It
was an evening in February, very much like tonight. In those times, we both
were in need of money, as our expenses were uncontrollably high and hard, to be
indulged with the money coming from our parents. Here Boney, the “man of ideas”,
brought us to this epic situation and we arrived at the entrance of The Taj, to
work as waiters in a five-star, for a night; i.e., till the midnight.
The
saga begins when Boney stopped his Maruti Esteem car, as well as our
self-esteem, at the entrance of The Taj, where the janitor asked for the
purpose of our visit. We answered truthfully and his jaw dropped for a while. When he finally returned to his senses, he
directed us to the waiters’ parking lot, which was half a kilometre away from the main entrance. Our long
Esteem car was not less than ‘an alligator in a chicken-farm’ among a few
bicycles and fewer motorbikes, which were parked at that place.
For
a random note:
I and Boney were the best-dressed waiters over there. I had bought a trouser
and a white shirt from Janpath market and black bi-occasional shoes from Sarojini Nagar market for this fateful day. Our
goddamned attire at least saved us from the abusive stuff hammered by the hotel
managers to the underdressed candidates during the uniform inspection, but even
our clothes couldn’t save us from what was about to happen. We, the
anyhow-cleared-candidates through the inspection trauma, had been sent to a
mega banquet, called the Maharaja Hall (God Bless my memory). As we entered, the
first thing we noticed was the Page-3 type crowd and the soothing touch of
mellow lighting, melodious instrumental music and an aroma of high society. It
was quite a wonderful place for me, given I had never been to a five-star hotel before. However, it wasn’t
a relishing job because not only did we have to serve the food (in a typical
and articulate manner, mind you), but we also had to pronounce the names of the
dishes (which we had never heard of). The party where ‘everyone was someone
important’ ended within an hour, without earning a single pourboire.
Everything,
apart from the pourboire misfortune, was going as per our anticipation, which
was before we were sent to the Shah Jahan Hall (God bless my memory: Part-2). We
were about to be sent to the hall, where the South African cricketing team for
the quarterfinal of ICC Cricket world
cup 2011, were having dinner, but our fate dragged us to the Shah Jahan Hall.
This hall was crammed with herds of brusque, upstarts’ kind of Delhiites. Let
alone the page-3, one will never give a place on the three millionth page to
this kind of crowd (a Journo's calculation). The bawdy metropolitan gathering
was demanding something constantly. Poor Boney was pleading to escape this
godforsaken place, each time he passed me. We both were exhausted, battered and
drained, but could not find a safe opportunity to escape. I realised that requesting the management to let
us go, would not be a good idea because they won’t let us quit so easily. They
could abuse or may do things worse than that. I was afraid of the latter because sometimes it’s good to flee
gobsmacked after being awarded an abuse than
being thrown out more adversely. So, my
paranoid but still strategist mind told
him to wait for a safe chance.
It
was not a cake-walk to sneak through the awry crowd in the banquet hall, and a
waiter, as per the protocol (to hell with such kind of protocol in such pathetic
situations) can't barge through the crowd, like demons, called guests. It used
to take 4-5 minutes to cross that hundred-meter-hurdle-race flawlessly,
especially with a tray-full of utensils. And when the-time-to-booze came, the
hall got even more stuffed and haphazard. First, the hall manager guided me to
deliver a tray full of whisky glasses.
Now, that hundred-meter hurdle, which was already more than hundred times
tougher than a real one, seemed five hundred times more toilsome. Delivering a
tray full of 35 whisky glasses, each
glass weighing 500 grammes approx is not
an easy nut to crack, when you had to beg those morons the charity of a narrow
escape, quite literally. The torture got worse when the demons went groggy.
Then,
as if the torture I endured wasn’t enough, the manager promoted me to the next
level, the-thirty-bottles-full-of-liquor-task. Now, I had reached the zenith of
my endurance. I was quickly contemplating the best way to get out of this
goddamned place. Boney was also looking as if paralysed
and food-deprived. Mr. ‘I-can-endure-anything’ was about to collapse on the
floor any passing moment. I was going through the ordeal when the manager ordered me to serve pegs to the
boorish-metropolitans. Now, this was the enough-is-enough kind of situation,
where a trick should have to play rather than giving up.
I
went to the hallway adjacent to the banquet and sat down on the floor, my head
bolstered on my bent knees. I started to pretend numb and didn’t respond to
anyone until the senior manager came along with the other managers.
Boney
appeared on the scene right at that
moment and started fibbing about my fictitious fever and nausea. My sick-fallen
performance was not less than an award winning one. They asked about my
identity and I dished my college I-card out of my shirt pocket. That did the
trick. The I-card startled them and they started behaving and treating us as if
we were humans and not animals as they were treating us earlier. Finally, my college, which I thought was a good-for-nothing, saved me. After all, an
I-card belonging to Jain TV works in
awkward situations like this, even a little and even more in Taj Hotel. Now they
offered us food and drinks too. They were even more intrigued when we said that
we have our car and turned down their offer of a cab to return our place. They
escorted us till the same entrance gateway, where this odyssey began. We somehow
reached the car and sprawled on the seats. Our bodies were crumbling down. The
masochism was over but it took a while for our blood circulation to return to normal
again.
Epilogue
Boney
drove the Esteem, with the little self-esteem left with us, to my hostel
located in South Ex-1. After serving various cuisines in a five star, we had
Maggie and Coffee, which I made for us. Boney fell sick to a fever the very
next morning and stuck to the bed for next three days. This duo and the duo in
the story are quite reminiscent. It was not a nightmare. It was Night @ the Taj
hotel, sort of a half night stand because
we were mostly standing till midnight or more.
