she forget many things too? On a long-distance call I can never tell why she’s angry. The reasons are seldom simple. So I turned my attention to a more immediate worry – dinner. Having so much time on hand was a rare luxury for me. When work chases you endlessly, the need to think hardly arises. Problems crop up when you have plenty of time; it could be the beginning of philosophical moorings as well. Small fissures in the mind are dangerous. They can be as menacing as an air bubble in the blood stream. I stood by the window of my seventh floor room and stared outside. From the window I could see the residential areas of the city. They had grown wildly and made their way into the city’s crannies. I sank into the luxury of the soft chair, and stretched my legs on the footrest. Within thirty minutes, the bright day slipped into twilight. I decided to take a stroll before having dinner, and took the elevator down to the lobby. That’s when I saw him. The lobby of a star hotel in Jakarta. It was in this very place that a bomb blast had taken place two years ago and blown many like me to bits. Now, it’s under heavy security. In a corner was a fountain. Resting a foot on its bulwark, back turned towards me and a phone stuck to his left ear, he was speaking loudly in Hindi. Hearing a familiar language in an alien land, I turned towards him. He kept saying “haanji, haanji” and bobbing his head. He was the only one creating noise in that entire lobby. It was a plush place: silken carpets on the floor, huge marble pillars, roomy lounge sofas, a gently gurgling fountain. A regal silence usually pervaded the entire area, but now it was being broken by a man on the phone. I was reminded of my colleague C.K. Singh. He was enraged by Indians who spoiled the image of the country. And only he knew what that image was. After a couple of pegs he enjoyed tearing into such Indians. Four days ago, it was at this very hotel that he launched into a tirade. “You must enjoy these five-star hotels with a mock seriousness. You may well be overwhelmed by all the luxury, but you must pretend you are used to it. But our Indians – do they have any etiquette? No. They are completely unaware of where they are, and how they should behave. They imagine they are in the privacy of their homes and shout into their phones. Especially the ones with IT money, the shameless fellows. Overnight they think they’ve scaled the ladder of class. Does class come with money? If there’s a buffet and there are ten Indians, two are sure to drop their spoons. At least one will stain his shirt. There’s a good chance that there will be one person who will ram into a guest with his food plate. There will certainly be two fellows chattering away, either in Tamil or in Malyalam, and then, with their food-stained hands suspended in mid-air, they will frantically walk the quiet corridors of these hotels asking passersby for “hand wash, hand wash”. By the time they hit twenty-five, they have pot bellies. When they check out, all Indians without exception tuck away the soap and shampoo from their rooms. You might ask – don’t people from other countries do this? Of course they do. But when the rich man does it, it is not such a bad thing. Let’s get it right. If the rich steal can we call it theft? If the poor steal, can it be anything but robbery? It is no different even when nations are involved. Think of those military missions with fancy labels like war against terror, self-defence, protecting one’s turf… If the booty is shared, it’s called a strategic alliance. I walked along, thinking of C.K. Singh’s rant, and that’s when this man turned slightly in my direction. He was still on the phone. I saw him from the side and thought I
