Travelling Monologues

Leafing through the in flight magazine on the London New York leg of my journey, the intriguing title caught my eye – Room a-Genders!  The  column that followed gave some interesting insights about the changing hotel scenario.  It talked about how hotels, which typically project a ubiquitous male presence, with smoke filled rooms and corridors lined  with empty bottles of  booze,  are  slowly yielding to a gentler, more women friendly ambience as  a recognition of the greater presence of women guests. The Hyatt in London, apparently earns 37 percent of its revenue from its  women guests and this is not an isolated instance. In keeping with this changing trend, the hotel industry, never slothful in its response to changes, is increasingly getting into the act of structuring their traditional male friendly facilities to accommodate the  solo travelling power brokers – women! The article  goes on to specifically mention the increasing women travelers from China and India, which apparently is where the future lies.  How will they   impact  hotel spaces and what transformations will need to be made to traditional male domains, would  be interesting to watch, it conjectures, since regional, cultural and gender related sensibilities bring in their own dynamics, which would need to be factored in.  The author gives an interesting example from India to  illustrate this point, where  women’s space, culturally considered  an often sacrosanct area, brings its own  subtext  altogether.  Keeping this in mind some major chains have gone through a makeover to cater to the women clientele. The ITC, luxury hotel chain has in its super luxury property in  Chennai, actually reserved an entire floor for its women guests. Named the Eva floor, its hallowed carpets know no tread of the male step. Attendants, waiters, cleaners et al belong to what is called ‘the fairer sex’. So for women, by women – the floor sanitized for women’s habitat and comfort. But is this really what women guests  want -  to be segregated and herded into one seraglio, which would be the only space that would ensure their comfort zones? Wouldn’t we wish to check into hotels and lionize the space with the same sense of entitlement that our male counterparts do? Besides, what are the different  perspectives that the sexes bring to  their expectations of a hotel, which hotels should address?

Travelling alone and staying in hotels in the different towns and cities of India, including the B tier towns, where rarely  women  check into hotels alone,  I could bring my own varying experiences to the table. According to surveys, women guests are adept at sensing the presence of the previous occupier of the hotel room. Translated it means, that a woman guest would spot with great alacrity   unwashed or unchanged linen, the odd cigarette butt and most certainly a bathroom, which bears the stamp of the previous occupant. I agree with this premise entirely. From hotels not changing their sheets, which remain flecked with the remains of the hirsute occupier before me,   to spotting used slippers tucked away under the bed, to bathrooms cleaned only superficially , my instincts have homed in  rapidly and disconcertingly to the previous occupiers tell tale signs right away.  Another irritant, which women guests encounter repeatedly, and which I rate Number 2 on my list of pet peeves, is the specter high decibeled conversation poured into mobile phones by  man-on-business guests, with little consideration for other occupiers of the hotel. No matter where one goes, with small towns  discovering their new avatars as business hubs, the compulsive mobile yakker has become a ubiquitous presence. I have had the finer intricacies of  business deals  floating into my room, as the man in the next room found the window bordering mine, the best place for ensuring better connectivity. Even worse  is the prospect of  having these compulsive yakkers, walking the length and breadth of the corridor, regaling other guests with their business concerns, with little insulation provided by the paper thin walls. This could happen in the early mornings, while late evenings are a particularly favourite time for this ‘walk and talk’ syndrome.

The hotels in mofussil towns of India, reflect some interesting facets of a changing country. I have rarely encountered surprised looks thrown my way, as I have checked into these hotels where my NGO is working on projects.  Single, and without official paraphernalia ( the norm for government officers, to which they are more accustomed) I have found the staff accommodating and courteous in the hotels ranging from town like  Nagpur, Bhopal, Chindwara and Ahmedabad, often without the benefit of any stars or other accreditation. But break the mould, and the comfort zones are invaded instantly.    Dinner by one self at the hotel restaurant certainly makes one feel as the star attraction of the place, with several surreptitious glances thrown ones way.   Ask for a drink – whisky with soda or whatever,  even though one may fit ever so snugly into every conceivable pattern of the  archetypal Indian looking   woman, it’s disconcerting to witness the very palpable discomfort one has triggered amongst those around.   At a popular 3 star hotel in Nagpur, a growing industrial hub of the future  by asking for a whiskey  in the hotel restaurant, I seemed to have thrown all rules to the winds, which was immediately visible in the undisguised discomfort of the hotel staff. The captain taking my order looked as if he had misheard me, which required that I   repeat my order a couple of times more, before he diligently noted it down. Other members of the staff congregated at a short distance from my table, watching the pouring of whiskey and its sipping, as a stellar performance that demanded wide eyed looks. While I stared at some spot in the distance  with seeming obliviousness that the particular  act had triggered the gradual process of  breaking several moulds of the perceived idea of Indianness and what defines Indian women. Glad in a way that  the ‘virtues’ thrust upon us,  so fragile and limiting, would begin to be re defined or at least the process had begun, in however small a way.